Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The State Funeral Without the State
Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria were buried today in Krakow, just over a week after the plane on which they were traveling went down in the fog in Russia. Usually, when a head of state dies, other world leaders, or at least their designees, attend the funeral. Not this time. Many leaders were unable to attend due to the difficulties with air travel in Europe caused by the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, a volcano
in Iceland which has sent ash into the skies over the continent and halted air travel in countries to the north. Leaders of the United States, France and Germany were among those who canceled their plans to fly to Poland to pay tribute to the Kaczynskis.One of the feelings that people often report following a traumatic incident is a sense of disbelief that the world is continuing about its business when something so awful has happened. When you are feeling completely stopped in your tracks, it's easy to expect, on some level, that everyone else will be, too. This feeling is only stronger when an event has affected a lot of people, or even a whole country, as it has in this case. I remember distinctly the feeling that, after 9-11, it was fitting that there be no air travel. It wasn't just about security, it was that no one should move when the world had gone so crazy.
In that sense, you might think that the Icelandic volcano and its attendant flight disruptions would feel "right" to the people of Poland
. After their "stop the world" moment -- the death of so many government officials on one plane -- the world had to come, at least somewhat, to a stop. Something apocalyptic in their lives was paired with something apocalyptic in nature. It seems fitting.The problem is that when something big happens and we feel like the world should stop, we most commonly feel like the world should stop and pay attention to what has happened. This is what happened after 9-11, when in fact people weren't flying because of what had happened, and when the whole world did seem focuses, if only for a brief time, on what was happening to us in the United States. The week of the attacks, at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in London, the band played "The Star Spangled Banner." It seemed to align. But that is not what happened this week. The natural world did something big, yes, but that something not only had nothing to do with Poland's tragedy, it actually prevented the rest of the world from focusing fully on Poland's mourning.
The fact of the matter is that the world does not stop turning when there is a critical incident. As much as it may pain us, most people keep on living their lives even when we feel like we can't. Friends may help and support us, but they cannot feel what we are feeling. And nature may seem to echo our anguish, but, in the end, a volcano can't empathize with us, either.
Note: In my lifetime, I think the most salient example of nature mirroring current events happened in October, 2004. For the first time in 86 years, the Boston Red Sox
won the World Series, and there was a lunar eclipse the same night.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Poland's Tragedy
Ninety-seven people on a Polish government flight were killed in a plane crash in Russia yesterday. The group was on their way to a memorial service honoring some 22,000 Poles who were killed at Katyn by the Soviets in 1940. Thirty-seven government officials, including the President and First Lady, are among the dead.
Frequent Quarterbacker Edwin wrote yesterday with the following thought:
As I thought about it, I realized how crazy it was that the President of a country, all of the command of the armed forces, the head of the national bank and clergy, and members of parliament would all be on the same plane - a small plane going to a remote Russian village in foggy conditions. Clearly, there has to be something wrong with that. Isn't there?
I'm not sure I'm in a position to answer that question. Certainly it's not uncommon to have multiple members of a government on a single flight. We can all imagine that if Air Force One went down, it might kill more than jut the President. Edwin does have a point, however, that having so much governmental power on a single flight seems foolish. On the other hand, unlike the United States, Poland's President is the head of state but not the head of the government -- they have a prime minister -- so the loss to them is somewhat different than the death of a U.S. president would be to us.
When I was a young child, my parents sometimes traveled on vacation without us kids. While they were comfortable leaving us with a sitter, there was one rule. They never, ever traveled on the same plane. Even as a kid this freaked me out a little, because it represented my parent's contemplation of the possibility their plane would crash. As an adult, I realize that it also didn't make a lot of logical sense. If they were concerned about them both being affected by the same tragedy, leaving us with no parents, then they should not have been driving in the same car without us either.
There are certainly protocols that are publicly known for making sure that the entire U.S. government isn't wiped out all at once. If you watch the State of the Union Address on television, and you know your presidential succession, you may notice that one member of the President's cabinet is always absent. The entire line of succession never ever is in the same place at the same time, in case something happens to the whole group, to ensure continuity of the presidency. I don't know what the Polish equivalent is, but I would bet anything there is a reason that the Prime Minister was not on that plane.
It takes something quite counter-intuitive to produce a rule that says two important people can't be on a plane together. It takes overcoming the basic denial which enables us to not be afraid all the time to plan for the worst. Most civilians don't like to do that kind of planning -- that's why people who know they are extremely ill still don't make out wills or become organ donors. We don't like to admit that we might die, even though we know it's true. That's why, when it comes to security and continuity protocols, the people at risk are not the ones who make the rules. They have security and military people do it for them. The Poles may have a strong opinion about whether they did a decent job, given what has happened. Not being affected myself by the deaths of these government officials or the upheaval they may cause in Poland, I don't think I'm in a place to judge.
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Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
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