A society that does not value people should not be surprised if peopledo not value themselves, suggests Sister Stanislaus Kennedy
Ireland has one of the fastest-rising suicides rates in the world; 448 people died as a result of suicide last year; the number of Irish male suicides has quadrupled in 20 years, with an average of one man dying each day; and the highest rate is among young males between 15 and 34 years. This surely is a wake-up call that we simply cannot ignore. What is it saying about ourselves and our society?
A few months ago it was disconcerting to hear an esteemed woman with such feminist credentials as Doris Lessing criticising society's new contempt for men, which she saw as replacing a previous generation's contempt for women.
Doris Lessing was not arguing that women were now "in charge" or that the equality movement had gone too far. On the contrary, what has happened is that, while gender equality remains an unachieved ideal, a certain limited form of role reversal has taken place and, as Lessing pointed out, it has now become socially acceptable to consider men domestically incompetent, useless in the kitchen, hopeless fathers, unreliable breadwinners and generally a dispensable sector of the human race.
Perhaps it is not surprising if young men do begin to think they are dispensable. Boys are consistently outperformed by girls at school, and that has been borne out by the Leaving Cert results of 2001.
These things have real effects on people's lives and psyches and can lead to them feeling useless and without a future. Such feelings lead, in some cases, to depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, violence and crime. In other cases, they lead quite simply to despair. And despair, in the end, leads to suicide.
While suicide is a complex and little understood problem and cannot be attributed to a single cause we have to ask if there is a connection between these changes and the increase in the rates of suicide among Irish males.
It is important to try to understand the causes of suicide, but it is just as important to consider its effects, because it is only when we consider the human anguish that suicide brings in its wake that we realise how important is the fight against it.
When we are confronted with the death of a young person it is always shattering, because the person hasn't had the chance to realise their dreams. But how much more dreadful is our grief when suicide is the cause of death.
Suicide puts an intolerable burden, not only of grief but also of guilt and in some cases even shame on the family and friends of its victims.
The problem of suicide has deep and lasting effects on communities, and it is from communities that the solutions will have to come. Although it is hard to pinpoint the causes of suicide, we do know that there are certain identifiable signposts in people's lives that must be treated with care, sensitivity and attention, because these factors are associated with suicide.
These signposts include loneliness, depression and isolation. They also include loss: of self-esteem, of a person through death, of a job and of either physical or mental health. We also know that our success-ridden, intolerant and demanding society results in many adolescents feeling stressed out, under severe pressure and filled with anxiety.
Alaska has traditionally had a high rate of suicide, but a programme has recently been developed there which has enjoyed some success in tackling the issue.
The essential point about this programme is that it is community-based. The whole idea was to trust in the power and wisdom of communities to address their own problems in their own ways. The range of activities sponsored by this programme was very wide.
Some, like crisis response teams, counselling, support groups, talking and healing circles and educational programmes about suicide and suicide prevention, were directly associated with suicide prevention.
Others focused more on what communities saw as the underlying causes of self-destructive behaviour, and as a result such things as youth/elder activities, camping, craft classes, teen centres, dance groups, community dinners and alcohol- and drug-free social events were introduced.
Any given community might have a mix of several of these activities, and projects changed over time as communities evaluated and adjusted their efforts. After three years, rates of suicide in these communities were in decline, and more people knew the warning signs and knew how to refer an at-risk person.
No individual should ever be burdened with the guilt of someone else's suicide, but if we are to reduce suicide in this country, we must all work together as individuals and as members of communities to create a society that is educated and well informed, and this means opening up the debate, lifting the taboo and starting to talk to each other and learn from each other. Only a society which has a keen insight into the damage which can be caused by ignorance can hope to be a society where suicide prevention works.
But we need more than public education, we need every single one of us working together to create caring communities which will take precedence over everything else. These communities may be in the school, the neighbourhood, the parish, the workplace. They must be everywhere where there are groups of people if the people who now feel isolated or lonely are to be helped where they are.
What we need is to build communities that care, communities of compassion that will be a counter-culture to the competitive individualistic, harsh, brash, consumer-driven culture that is all around us.
A society in which it is the norm to put people down, whether they be men or women, because they are not smart enough or rich enough or good-looking enough or streetwise enough or cool enough, is a society that does not value people as human beings, and a society that does not value people is a society that should not be surprised if people do not value themselves.
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy is a Sister of Charity