<span class="gmail_quote"></span>J@pan Inc magazine presents:<br><div><span class="e" id="q_11322652076f6b73_0"><div><span>The 'JIN' Japan Inc Newsletter<br>A weekly opinion piece on social, economic and political trends
<br>in Japan.
<br>Issue No. 418 Wednesday June 13, 2007 TOKYO
<br><br>Suicide in Japan<br>
<br>As he climbed the step ladder and put his head through the noose<br>that he had made himself, it is hard to imagine Farm Minister <br>Toshikatsu Matsuoka's state of mind at the start of this month <br>when he hung himself from a door in his own living room.
<br>Apparently, Matsuoka saw suicide as the only way of escaping the<br>impending storm of investigations into his financial dealings. <br>Reports say that he left 8 suicide notes full of apologies and <br>remorse.<br><br>
The suicide of Matsuoka has in turn triggered a renewed focus on <br>the phenomenon of suicide in Japan more generally. Almost every<br>newspaper in Japan has in the last week rolled out alarming <br>statistics on the suicide rate, the second highest in the
<br>developed world with over 30,000 Japanese taking their own lives<br>every year. <br>(e.g. <a href="http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070608TDY01001.htm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070608TDY01001.htm</a>
)<br><br>So what is behind this high suicide rate and can the<br>government do anything about it? <br>There are essentially three main factors affecting Japan's
<br>suicide rates, which I want to discuss below.<br><br>---------------- ICA Event - June 21 ----------------------<br><br>Speaker:Peter Butterfield<br>Vice President and General Counsel, KVH Co., Ltd.<br>Speaker:M.S. Rangaraj
<br>Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, KVH Co., Ltd.<br><br>Topic:Offshoring to India-Key Factors to Consider<br><br>Details:Complete event details at<br><a href="http://www.icajapan.jp/%28RSVP" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.icajapan.jp/</a> (RSVP Required)<br>Date:Thursday, June 21, 2007<br>Time:6:30 Doors open, Light buffet and Open Bar included<br>Cost:3,000 yen (members), 5,500 yen (non-members)<br>Open to all-location is Ristorante Conca d'Oro
<br><a href="http://www.websanko.com/b_info/akgardencity/details.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.websanko.com/b_info/akgardencity/details.html</a><br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>1. The 'Japanese Culture' Factor<br><br>Japan is actually famous for suicide: seppuku, kamikaze,
<br>hari-kari are all words familiar to Western readers on Japan.<br>There are indeed ritual methods of suicide in Japan and often,<br>Japanese who take their own lives are doing so essentially on a<br>point of honor—Minister Matsuoka included. With a Confucian
<br>heritage that stresses the group over the individual, there is a<br>case to be made that this bias makes Japanese more predisposed <br>towards suicide i.e. people are more likely to see 'beneficial' <br>aspects for other people in their own exit from life.
<br><br>Other commentators point to a lack of religious taboos <br>concerning suicide in Japan while some have claimed that <br>Japanese may even see suicide as a 'respectable' death; <br>nationalist writer Yukio Mishima probably saw his own
<br>suicidal end as a noble 'Japanese' act. <br>Elsewhere Japanese suicides have been linked to its <br>alcohol-drinking culture. For example, a study published in the <br>British Journal of Psychiatry (no.188, 2006) found that 'heavy
<br>drinkers among middle-aged Japanese men....constitute the <br>majority of Japanese suicide victims.'<br><br>All the above may well help to explain the high suicide rate here<br>but it would be unwise to single out one and some of the
<br>arguments get carried away with Japanese 'difference'. After all,<br>both Islam and Christianity have had their martyrs and putting <br>others before oneself is not confined entirely to East Asia. <br>Perhaps however, it is fair to say that Japanese culture, because
<br>of the importance of reputation and peer perception, likes to <br>keep its skeletons in the closet. Therefore, rather than suicide <br>being a heroic way out, it is a convenient way of avoiding <br>spilling the beans. In an old
J@pan Inc (no. 67, 2006) Shinichi <br>Ishizaki who runs NPOSSC, a helpline for distressed Japanese <br>students, affirmed, 'Fear of revealing one's inner feelings is a <br>major problem in Japan that causes children to either become
<br>violent or irrationally angry.'<br><br>2. Globalisation: Socio-economic Change<br><br>The French sociologist Emile Durkheim who wrote an entire book <br>on the subject of suicide argued, 'It is too great comfort that
<br>
turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at <br>the time and among the classes where it is least harsh.' For <br>Durkheim it was much more the lack of social regulation and <br>social integration that caused people to take their own lives
<br>than any physical hardship endured as a result of economic <br>poverty. Thus the breakdown in social networks produced by the<br>forces of industrialization, in tandem with its Protestant <br>ideology and emphasis on the individual, were behind the rise of
<br>suicide figures in the West. <br><br>It is such thinking that actually seems to lie behind most of <br>the Japanese media's explanations of the issue. While the Asian <br>Financial Crisis of 1997-8 saw a growth in suicides, the
<br>consequences of economic prosperity are often perceived as the<br>root causes of social ills i.e. the growth of urbanization, more <br>mobility in social organization, freedom to divorce or not get <br>married, materialism, consumer culture and so on.
