Teenage Suicide in the Middle East Essay Example for Free

Teenage Suicide in the Middle East Essay Generally-speaking, from the data available, the teen suicide rate in the Middle East is tremendously low – lower in this region than anywhere in the entire world. Part of this, however, may be due to underreporting. Few nations in the Middle East have actually submitted data to WHO as far as suicide rates are concerned, and those that have are characterized by incredibly low rates. Egypt’s last report to WHO was in 1987: a 0.0 youth suicide rate (15 to 24 year olds), statistically-speaking, with only 3 total suicides (1 male, 2 females). Iran’s last report to WHO came in 1991: a 0.3 youth suicide rate with only 34 total deaths (25 males, 9 females). Jordan reported to WHO in 1979: a 0.0 youth suicide rate, zero total suicides for those between 15 and 24 years old for that entire year. Kuwait’s report is the most recent, as it came to WHO in 2001: a 0.6 youth suicide rate, with 2 total deaths (both males). It’s so intriguing compared to the rest of the globe. If the data that has been submitted is accurate and holds true across the region, it actually wouldn’t be that surprising. The Middle East is one of those difficult-to- decipher regions as far as East or West is concerned. As far as its leaders are concerned, it seems to prefer neither, or at least somewhere in between. Going back to Durkheim, this would be considered a moderate region. Its social integration and regulation are both moderate. Again, as Durkheim said, this would mean low suicide rates; the theory seems to be fit. However, what about the center the Middle East is becoming for radicalism in recent years? It has become a base for religious fundamentalism, led by terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and Hamas. These groups use violence to get their points across and it is beginning to catch the eyes’ of the region’s young people. The terrorists know that teenagers are easiest to recruit – they don’t fully have their lives planned out and many of them become attracted to doing something for a greater cause. These teenagers have grown up learning about violence and how it can be glorified. They have been taught by radicals that being part of a suicide bombing is a noble deed that will gain them everlasting life and the adorned title of ‘martyr.’ The textbooks that children currently use in Afghanistan are filled with violence. The books are â€Å"lavishly illustrated with bombs, landmines, guns, and soldiers and filled with [†¦] jihad and other milita nt Islamic teachings† (Sluzki 3). How ironic it is that these books were given to Afghan schools from the United States, in an attempt to increase children’s interest in waging war against the Soviet Union. Now children read these books and become interested in fighting the United States after hearing the repeated call, often propaganda, from nearby terrorist groups. This is just one example of how â€Å"seeds of violence† as Sluzki put it are being instilled in children’s minds (Sluzki 3). For more instances of violence being portrayed to youth, one need not look further than Palestine. Journalist Kenneth Timmerman wrote a disturbing article about the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat. It was producing music videos, meant to appeal to children and teens, that encouraged the young to become martyrs and kill Israelis. The videos were made out of popular music and aired continuously on television. In one video in particular, a young boy is shown on his way to commit a suicide bombing. He says his goodbyes and sings, â€Å"Mother, do not cry for me.† That very line has appeared in at least three actual suicide notes between May 2001 and December 2002 – those who wrote the notes were between the ages of 14 and 17. This makes it clear that the videos were having an effect on teens. The worst part about the videos is that they glorify the act, make it seem painless, and in every way make it positive, an achievement, a holy and honorable act for the Palestinian people. (Timmerman 35) Another article sheds further light on violence and children in Palestine. According to Eyad Serraj, a psychologist in Gaza, many older children and teenagers view martyrdom in a positive light. Serraj says â€Å"that a poll conducted in the summer of 2003 showed that 36% of 12-year-old boys questioned in Gaza said they believed sacrificing themselves for the Palestinian cause was the best thing they could do with their lives† (Blanche 24). Serraj is not surprised by the find: In their minds, the only model of power and glory is the martyr. Palestinian society glorifies the martyr. They are elevated to the level of saints. In the hopeless and inhuman environment in which they live there is the promise that they will have a better life in heaven †¦ There’s a very big pool of potential martyrs. They’re queuing up, and that happens because hope is diminishing. (Blanche 24) To be fair, not all Middle Easterners are in favor of this trend – using children and teenagers as suicide bombers. Even in Palestine, where the act is being most promoted, it is hearing stern criticism from some. An article elaborates on an incident in March 2004 in which a teen, who was about to commit a suicide bombing, was caught before the act. It has stirred a lot of concern and emotion in Palestine. The 16-year old surrendered at an Israeli checkpoint and was held briefly by Israeli forces. A day later, his mother Tamam Abdo issued a statement: â€Å"No one the age of my son should be used to commit such acts [†¦] Maybe if he was 20, perhaps I could understand. At that age, they know what they are doing.