How very brave

The word "brave" is thrown around so carelessly nowadays, it's almost lost any meaning. People use it about quite routine everyday events like dealing with an illness or going out in cold weather. But it ought to mean something much weightier than that, something truly courageous.

Personally I think one of the bravest things is simply to be yourself - to stand up for your own opinions and convictions when everyone around you is saying something totally different. And when they may be violently hostile if you disagree with them.

Openly defending women for example, when you're surrounded by men being aggressively misogynistic. You can be met by frosty stares, ridicule or personal abuse. Plenty of people would keep their mouths shut rather than speaking out.

Then again, some people would say that isn't really bravery, it's just self-assertion. Real bravery, they say, is taking serious physical risks - on a battlefield, or fighting a fire, or rescuing someone in danger. Disregarding your own safety for the sake of others is the real test of your inner mettle.

A lot of people talk about someone's brave fight against cancer. But what's brave about it? You fight cancer because you have to - either you fight or you die. You aren't taking a physical risk, you aren't challenging anyone, you're just doing what you have to do.

Or people say it's brave to make a new start in life - to move to another country, or change your career, or remarry. But again, is that true bravery or just doing what you have to do - abandoning something you never felt comfortable with?

I think we should use the word "brave" more sparingly, more accurately, and not chuck it around like a casual compliment. Otherwise genuine bravery - like that of Malala Yousafzai - gets overlooked and devalued.

Not a coward

Is it wrong to call someone a coward? Is it just mean and unfair and insulting? If someone doesn't want to do something that's dangerous, shouldn't we respect their decision and not simply condemn them for it?

We all have different personalities. We each have our strengths and weaknesses, our particular resources and lack of them. Isn't it up to us to decide if we're capable of dealing with something, to estimate the dangers and consequences, and if we don't feel confident enough, to opt out and say we're not going to take the risk?

It's pretty high-handed and presumptuous of other people to say that someone is a coward, that they should have done what was expected of them regardless of their personal fears and uncertainties, that they should have jumped in and hoped for the best, and if they came a cropper that was just bad luck.

But if say, a woman was being gang-raped on a train by a bunch of particularly nasty-looking men, would we say it was our duty to tackle the rapists even if they might attack us too? If we saw someone inside a burning building, would it be our duty to run in and try to rescue them, even at the risk of being burnt alive? Surely that's the individual's decision and for someone else to accuse them of cowardice is impudent and uncalled-for. It's really an incredibly rude thing to say.

The flipside is that we heap lavish praise on someone we see as brave and courageous and fearless, as if they're some sort of super-hero, when in reality they may only have been doing their job, or only showing their natural strength and resilience. Why is someone "brave" given so much more respect than someone who's been less than brave - or not brave at all? Can't we just respect people's different capabilities and shortcomings? Why must cowardice be a cause for shame?

Sometimes brave

I'm a strange mixture of extreme cowardice and surprising bravery. A group of youths on a street corner can make me cringe nervously. But I'll take on a ruthless boss who wants to undermine my working conditions.

Any kind of visible aggression makes me very jittery, and that can include angry expressions, threatening postures, gloating laughter, even lads kicking footballs. A huddle of teenage males usually exudes enough aggressive undertones for me to cross the street to avoid them.

In the workplace though I've often challenged managers who want to mess about with my working hours or salary or work routines. If I feel unfairly treated, I'll square up to them. I spent four years as a trade union rep doing the same for my workmates.

I've often been the lone voice in a gathering of diehards, expressing my own heretical opinions whether they like it or not. I'll voice my atheism to a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool believers. I'll tell a roomfull of meat-chompers that I'm a vegetarian. I'll lob my socialism into a bevy of hardline conservatives.

But I can also get absurdly shy at social events. Faced with a sea of unfamiliar faces, I get tongue-tied, my brain freezes, my self-confidence withers, I don't know what to say.

Public speaking is equally scary. I've never given a formal speech or presentation in my life, and I hope I never have to. I'm sure I'd say all the wrong things and seriously embarrass myself.

And in restaurants, like most people, I'm loathe to complain about the food, even if it's virtually inedible. I just valiantly gulp it down or leave it. I don't like to make a fuss or be the centre of attention.

I guess what all this amounts to is that I have a very unpredictable response to danger. Sometimes I flee, sometimes I walk straight into it. And sometimes I don't even notice it, I just do what I have to do.

Dogged heroes

The popular idea of a hero or heroine is someone who has done something brave and life-threatening, but to me the real heroes are those who persist in something they believe in, or simply stay true to themselves, despite relentless harassment and persecution from other people.

They just stick to their chosen path with quiet determination, refusing to compromise and refusing to give in to the bullies and bigots.

To my mind, that can be more heroic than a person doing something that's courageous and risky but which is generally supported and applauded by the public and they aren't also fighting for the right to do what they're doing.

Certainly rescuing someone from a burning house is heroic, but what about insisting on your own identity in the teeth of violent opposition? Opposition you may have to endure for decades? Opposition that may extend to death threats and murder? Isn't that heroic too?

I think of people like Manal al-Sharif, who has campaigned in Saudi Arabia against the ban on women drivers, and has been hounded by the government and forced out of her job.

Or Karen Silkwood, who investigated claims of dangerous practices at a US nuclear plant and died in mysterious circumstances.

Or Amy Lees, stalked for nine months by her ex-boyfriend, who put her details on a sex website so strangers kept pestering her.

Or Paris Lees (no relation), the transsexual campaigner who has been constantly abused and attacked simply for rejecting her given gender.

Or Lydia Cacho, the Mexican journalist who writes on sex trafficking, prostitution and pornography and has been physically attacked, raped, tortured and had numerous death threats.*

These are my heroes, these are the people I really admire for their dogged persistence in the face of seething hostility and repeated attempts to shut them up.

In short, people who refuse to take the easy way out.

* Yes, they're all women. It just happened to be women who sprang to mind.

PIC: Manal al-Sharif