<br>These have broken down traditional community structures globally <br>and are routinely blamed for higher rates not only of suicide <br>but also of delinquency, violence, crime and bullying. (The <br>latter in particular is also seen as a growing problem in
<br>Japan.) But can the government really do anything? <br><br>Durkheim was most interested in 'anomic suicide' - suicide caused<br>by a breakdown of traditional social norms. If this is the cause <br>of most suicides then more suicide may just be something we have
<br>to add to the list of necessary evils for rapid socio-economic <br>change.<br><br>While much is made of individuals feeling alienated from society,<br>states and governments intervene more regularly with the <br>everyday lives of their citizens more than ever before. In this
<br>sense government intervention and social disconnect are two sides<br>of the same coin. Indeed, Durkheim agreed that too much <br>integration and regulation, as well as too little, can also <br>drive people to suicide.
<br><br>The Japanese government aims to cut suicides by 20% by 2016.<br>It plans to do this by providing extra counselling services for<br>depressives, 'preventive education', stress reduction for the <br>overworked and unemployed, and a crackdown on Internet suicide
<br>notices. While hopefully some of these measures will help cut the<br>current rates it is hard to be optimistic - social problems tend<br>to require organic social responses and solutions more than <br>government targets and regulation. And Japan is probably not so
<br>different from anywhere else in the developed world where Prozac<br>is a household name.<br><br>3. New Social Networks<br><br>The World Health Organization confirms that a rise in suicide <br>deaths is a global trend. In part this may be put down to new
<br>social networks that use suicide as a weapon of protest. Most<br>obviously there are 'suicide bombers' who are so weak in terms<br>of political power that they are forced to create an ideology <br>that allows them to justify giving their own lives for the sake
<br>of their cause. <br><br>In Japan suicide has also become a popular act of resistance. <br>While an increase in bullying has led to an increase in teen<br>suicide with victims driven to despair by their tormentors, there
<br>have also been a number of coordinated pacts formed via Internet<br>communities and blogs. As young people search for ways to escape<br>a system that they find it impossible to identify with, in an age<br>where the stakes in identity are at unprecedented levels, suicide
<br>has started to become a more popular option and, ironically, a <br>way of finding solidarity.<br><br><br>Some hope that online communities may also act as a<br>break on suicides as those who fail to find solace in their
<br>immediate social surroundings find friends, networks and outlets<br>on the Internet. It is my personal opinion however, that although<br>online media may help potential suicides find a limited degree of<br>support, there is no substitution for physical human interaction
<br>that people can only find in the immediate world they inhabit:<br>their family, school, workplace, clubs, or neighbourhood.<br>Thus it is these everyday immediate social structures that <br>potential suicides and those attempting to support them should
<br>focus on. The Internet may be full of people but is arguably a
<br>very lonely place too. The Japanese government would therefore <br>be advised to 'crackdown' on a corporate culture that forces <br>employees to work into the small hours and at weekends rather <br>than Internet suicide blogs.
<br><br>Ultimately, what went through Minister Matsuoka's mind as he<br>prepared to hang himself will remain a mystery. Suicide remains<br>a difficult phenomenon to understand as even Durkheim recognised<br>himself. And so I leave you with his words to close:
<br><br>'Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which <br>expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is <br>involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the <br>social and general causes of the phenomenon.'
<br><br>By Peter Harris<br>Chief Editor, J@pan Inc magazine<br><br>Want to comment? It is now even easier to voice your opinion <br>than ever before! Visit <a href="http://www.japaninc.com/jin418" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
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