† She said he was nothing more than a misguided teenager. Following the incident, several other Palestinians were interviewed and voiced their anger about the young being used as suicide bombers. Mohammed Zeidal, a college student, said that â€Å"to use someone his age is very, very wrong.† Bassem Eid, head of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, went on the record saying, â€Å"It is really shameful for the Palestinian reputation [†¦] to misuse our children and push them to their death.† This is not to say that all are opposed to such acts – as mentioned earlier, there is support for youth suicide bombings in Palestine –, but it should also be clear that there is some resistance to them as well. (â€Å"Teenagers in Suicide Bombings†) This information about terrorism and suicide bombings is not at all meant to overshadow the earlier data, but it is certainly pertinent in a discussion about teen suicide in the Middle East. Again, it must be reiterated that teen suicide rates are indeed among the lowest in the Middle East of any region in the world – at least according to the data that is available (it is scare for the region). The region serves as a living testament to Durkheim’s theory; it fully supports his belief that more moderately structured societies will have lower suicide rates. Teenage Suicide in East Asia Japan It is not uncommon for Americans to think of Japan as a whole different world. After all, it is on the other side of the globe. The similarities though are striking, thanks to the impact of the Western world. After much resistance, Japan finally opened its nation up for trade with the West in the 1850’s, falling to pressure from the United States. Ever since, Japan has adapted to Western life in many forms. It has seen that for it to compete on the global scale it has little choice but to make changes to its traditional way of life. In the 20th century, Japan blossomed with technological advances and finally put itself on the map. It took up competition with the United States and countries in Europe. This history may not seem relevant, but it is important to understanding the development of teenage suicide in Japan. Ever since being exposed to the West, Japan has felt extreme pressures from the outside world. These pressures have forced its people to fight in an ongoing struggle to be competitive. However, they have also done harm to its people. Japanese teenagers especially grow up being reminded of this need to be the best that they can. Sometimes it can be too much to bare. So why not suicide? Everything can end in one instant. The teen suicide rate in Japan has fluctuated considerably over the course of the last 35 years. According to WHO, the Japanese suicide rate in 1970 for 15 to 19 year olds was 7.8 per 100,000. By 1991, WHO reports that the suicide rate for the very same age group had been cut in half to just 3.8. A 1994 study by Zinn, et al, also alluded to a dropping rate, stating that â€Å"suicide is no longer an honorable act† in Japan (7-11). It adds that â€Å"teenagers (10-19 year olds) made up just over 2% of suicides† in Japan in 1992. However, the most recent reports point to Japan’s suicide rate being on the rise, and that includes teenagers. A BBC News article published in 1999 discounts Zinn’s earlier statement, explaining Japan’s increase in suicides in the mid-to-late 1990’s as a result of its â€Å"deeply ingrained culture that regards suicide as an honourable way to atone for failure and express remorse† (â€Å"World: Asia-Pacific Japan on suicide alert†). The article mentions that from 1997 to 1998 â€Å"junior high school student suicides increased by 40 to 102. At high schools, 220 students took their own lives in 1998, an increase of 51.† Japan’s most recent report to WHO in the year 2000 further supports an increase. The youth suicide rate was reported to have jumped to 11.5, higher than the United States rate of 10.2 for that year. While the most recent data encompasses 19-24 year olds in addition to those 15-19, the increase has been consistent with the rise in other industrialized nations. One particular article of interest, as to explicate possible motives for teen suicide, is â€Å"Bullied to Death in Japan† by Lauren Freedman. The article takes a look at the pressures of teenage boys growing up in Japan in the early to mid 1990’s (recent statistics make it probable that these pressures still hold true today). Bullying is the central focus, something that has become a huge problem in the nation, strikingly similar to what bullying has become in the United States. â€Å"Bullying is an old and widespread problem in Japan,† Freedman writes. Katsuyuki Ogawa, a psychologist in Tokyo, went so far as to say just about everyone will undergo the experience of being bullied. According to Freedman, and many Japanese experts who she refers to in her article, society is to blame. Professor Yaichi Wakai put it very bluntly: â€Å"Japan is a competitive society, and bullying is one distorted phenomenon of that severe competition.