The art of understanding reality and the science of mitigating the context

Abstract

Ojalá, “insha Allah ( إن شاء الله )”, oxalá, “għada min rah”…. so many terms, so many languages but still one direction: the future is unknown but will definitely make an appearance. One that may yet see us taken aback should preparedness find us wanting. However, the future is only defined by the state of the present decision-making processes and the foundations laid in the past. Thus, the Maltese phrase “għada jmiss mal-lum” is so highly dangerous when taken in a safety and security context. Complacency brings lethargy and eventually shock. A few examples which caught the world unawares: 9/11, Exxon Valdes, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, the Berlin Wall, the Titanic and the famous collapse of the banking system. Lets us take a step closer to home and one finds that we were not immune to short sharp shocks that made us reconsider our safety and security profile from the individual to the national levels: the 1960 Twanny Aquilina murder, the 1985 Egyptair Flight 648 hijacking, the 1988 taxi driver murders, the 1995 Um El Faroud explosion, the 2008 Naxxar fireworks explosion and the list goes on…