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All the lonely people
There is an increasing number of teenage suicides happening in the Bridgend area of Glamorgan in Wales. Although teenage suicide is a known phenomenon, this series of seventeen has happened in the last 13 months, and many of the young people knew each other, although police said there was no link between the number of suicides in the area, and no suggestion of a pact, saying they 'were all young people with big issues'. Last week, two cousins, aged 15 and 20, both from Bridgend, died within two days of each other. An interesting factor, over and above the well-known knock on effect from events of this kind; hearing of a suicide, especially if it is someone you know, for those verging on a suicidal state, it can tip them over. The police also said: 'Young people tell us that the media coverage is starting to contribute to those pressures.' Latest statistics available from the Office for National Statistics show that there were only three suicides between 15 and 30 in 2004-2005 in the area, and three in 2006. All were men. The seventeen have been both males and females and although the police deny there has been an 'internet suicide pact', I suspect the internet does play a part. A recent development on Myspace has been memorial pages for people who have died, where all their friends, both in real life and on Myspace, leave messages, trinkets, poems, and other mawkishly sentimental stuff. I guess it helps those genuinely grieving to express themselves no matter how incoherently or poetically, and get over it. But it produces a monument, an everlasting page which will be forever that young person, with more messages of love than they could have dreamed of in life. And that, to a potential suicide, is a potent attraction. These young people don't have to have known each other. Just the fact that there have been so many is almost an attraction in itself, joining something this big. That's why the police are determindly talking it down, as the media repeatedly, and unthinkingly, talk it up. And each one adds to the sensation of a story they can't leave alone. As to why young people, just starting out on the amazing adventure which is life, should end it before it began properly, should cause grief to those who created them and those who love them, is another matter. Is it the hopelessness of facing a bleak future unable to afford to buy even a meagre little house, for many unable to get a job in the land bereft of its once major employer, the mines. The young often have nowhere to go but away, and that's not much better either. And throughout their lives they have heard about climate change, pollution, species extinction, ozone holes and environmental devastation, as well as being entertained by violence and the ever present wars that still rage around the planet, breaking out like wildfires, which have also been breaking out with increased regularity. Perhaps they have little hope because there is no hope. Perhaps they have absorbed this in school and in the papers and on TV, as if through their skins by osmosis. Perhaps the nihilism of some young is a reflection of the nihilism that is all society has to offer them. Very soon now I expect someone to be offering ready-made memorial websites, off the peg, something tasteless and gothic to suit the teens. There'll be money in it for someone... no matter what happens, it's business as usual.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7252732.stm
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
Fool on the Hill
A blog about the state of the world
www.oneworldnet.co.uk/blog/index.php
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