Crisis to Suicide: How Many Have to Die Before We Kill the False Religion of Austerity? The rate of people taking their own lives is soaring in Europe at such a clip that the trend has given birth to a new media term: "Suicide by economic crisis."
If suicide is a measure of a society’s health, the Eurozone is getting sicker by the minute. The rate of people taking their own lives is soaring in Europe at such a clip that the trend has given birth to a new media term: "Suicide by economic crisis." How has it come to pass that people would rather die than be subjected to the pain imposed by global elites?
A Ghastly EpidemicBefore the 2007 global financial meltdown, suicides in European Union countries had fallen sharply among people under age 65. Now, thanks to misguided economic programs and the sheer greed of financiers, that trend has abruptly reversed.
The new wave of suicides tracks closely with rising unemployment. In Ireland, churches offer seminars on themes like "Suicide in Recessionary Times." Ever more draconian austerity measures that strip income and social aid act as a toxin, leaving the population so stricken that for some, dying seems the only relief.
In Greece, taking one’s own life is so deeply stigmatized by the Greek Orthodox Church that bodies are rejected for burial. Not surprisingly, suicide rates in the country have been historically low. Yet in 2011, when the joblessness rate rose from 13.9 percent to 20.9 percent, calls to a major suicide hotline more than doubled, with 5,500 people talking of ending their lives. Hotline workers report a variety of underlying issues cited by callers, but job losses and deep cuts in salary are prominent. Callers who often reveal no previous history of mental illness testify to life changes too devastating to cope with. A Greek Ministry of Health study found that the suicide rate in the first half of 2011 was 40 percent higher than the year before.
Greece now has the most rapidly increasing rate of suicide in Europe. Shocking headlines tell gruesome tales of the bankrupt and the jobless, like Apostolos Polyzonis, a 55-year-old Greek businessman who set his body ablaze outside the bank that refused to see him last September. He was eventually saved by police and shared his desperation:
"I don't feel proud about it, no way, but all these situations made me lose my self-respect and feel like I've been deprived of my rights because being able to pay your taxes is not only an obligation but also a right. People should have the possibility to pay their taxes, to pay their obligations to others, to offer the basic goods to their family so they can feel that they live with self-respect and dignity.”
More recently, the world shuddered at news of retired Greek pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, who shot himself in central Athens near the Greek Parliament, leaving behind a note stating that the austerity measures that yanked his pension left him facing a life of rummaging through garbage pails and burdening his children.
Squeezed dry by an economic crisis they did not cause, the people of Europe are left without any means to help themselves – and to many, death seems the only alternative.
The Religion of AusterityAcross Europe, the economic philosophy of austerity has created a familiar cycle: Government spending cuts come on the heels of skyrocketing interest hikes on the debts of member countries. This means that money secured from slashes to pensions, education and medical services is funneled into higher interest payments. Meanwhile, disappearing health care and mental health services leave little room for people to rebound from economic shocks. Government officials are viewed as the cynical instruments of debt collectors and bail-out countries like Germany. The death-spiral takes over.
If you pay attention to language, you begin to notice that those who preach austerity – mainly international bankers along with the politicians they have bought and the media who serve them – often use a specifically religious language to justify the pain they are causing. Words like “cleansing,” “virtue” and “sacrifice” are common.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/155012/ ... austerity/
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