Hi friends (and others),
On top of the Google Search for “safety and security what is the difference between” you find:
“The basic idea of both is protecting assets from hazards/threats creating safe/secure conditions. The condition safety is about being protected, while the condition security is about being free from danger. The differences between being protected and being free from danger or threat are not easily seen.”
Interesting that- I was hoping for an explanation in relation to people rather than assets.
According to other entries the main difference is that security is from deliberate threats and safety is from accidental threats.
Melbourne University Student Union’s Magazine “Farrago” was first published in 1925. Half way through its lifetime I got to look forward to it and avidly read it. A much more enjoyable pursuit than swotting for exams.
A regular feature of the magazine was a multi-panelled cartoon called “Tex”.
On one occasion Tex was constructing a wire fence. On completion of the enclosure, in the final panel, Tex was standing in the middle and proclaimed in a loud voice “GOTCHAZ!!!”
Ever since, I have not been able to look at a security fence without briefly pondering- did it aim to keep people/animals/or whatever, in or out?
Walls have the same effect on me.
When in 1971 we travelled through Panama (on our way back to Australia from Canada), the 1964 riots were still fresh in Panamanian minds, I was told that the fence separating the Panama Canal Zone from Panama City had been torn down by hand by angry crowds
From Wikipedia I learn that Colombia’s ambassador to the Organization of American States was quoted as saying “In Panama there exists today another Berlin Wall”
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, much of the world was ecstatic. Will we ever learn? World-wide, fence and wall erecting is booming. Is it making the world a safer and more secure place?
Bonnie Raitt- ‘Silver Lining’ ….Shine it till the walls come tumbling down…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcDaAr3EPqI
Well, every dark cloud has it’s silver lining. The numerous walls and fences being erected around the world, engender the possibility that ecstatic crowds will get to tear them down!
Woodie Guthrie- ‘This land is your land’:
….There was a big high wall that tried to stop me, a sign was painted said ‘private property….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE
From my dad’s anecdotes:
APRIL’07- In the villa, there was a telephone exchange. Everyone had been invited to Mr. Otten (one of the suppliers)’s birthday party. The villa had been left almost vacant. Lucas and I stayed behind. Before the war, Lucas had served on Dutch submarines, and he therefore had a good understanding of electronics. Whilst I kept a look out, Lucas went to work. Not only did he cut wires, but he also cross-wired and soldered wires together. Lucas had his eye on the beautiful curtains, and I had to dissuade him from taking them (“are you off your rocker? Hurry up we’ve got to get out of here!”). It all took too long and we disturbed the guards. The front gate had been locked. We had to leave through the heavily guarded back. We flew over the back yard and over the two meter high wall, and if we’d been in the Olympics we’d both would have got medals! A group of Ukrainian guards with their guard dogs chased us. We ran off (more medals!) and escaped into a garden……
…..The next morning we turned up for work as per usual. “Good morning Mr. Breitruck” “Good morning??…don’t you know what happened last night? Some bastards came in last night and destroyed the telephone exchange. They knew what they were doing” “How did they get away?” “There, over that wall, through that mine field…” “Ah well, mine-field, mine-field, what mine-field? There are signs ‘Danger Mines’ all over the place…” “THERE, THERE ARE MINES!” When he said that, I could taste my breakfast in my mouth! It turned out the telephone exchange was far more important to the Germans than we had ever imagined.
(This is my English translation from an anecdote told to me in Dutch with German dialogue – If you wish to receive a copy of the unabridged “foreign” original- just say so)
It is said that at the Parliamentary canteen in Canberra, they’re running short of knives. We have once again had our Prime Minister replaced. These days Australian politics deny me the excitement of being surprised,
The appointment of Tony Abbott as a Special Envoy to Indigenous Australia came as no surprise. All one had to do is think what would have been the worst possible choice, and presto! I was thinking how best to express myself on this bizarre and insulting occurrence, when my friends at ‘pcbycp’ http://www.pcbycp.com/ (Passive Complicity by Cockburn and Poole) saved me the trouble:
“Aboriginal Australians know they’ve got a man of action as their special protector. Not since Augustus Robertson have Aboriginal Australians been so protected by a man who’s got a handle on their problems. And he’s got the equipment to ensure that their problems will be looked at and possibly augmented with better incarceration, better disenfranchisement, and better isolation, better as he famously said; to equip them for their ‘lifestyle choices’.”
As it says at the beginning of this Dispatch: “The condition safety is about being protected”
What Australia needs, is an Abbott Proof Fence.
Frank
Rosemary Clooney ‘Don’t Fence me in’….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXg6-A-Dkfs