Days ago I read that the Church of Sweden was instructed by the National Agency for Civil Emergencies to prepare for the possibility of burying 30 thousand people in the event of war. Yes, you read correctly: the country that has made neutrality its flag (after losing Finland, conquered almost 200 years ago by Peter the Great, Gustav XIV proclaimed the kingdom’s state of neutrality) does not exclude a conflict with tens of thousands of victims . All this after the Scandinavian nation joined NATO, as a reaction to the invasion of Ukraine. The Swedes are far-sighted and therefore the cemeteries department of the Lutheran Church immediately got to work, asking the municipalities to identify places to bury the fallen. The municipality of Gothenburg, for example, was requested ten hectares of land, in order to accommodate the funerals of five percent of the population.
I know, perhaps it will seem in bad taste and a bit unfortunate to talk about deaths close to Christmas and the New Year.. However, it amazes me that such news, broadcast in Stockholm by Sveriges Radio, i.e. the Swedish public service radio, passes like this, as one piece of information among the many that one listens to absentmindedly while cooking or driving the car in the city traffic (this issue of Panoramaon page 60,also dedicates a report on how Sweden and some other countries are preparing for a possible conflict).
That a member of the Atlantic Alliance prepares an emergency plan which includes tens of thousands of deaths as a result of a war is something that should shock anyone, because beyond the organizational efficiency of some Nordic states, it is clear that NATO considers a conflict involving Europe highly probable. We are no longer dealing with geopolitical hypotheses, evaluated in secret by representatives of the General Staff of the various nations: we are planning a conflict. Or, if it seems less hard to accept, we are preparing the measures to be adopted in the event of an attack. Which naturally does not change much, given that whether the decision is made to enter the war in support of Ukraine, as the bellicose declarations of a French cockerel like Emmanuel Macron would sometimes seem to suggest (who perhaps thinks of recovering the loss of consensus transforming into a modern De Gaulle), whether an unwanted involvement is being assessed perhaps due to a missile ending up where it shouldn’t, it is always a question of conflict. For European citizens, who have lived in peace for almost eighty years and have accepted the loss of part of the sovereignty of their countries precisely to pursue the dream of a conflict-free continent, it would be a rude awakening.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, no one ever took into account that Europe could be the theater of war manoeuvres. The proof of this is that almost all countries have given up on arming themselves and military training has been oriented towards civil emergencies. Out of 27 European Union nations, only nine have compulsory military service. In all other cases the Armed Forces are made up of career soldiers and therefore the personnel are not capable of sustaining a conflict. In short, in Sweden we are preparing to expand the cemeteries to make room for the graves of soldiers killed in battle, but in almost the entire continent there does not seem to be any serious reflection on how to prepare the armies and how to increase the defense systems. Yes, since Russia invaded Ukraine, at the urging of the United States there has been discussion of increasing military spending, bringing it to two percent of GDP, but the debate proceeds in the disinterest of public opinion and above all of the parties, which would have the task of informing voters.
The Italian Republic repudiates war as a method of resolving conflicts, but an article of the Constitution is not enough to avoid being dragged into battle. Are you wondering if by any chance I have become a warmonger? Far from it. From 24 February 2022 I invite you to reflect on the consequences of what is happening a few thousand kilometers from our home and I often mention the outbreak of the First World War, which no country wanted but in which Europe found itself involved without realizing it. We are on the brink of a new world conflict and the signals reaching us are many, but we continue to pretend nothing has happened, as if the bombs falling in Donbass and the hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian deaths did not concern us. I don’t want to go to war with my eyes closed. I want Europe to stop first. This is why the news from the Swedish Church seems to me to be the latest wake-up call.
