Katy Hamilton

Safe. Adjective. Six definitions, according to the OED:

1. Protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost
2. Not likely to cause or lead to harm or injury; not involving danger or risk; (of a place) affording security or protection
3. (Derogatory) Cautious and unenterprising
4. Based on good reasons or evidence and not likely to be proved
5. Uninjured; with no harm done
6. (Informal) Excellent (used to express approval or enthusiasm)

It’s a word that, in the last few months and in a variety of contexts, we don’t seem to have very much time for. Safe spaces within the university are bad, apparently. Safety and national security are to be gained through the new Investigatory Powers Act, allowing the UK more extensive surveillance of its inhabitants than any other country in Western Europe. And then, Donald Trump stomped up and down and threw his Twitter teddies out of the cot because Brandon Victor Dixon addressed Mike Pence at the end of a performance of Hamilton the other night. ‘The theatre,’ Trump pouted, ‘must always be a safe and special place.’

What does ‘safe’ mean to you? I’m not talking about dictionary definitions, here: I’m talking about personal experience. What do you need to feel safe? It might be a place: a home, or a building like a library or even your favourite cafe, or even a beloved park bench. It might be certain people, among whom you feel understood and accepted – a sense of mutual trust. Perhaps you are sufficiently self-assured that your sense of safety depends only upon yourself.

Here’s what helps me feel safe. My home. Libraries (which means I’d like them to keep existing, thanks very much). Any of the following places if they are obviously loved: museums, municipal parks, busy streets, concert halls, theatres, universities and schools. The homes of my friends. My friends themselves, because even if we don’t agree on everything, there is love and trust and mutual respect and we know we can argue in safety. On my own, but only in certain circumstances. Abroad, but only in certain circumstances. What are those circumstances? They are conditioned by my upbringing, my identity, my experiences. The same as everyone else.

I’m lucky. I’ve never been homeless. I’ve had people shout abuse at me in the street, but they’ve never followed it up with physical aggression. I’ve never been sexually assaulted or viciously attacked. I was mugged once, by two men who guided me (without my knowing it) to walk between them, so they could grab my backpack straps and pull me to the floor. That was about a decade ago, but I still feel my heart speed up if I’m forced to walk between two men, particularly if there is evidence they know each other, when there is no one else around. As a woman, I was raised to fear walking alone after dark, or going abroad by myself. I do both, but I am careful. (As careful as it is possible to be.) I am not triggered by scenes or images of graphic violence or rape, but know others who are and respect their right to know what’s coming, and avoid things they do not wish to see. I have been to films, plays and operas that have left me shocked and gasping for breath, or unable to stand up afterwards for it all being too much, or have to take several moments to stop myself crying enough to see where the exit is. And I do not regret any of these things.

Here’s what I do regret. The word ‘safe’ has been appropriated, in an astonishingly large number of the six definitions given above, to be the same as ‘weak’. More than that: the mantra has become, from academia to art to politics, safe is not as important as… Preventing terrorism. Intellectual debate. Operas featuring rape scenes. And so on.

The problem that underlies all of this, I would venture, is that living dangerously in any of these areas still requires there to be safety in our lives somewhere. If you can’t get the tube home without everyone giving you shifty looks because you’re not white, have a beard and are carrying a backpack, how are you going to feel? If you have undergone the most horrible physical or sexual trauma and are then told by your lecturer that the next three weeks of your course are going to involve watching graphically violent interpretations of a play in which there is actually no need for graphic violence, and that to let you off that would be infantilising, how would you react?

Dixon’s speech after Hamilton was gracious and impassioned. And no Mr Trump, the theatre is not always a ‘safe place’ in the way that you mean it. It is a place in which, as with all great art, assumptions can be challenged. Ideas can be unpicked. Politics can be criticised. (Grand Opera, anyone? Auber, Meyerbeer and their librettists and co-creators were deliberately writing works that would challenge and criticise the political status quo, even within the bounds of censorship laws.) But it should be safe in some senses. I’m sure Abe Lincoln would agree. I’ve written elsewhere about age restrictions and warnings about certain productions, which are apparently fine in the cinema and at most plays, but got opera lovers very hot under the collar a while ago.

Safety requires trust. I trust my friends not to start punching me if I say something they don’t like. I trust my landlord not to randomly wander in uninvited with a machete and start hacking me and my stuff to bits. But company management, banks, government ministers, the support of local council services, the likelihood that the person on the ticket barrier will understand if you’re late for your train… all these things seem harder and harder to trust. And a combination of increasingly extreme political positions and the shouting of the press (not to mention its amplification via social media) is making it ever harder to feel that we can trust one another.

So here’s this week’s assignment: try being kind to someone. At least one person, every day. Someone you don’t know. Someone you might never see again. Trust that they will take your kindness graciously. Trust it whether it’s letting them know that their headphones aren’t properly plugged in and the whole carriage can hear their TV show (something I gently pointed out to a lady last week, who was extremely grateful and gracious about it); or buying a cup of coffee and a sandwich for someone sitting on the street and giving them directions to the nearest shelter; or complimenting someone you see on the bus because you love their hat. An expectation of human interaction that is based not on fear, but on kindness, is the first step to trust – and from trust, we might get a little closer to safety that allows for respect as well as challenge. Of course that’s idealistic. Of course some people will be asses, or ungracious, or idiotic. But it’s a start. Trust first. Trust and respect. Then we can talk about safety and mean it.