Law of the bullet
One of the favorite arguments against immigration, the stock argument of pariah parties across Europe, from Joerg Haider's Freedom Party to Pim Fortuyn's Ljist, is that it increases crime levels.
Some local politicians have indeed tried to jump on the same bandwagon. Lech Kaczyński of the Law and Justice (PiS) party won the Warsaw mayoral elections by a comfortable margin, riding the wave of popularity he had won as a tough-talking minister for justice. But that was two years ago, and 'the sheriff,' as Kaczyński is known, has been remarkably quiet.
The recent weeks have, however, thrown up several high-profile events that brought the issue of security right back into the spotlight. The death of Waldemar Milewicz, a public TV reporter shot dead in Iraq some ten days ago, followed on the heels of the European Economic Summit, when fears of public disorder and, perhaps more importantly, of terrorism brought Warsaw to a standstill.
Terrorism had always been thought of as something that affects other countries that are more active on the global power politics scene, and even the murder of Abu Nidal, the leader of Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, wasn't able to shake that belief in Warsaw. However, that is no longer the case.
But Milewicz's was not the only high-profile death in the first week of May, and the other incidents happened even closer to home. Just one day after Milewicz's death, the police in Łódź were apparently issued live ammunition by misake that was then used to kill two students who had been attacked by football hooligans. While in Chorzów, more than a hundred people were injured as a full-blown street battle erupted. And a few days earlier two teenagers in Poznań were shot, one fatally, by plain-clothes policemen whom they had taken for armed robbers after the men approached their car, guns in hand, without as much as mentioning their status as law enforcement officers.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Milewicz had gone to unnecessary trouble to get himself killed. After all, why travel all the way to the scorching deserts and war-torn cities of Iraq to be ambushed when your own police can do the same to you here?
So it is surprising that populists such as Andrzej Lepper's Samoobrona (Self-Defense) or Roman Giertych's League of Polish Families (LPR) have not tried to make more out of these cock-ups by the police. One possible explanation is that Lepper and his cronies tend to have rich criminal records themselves. Yet the fact that they are often guilty of corruption doesn't stop them from banging on about it and promising to purge the country of that plague. So why does the everyday crime and insecurity felt by ordinary citizens fail to make it higher on the politicians' agenda?
Even a series of high-profile blunders by the police (remember how anti-terrorist police went like lambs to slaughter at the hands of two gangsters in Magdalenka near Warsaw last year?) has failed to excite much interest from the politicians. Krzysztof Janik, who was minister of internal affairs at the time of the Magdalenka debacle and must surely bear some responsibility for the failings of the police, remains a relatively popular figure on the beleaguered left.
The most likely reason why the police have so far (quite literally) gotten away with murder is that it is only one of many ways in which the state fails its citizens. Instead of banging on about the bandits who make a walk in the park a life-threatening experience, Andrzej Lepper and his like find it more convenient to attack the criminals in high places, all those corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and foreign investors. "You are all thieves," Lepper quite enjoys telling his fellow deputies in his speeches in parliament. Mere crime does not give quite the same opportunity for exploiting anti-elitist sentiments.
Millions of Poles are frustrated with the effects of the country's transformation over the last 15 years. In vain would one explain that a lot has, in fact, been achieved. Those millions of small businesspeople, those ambitious students: they should all see the benefits of the market economy and should realize the progress that has been made. But, as Henryka Bochniarz, president of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (PKPP) and a leading representative of the business community, points out, most of these gains have been made in the private sector and through the efforts of individuals.
That is as it should be. People, not states, create wealth, and only left-wing populists demand it to be otherwise. But it is dangerous to conclude, as some businesspeople in this country do, that the state is therefore irrelevant. The quality of the environment in which these individuals strive to ensure a better life for themselves is crucial. And at the moment in this country, it is so low that even a few deaths at the hands of the police fail to shock anyone.
Some local politicians have indeed tried to jump on the same bandwagon. Lech Kaczyński of the Law and Justice (PiS) party won the Warsaw mayoral elections by a comfortable margin, riding the wave of popularity he had won as a tough-talking minister for justice. But that was two years ago, and 'the sheriff,' as Kaczyński is known, has been remarkably quiet.
The recent weeks have, however, thrown up several high-profile events that brought the issue of security right back into the spotlight. The death of Waldemar Milewicz, a public TV reporter shot dead in Iraq some ten days ago, followed on the heels of the European Economic Summit, when fears of public disorder and, perhaps more importantly, of terrorism brought Warsaw to a standstill.
Terrorism had always been thought of as something that affects other countries that are more active on the global power politics scene, and even the murder of Abu Nidal, the leader of Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, wasn't able to shake that belief in Warsaw. However, that is no longer the case.
But Milewicz's was not the only high-profile death in the first week of May, and the other incidents happened even closer to home. Just one day after Milewicz's death, the police in Łódź were apparently issued live ammunition by misake that was then used to kill two students who had been attacked by football hooligans. While in Chorzów, more than a hundred people were injured as a full-blown street battle erupted. And a few days earlier two teenagers in Poznań were shot, one fatally, by plain-clothes policemen whom they had taken for armed robbers after the men approached their car, guns in hand, without as much as mentioning their status as law enforcement officers.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Milewicz had gone to unnecessary trouble to get himself killed. After all, why travel all the way to the scorching deserts and war-torn cities of Iraq to be ambushed when your own police can do the same to you here?
So it is surprising that populists such as Andrzej Lepper's Samoobrona (Self-Defense) or Roman Giertych's League of Polish Families (LPR) have not tried to make more out of these cock-ups by the police. One possible explanation is that Lepper and his cronies tend to have rich criminal records themselves. Yet the fact that they are often guilty of corruption doesn't stop them from banging on about it and promising to purge the country of that plague. So why does the everyday crime and insecurity felt by ordinary citizens fail to make it higher on the politicians' agenda?
Even a series of high-profile blunders by the police (remember how anti-terrorist police went like lambs to slaughter at the hands of two gangsters in Magdalenka near Warsaw last year?) has failed to excite much interest from the politicians. Krzysztof Janik, who was minister of internal affairs at the time of the Magdalenka debacle and must surely bear some responsibility for the failings of the police, remains a relatively popular figure on the beleaguered left.
The most likely reason why the police have so far (quite literally) gotten away with murder is that it is only one of many ways in which the state fails its citizens. Instead of banging on about the bandits who make a walk in the park a life-threatening experience, Andrzej Lepper and his like find it more convenient to attack the criminals in high places, all those corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and foreign investors. "You are all thieves," Lepper quite enjoys telling his fellow deputies in his speeches in parliament. Mere crime does not give quite the same opportunity for exploiting anti-elitist sentiments.
Millions of Poles are frustrated with the effects of the country's transformation over the last 15 years. In vain would one explain that a lot has, in fact, been achieved. Those millions of small businesspeople, those ambitious students: they should all see the benefits of the market economy and should realize the progress that has been made. But, as Henryka Bochniarz, president of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (PKPP) and a leading representative of the business community, points out, most of these gains have been made in the private sector and through the efforts of individuals.
That is as it should be. People, not states, create wealth, and only left-wing populists demand it to be otherwise. But it is dangerous to conclude, as some businesspeople in this country do, that the state is therefore irrelevant. The quality of the environment in which these individuals strive to ensure a better life for themselves is crucial. And at the moment in this country, it is so low that even a few deaths at the hands of the police fail to shock anyone.
