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Death by Silence So, recently I read the story of a guy who having met another man in a suicide chat room, decided they should meet up and do the deed. Suicide, I mean. Anyway, he backs out, but the other guy goes through with it. Then he's arrested and charged with assisting suicide. When he doesn't show up at court, the police go over to his house and find that he's hanged himself. Now, while I cheerfully concede the possibility that I'm vastly more intelligent than everyone else, surely it didn't take a fucking genius to see this one coming. I mean, even the most cursory examination of their actions by the law-enforcement chaps involved would surely have suggested this outcome as a strong possibility, right? Well, apparently not. Then there's Yellow Ribbon. A programme for New Zealand schools to help prevent youth suicide. So the ministry of health sends out a letter saying that this programme is dangerous, because, apparently, talking to kids about suicide makes them want to immediately rush out and kill themselves. Now this programme was actually pretty popular, so given the high rate of youth suicide in this country most of us would have considered it a statistical inevitability when a girl involved with it killed herself. I mean, sad and all, but unless the programme was insanely successful, it was going to happen. But no, apparently this proves the ministry of health right, and schools drop out en masse. Yellow Ribbon change their programme to remove all mention of suicide. So here's my plan: if we want to actually do something about suicide, how about if we stop being incredibly fucking stupid about it. No, really. I think it's a good plan. I mean, not arresting the suicidal for being suicidal would obviously be a good start. But hell, that was on the other side of the world, and there's so much more stupidity to concentrate on at home. So, on the off chance that any of the people who tell us not to talk about suicide actually read this: What the fuck good do you think sitting on your fat arses, hiding your heads in the fucking sand, and generally doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing is going to acheive? The research these claims are based on is inconclusive. In terms of quality, it's slithering somewhere around there near the statistics that show white people are smarter than black people. It's bullshit. Statistics do pretty clearly show that whatever we're doing - which is nothing - is shit. Yup lots of people killing themselves. Someone must have told them about it, right? I'll bet it was those sick bastards at Yellow Ribbon with their suicide promoting slogans like "It's Okay to Ask For Help." So, since we have this evidence that strongly suggests that New Zealand's current policy of ignore it and hope it will go away has not been as wildly successful as the trick cyclists would have us believe, maybe, just maybe, it's time to try something else. Something like, I don't know, talking to kids instead of trivialising their problems. And while you're at it, would you mind fixing that whole teenage pregnancy business by actually talking about sex with the kids instead of the wortheless shite you're feeding them as a sex education programme at the moment. Yeah, it's embarassing, but, really, it won't kill you. Y'know, I think I see a pattern emerging... -- Hewligan |
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