Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 09, 2014 Exchange Rates, Freddie Kissoon
Suicide made the news in a big way in this country last week. First, a study done on Guyanese was released by a graduate student in Holland listing the main causes. Then the World Health Organization named Guyana as having the highest suicide rate in the world.
The latter revelation will cause more suicides to occur because it adds to the mental torture that young people have to endure about Guyana. Guyana is really a throwback to very primitive, cruel times, a country where civilization is tottering. In the entire world, this country may have the highest rate of unsolved homicides, incest accused, road fatalities, and now suicide occurrences.
On the other side of the coin, Guyana may have the lowest rate of prosecution of corrupt officials, drug barons, money launderers. We must not and cannot fail to mention, poor Guyana has the dirtiest cities and towns for any country in the world.
I would have preferred to see a study of suicide done by a Guyanese academic living and researching in Guyana. The advantages to the research are tremendous comparatively speaking. And I suspect, the findings may not be as conclusive as they should be
The Dutch researcher found mainly sociological reasons for the high rate of suicide. But these categories could mask an underlying cause – the political pessimism that has dogged this country since Independence. A statistical analysis would reveal two salient characteristics of Guyanese suicidal acts – young people and more prevalence among rural East Indians.
The pessimism young people feel about not achieving self-worth is present even in rich industrialized societies, much less, in a poor, disheveled, horribly deprived land as Guyana is. In large, highly populated, industrial countries like the US, except for entertainers and sports icons, young people feel that they cannot achieve national identity. Impersonalized relations make matters worse. In such situations, suicidal tendencies flourish.
As China gets more industrialized, with its enormous landscape and gargantuan population, it is going to experience the same social anomie the US does with the exception of gun crimes.
In Guyana, under the Burnham autocracy, pessimism among the young was contained because there was a huge migration valve.
Guyanese desperation was dissolved through illegal and illegal migration to the Caribbean the US and Canada. Getting a US or Canadian visa today is virtually impossible for any young person in Guyana who has no substantial wealth.
The embassies asked you to show proof of assets. So the valve since 2002 has been sealed. The desperation of the young has increased at a supersonic rate.
What is driving suicidal inclinations is the uncontrollable angst among the young. They look at the pictures of the world on the net, they use social media and they see a world to which they feel Guyana should belong.
But they have to face the reality that not in their lifetime will Guyana become even semi-modern much less like what they in other countries.
Take UG and new drivers. There have been many suicides among UG students the past ten years.
Students feel that they cannot cope at a university that offers absolutely nothing and is absolutely bare. But they are expected to perform like students at any other resourceful university. The result is mental breakdown and suicide.
I have seen this madness several times at UG. In relation to driving, young Guyanese especially females, cannot cope with the stress of no traffic signals, no street lights, and ruthless traffic cops. When they see civilized driving and civilized facilities in other countries and the brutal fact that they cannot migrate to those lands, then, desperation sets in.
Young Guyanese and those entering their forties live a pessimistic life because for them Guyana has gone nowhere and is going nowhere. There is no way you can make a young Guyanese happy and get them to stay here when they see the rubbish and filth that have overran this country, mind you, not Georgetown but Guyana. The East Indian youth has an added disadvantage.
Unlike urban African kids, the parents and Hindu and Muslim leaders of rural Indians promised them a paradise after their hero and his party came to power in 1992. But it turned out to be a nightmare.
The PPP that the Indian folks so idolized has become a monster in their eyes. The rural young Indian sees a Guyana that offers him nothing and mental anxiety is what he lives with.
The visa valve is closed off so life becomes too burdensome to bear. Statistics show that Indians have migrated in larger numbers between 2000 and 2013 than at any time after 1980. Guyana is indeed a tragedy.
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