Making sense of suicides

Last week social media was replete with the tragic news of yet another suicide in Hunza. A school-going bright young girl committed suicide under the social pressure of not having the adequate means to pursue quality education.

We were told this was the cause of the suicide. However, there are deep-rooted issues we must ponder upon rather than relying on a simplistic answer to this social pathology.

Suicide rates have increased exponentially over the years in Hunza – one of the most educated parts of Pakistan. One wonders what has gone wrong. Wasn’t education, as we were told, the solution to all social ills? We were told that in this era of globalisation societies which are quick to adapt to rapid changes have a better chance to succeed than traditional societies. We have also seen a surge of suicides in Ghizar district of Gilgit-Baltistan, also considered one of the most educated areas in the country.

This does not mean that suicides are exclusive to these societies due to the failure of a particular institution, but it is perplexing to see an increasing trend of suicides among the young, girls in particular. In Pakistan, suicides are under-reported because they are considered a sin, and the best way to avoid social stigma is to hide such cases. Recent studies attribute poverty, unemployment, social sense of underachievement, lack of early life counselling and psychosomatic traumas as key factors of suicides. There is no elaborate analysis of the socio-political orders in transition, and most of the studies stop short of providing a convincing sociological inquiry into the phenomenon of suicide.

The Hunza and Ghizar districts have a strong network of educational and social development institutions which are believed to be the forerunners of the transition of these societies into modern life. Concomitant with this transitional process, these societies have been able to create strong social movements, opposing institutional responses in a situation of social crises. The by-products of rationalising a belief system and cultural practices have emerged in the form of cultural groups countering the ethos of modernisation. However, all such movements contain elements of modernity within their own meta-narrative of culture and belief systems. These newly emerging movements do not oppose modernity but want it to be organic and rooted in the local cultural and political milieu.

Amidst a growing middle-class of development professionals, there is a political movement of educated and unemployed youth challenging the institutional discourse of development. There is a visible sense of divide between political groups and the inert professional class. If one has to give credence to messages on social media, most of the young people can be seen expressing serious dissatisfaction with the role of modern social development institutions, the failure of transition and the inability of the leadership to solve increasing conflicts and social disillusionment with the mantra of change.

When the meaning of social existence is reduced to cut-throat competition, life becomes too mechanical for creative minds. Creativity gives birth to art, poetry and music and is embedded in genuine human expression and collective experience. When societies breed disconnected individuals pursuing divergent ideals, the fabric of social existence starts to come apart. This fraying of the social fabric is a painful process in that generations of rapid transition have to pay a huge price.

Historically, the process of social and political transformation has not spared anyone in the age of globalisation. Societies that have no intellectual, political and economic contribution in the formation of the new social order are doomed to face abrupt and uncanny changes. These changes are so inexplicable to ordinary minds that at times it becomes impossible to maintain a stable social standing.

There is a myth that societies that adapt to abrupt changes are better than traditional societies which resist change. Adaptability is of course a virtue of a balanced society but it must not be at the cost of losing social meaning. People use the terms ‘adaptability’ and ‘imitation’ interchangeably in their daily discussions. The former is a conscious effort to keep pace with the changes without losing the local meaning. Adaptability is a process of reinterpretation, repositioning and continued reflection to strike a balance with the internal life and inevitable external influences.

Imitation, on the contrary, is about blindly following without any critical reflection. Imitation is disastrous because it creates social conflict, a psychological sense of inferiority and also encourages pompousness and superiority over societies which resist imitation. These societies become the hub of contradictions, meaninglessness and hypocritical, moral and ethical standing. They start to implode, gradually erode from within. Hence, these societies get embroiled in insurmountable social pathologies.

It happens when the superstructure of inorganic institutions is imposed on societies in which the value system contradicts the socio-cultural life of people. These new institutions with their economic, political and religious supremacy over the traditional and informal social organisation tend to produce a tiny class of role models for the young to imitate. These role models are then elevated as being the source of individual and collective aspirations of an emerging youth. However, modernisation is inevitable and is a historical necessity, but it must not be seen as a mechanical process to devour the flesh and bone of a traditional society.

Imitation has been the hallmark of post-colonial and peripheral societies in an era of unilateral globalisation of cultures, productive processes and political ideologies. We have seen this happen in Hunza during the last three decades with a number of young people exposed to global society. With the introduction of modern institutions of local development, education and cultural revival Hunza is at the crossroads of transition into a new social order. This has, however, failed to produce the desirable impact of the transition because the very concept of change undertaken by these development institutions is mechanical and is devoid of creativity and social imagination.

The processes of transition must be contextualised in accordance with social reality, which is fluid and not formulaic. There cannot be a singular narrative of cultural, economic and social change because it is experiential, behavioural and contextual. Ironically, socio-political and economic transformations take place outside the organised institutional structures in historical times. Institutions may give impetus to transformation if they are organically linked to the political, cultural and economic contexts of societies in transition.

There has emerged a formidable generation of young people in Hunza who have reasserted the traditional cultural identity through music, art and painting. This emerging generation of artistes, poets, musicians and cultural enthusiasts operate outside the ambit of modern institutions of social development. They are critical of imitating the exotic cultures introduced through NGOs and faith based institutions.

One can imagine how difficult it would be to endure this sudden loss of social meaning. Suicide is the result of an extreme sense of disillusionment, maladjustment, cognitive surrender and failure to make sense of an emerging world shaped by forces external to one’s control. This is an extreme sense of alienation and those who decide to commit suicide internalise the contradictions of a fraying social order. If suicide is a choice under duress it must not be exercised by the bright and the young, but by those who failed to build an inclusive society.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com