† (Freedman 25) Taking this into account and looking again at the history explained earlier, hearing that bullying occurs in Japan is not much of a surprise. The fact that it results in suicide isn’t that shocking either when everything is taken into consideration. So Japan, in fact, isn’t a whole different world. Many Japanese parents are forced to bury their teenagers just as in the United States. Although on the other side of the globe, Japanese instances of teen suicide actually mirror that of America in the ways discussed. China Hong Kong China is immensely different than nearby Japan. It isn’t considered a Western nation. Instead, it is deeply rooted in a tradition and history of its own, which of course has included thinkers like Confucius. It strives for excellence and works together as a people. It has continued along these lines into the new millennium and is widely known for its communist government. In such a place, where the individual isn’t strived for, but rather the collective whole, some may initially think suicide does not exist. But this thinking would be absurd. It is absolutely true that, based on the data available, teenage suicide doesn’t occur in rates as high in China as it does in Western nations, but teenage suicide in China does occur. One of the problems to investigating it is simple: it has not been well documented. The fact that it doesn’t appear to be a widespread problem may attribute to the lack of documentation. It seems that teen suicide in China is sporadic and the cases almost very isolated from each other. In China’s 1999 report to WHO, the nation reported a low 6.9 youth suicide rate – 5.4 for males and 8.6 for females. This comprised 1,541 total deaths in that year, 626 males and 915 females. This is the first occurrence of the female rate being higher, possibly suggesting that the high male rate may be associated with Western nations. The reason for the high female rate in China has not been explained, but it could be due to the fact that males are seen so much more important in Chinese socie ty. The â€Å"one-child† rule in China forces parents to give up their daughters, as they usually want sons. Perhaps, and it is only a theory, many of these girls grow up contemplating suicide and ultimately commit the act. If there was more data available, better sense could be made of these figures. In an article about Chinese suicide ideation, the lack of information is mentioned. â€Å"We could find only one study specifically assessing suicide ideation in a community sample of Chinese young people,† it said. That study, conducted in 1996 by men named Zhang and Jin, compared suicidal thoughts between college students in the United States and China. It found that the idea of suicide between cultures differed in many ways, with religiosity ending up the only definitive reason that both cultures would take suicide into consideration. (Stewart 227-240) This leads to the Hong Kong study, which was published in the article mentioned above. Interesting about Hong Kong is that it has been much more wrapped in Western culture than nearby China. After all, it had been ruled by the British for over a century. Once it began adopting Western ideals, teenage suicide occurred more frequently in Hong Kong. Again, the highest rates of suicide have long been associated with the Western way of life. However, as the study points out, it didn’t experience teen suicides rates quite as high as elsewhere. A probable reason for this is that it held onto at least some of its Asian roots, heavily based on Chinese culture. This makes Hong Kong quite a unique and interesting place when we look at suicide among teenagers. Here is a place that is being tugged by both Western culture and its traditional Eastern culture at the same time. Both influences have remained prevalent, at least to some extent. Even more interesting then – what if we took a look at teenagers in Hong Kong who were born in China, and had emigrated? This is precisely what the â€Å"Suicide Ideation† study addressed. The study took a look at 996 Chinese adolescents living in Hong Kong: 500 male and 496 female. They were asked to complete a survey in school and then conclusions were drawn. A significant difference from the majority of suicides in Western nations was uncovered. It was found that those who were considering suicide were doing so not because of reasons like peer pressure or the media. Instead, and overwhelmingly, the Chinese teenagers said they were doing it because of pressure from their parents. This remained consistent between both males and females too. (Stewart 227-240) Although there are many differences between Japan and China, similar to the former, China strives for excellence among its people. A major difference is Japan does it for the good of the individual where in China i t occurs for the good of society as a whole. Nevertheless, this work ethic, deeply rooted in East Asian tradition, is once again creating pressures. But instead of blaming specific, isolated individuals (as in bullying) for their suicidal thoughts, these Chinese students are pointing to the closest collective item they know and constantly come into contact with – their parents. Their parents, mother and father, are pressuring them to do the best they can for society. They hear it over and over from them. They are not attributing the suicidal thoughts to peers or pressures to be â€Å"cool† for instance, but instead to their elders who they are told to follow in every respect. The difference in their state of mind is significant. (Stewart 227-240) Still, as proven by this study, the thoughts do exist, even among Chinese teenagers – that thought of putting an end to one’s life. Perhaps because they have that support group, that collective society, and are not being singled out by others, is why their actual rates of suicide are low. The thoughts exist among Chinese teens, but it seems fewer actually go t hrough with the action.