Our safety and information

If a roof tile hits us on the head, while we are walking near a house, we are scared and avoid walking near houses for a long time. It is an irrational reaction, which has its reason to be in feelings. It takes time and a good analysis of one’s conditions in order to act normally like before.

Almost everyone acts in this way, especially when we are stressed, no matter if it is a small stress or a major one. After the occurrences in Paris, this condition amplifies to the nth degree. The debate about the relationship between our safety and freedom is now vitally important and concerns everybody.

This is where the assassin strategy of terrorism inserts. It attempts to weaken the basis of our culture. In Paris, it did so by attacking us in the places of everyday life. The reflection could go on for pages and pages, but the real question now is: what can each of us do to face this new situation? What can the press do?

Yesterday the members of Varesenews had a long private talk with the prefect of Varese, just after a meeting of the safety committee took place. In moments of red alert and tension, it is important to activate every energy and to coordinate it. In ordinary situations, this is a matter concerning only the “authorized personnel” as the security force.

Now safety depends also on the specific attention everyone can pay to little things. This means to fight against the “witch hunt”, avoiding amplifying fears and falling into an evil trap that would make us change our habits radically. It is important to pay attention to everyday actions because the best possible control of the territory starts from the social dimension. Of course, this is not enough, but for the higher levels of control, there are institutions, security force and intelligence.

Terrorism in the 70s and 80s was defeated not only thanks to the determination of the State and the investigative actions, but also thanks to the ability of the social body and individuals to respond. Some of them paid this choice with their lives. It is clear that today we are facing a very different situation. Terrorism acts in a geopolitical globalised scenario and with more-refined technological tools.

In practice, each of us can be an active part in the care of their own activities, thinking about the consequences for society, advising a higher jurisdiction, being that the supervisor, the mayor, the security force or someone else. However, this does not mean to create a culture of suspicion that will close our lives in dangerous enclosures, where the fear of everything and everybody would win. It means to lay claim to the power of our democratic culture, even in the current fragility, through a real and virtuous participation.

The press plays a crucial role in all this, because it spreads information and can choose not only the ways, but also the chances to do so. Creating fears is risky. There is the risk to go from suspicion, not safe in itself, to a continuous hostility towards other cultures. In this moment, we need unity and to keep calm, not to light fuses.

According to these reflections, reinforced also by the debate with institutions, Varesenews carry on an attentive line and not at all prone to creating an atmosphere of tension. We just do our job with even more attention, as a period of great crisis requires. The newspaper is also of its readers. We always said so, from the very beginning in the far 1997. We care about your opinions and we give them value, but we do not surrender to the scheme that divides people into a few minority of good and a majority of evil. It is useless and very dangerous.

In everyday life, it means to pay attention to the choice of news, leaving to security forces the task to investigate on facts that can create some doubts or, even worse, problems for the society.