According to media reports, there are as many as seven or eight suicide cases per day in Taiwan.
Moreover, some parents go a step further and also murder their own innocent, young children before they commit suicide themselves.
Some people tie their children onto their bodies and jump into the sea together. Some first poison their children before taking poison to kill themselves, and some push their children off a high building before leaping to their deaths. These cases have resulted in many tragedies.
Apart from a few young children and callow teenagers, who kill themselves out of ignorance or curiosity by imitating adults, and those who momentarily take some minor matter to heart and step onto the road of no return, behind the vast majority of suicides there are tragic stories that deserve our sympathy and help. First we must understand the reasons behind suicide, and only then can we provide an effective helping hand.
Some youths commit suicide because of heavy pressure from schoolwork or test scores that are less than ideal. Some can't bear the scolding from their parents, and some are tormented by their emotions. The education authorities should complete the education reform program as soon as possible and supervise its implementation in schools to reduce the amount of pressure on students.
They should make every effort to find the potential in every young person. Schools shouldn't merely pay attention to the rate at which their graduates gain admission to other programs at the expense of educating them to become well-rounded people.
Even more importantly, they should pay attention to the interaction between students and teachers, strengthening counseling work and truly solving the problems that students face.
Parents and elders should also do their utmost to communicate frankly with children, consulting them and understanding their inclinations and interests. Students shouldn't be forced to select subjects or majors in which they have no interest.
With regard to making friends between the sexes, parents shouldn't interfere too much. Encourage young people to establish and cultivate normal, healthy relationships.
The great majority of women commit suicide because they are victims of domestic violence, are abandoned by an unfaithful man or have had a love affair end badly.
Hopefully, every level of government can give appropriate protection to abused women on the basis of statutes to prevent domestic violence, and in this way domestic violence can be rooted out. Those who enforce the law should appropriately safeguard the rights and livelihood of abandoned women by demanding that men fulfill their responsibility to support their dependants. Religious figures and social workers should do their utmost to counsel and show concern for these unfortunate families and victimized women to prevent them from taking their own lives.
Among men who commit suicide, apart from a minority who do it because of a relationship or household discord, the vast majority are driven to take their lives because of unemployment, debt or a failed career. The government should earnestly face these reasons for committing suicide and give them serious consideration to seek a solution. They shouldn't waste too much time and energy on ideological wrangling between the political parties but rather devote their full attention to researching and drawing up a plan for the entire nation's overall economic development.
They should also improve cross-Strait relations and promote the integration of different ethnic groups and social stability to establish a good investment environment.
They should also effectively aid the development of small and mid-sized enterprises to provide more employment opportunities, and they should show concern for aiding the unemployed or counseling them through the transition to a different line of work.
They should improve the system by which banks provide loans, giving real care to those people who are desperately in need and prevent them from becoming mere tools to make the rich richer.
Even more importantly, they must strictly ban loanshark operations that employ people who will kill a man without even blinking an eye, as well as the organized crime groups that use violence to collect debts.
When the media reports suicides, they should know to restrain themselves. They shouldn't describe the process or details of a suicide too vividly, so as to avoid emulation by ignorant youths or affecting others who are prone to suicide.
The media should report more about those cases of people who have been on the verge of committing suicide and managed to extricate themselves. Even more importantly, they should publicize and extol those successful cases of people who overcame difficulties of every sort and roused themselves to rebuild their lives.
Schools should earnestly implement "life education," making students understand the value of life, so they will go on to respect, beautify, enrich, enjoy, and continue their lives.
Religious figures should point out the origin and conclusion of life as well as its meaning and value, its sacredness and inviolability, in order to inspire people to respect life, live virtuously and create a "culture of life" to eliminate the decadent, modern "culture of death."
Actually, life is precisely what gives us hope, allowing us to see a ray of light in the darkness of despair and enticing us to break free of our troubles to once again create a bright future for ourselves. If a person loses hope and commits suicide, they extinguish that light and fall into a dark abyss from which there can never be any rescue. All ideals and plans are forever buried and destroyed, and there will never again be a day when one's fortune changes and success arrives.
Once suicide becomes common practice, it will cause the whole society to be shrouded in dark clouds and heavy fog so that people won't be able to find their direction and will lack confidence. Everyone will feel insecure and people won't be able to trust each other, much less be able to cooperate for a common cause. If a nation sinks to this level, enemies won't need to use their weapons. It will yield and surrender of its own accord.
Life is man's most important asset. As long as one has life, the momentary loss of property or a career can be recovered. Temporary damage to one's reputation, failure, and misfortune can all be redressed and reversed. The scars of lost love can be patched up, wounds of the spirit can be healed, an unhappy marriage can be saved and a shattered hometown can be rebuilt.
As long as one has life, disappointment can be turned around, ideals can be realized, health can be recovered and new horizons can open up.
Life is God's greatest gift. Protecting and making use of life appropriately is the key to success.
Destruction of life by committing suicide can't solve one's problems and, moreover, amounts to forfeiting the entire game with no chance to play again.
Paul Shan Kuo-hsi is a Jesuit and Cardinal of the Catholic Church.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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