The Great Depression

A recent wave of suicides has left the country scratching its collective head. Jamaicans, historically among the least suicide-prone people on earth, have never needed to confront this issue with any great vigour - until now. What's going on? Why's this happening? Why now?

Two years ago, quite a bit of head-scratching also took place. The Happy Planet Index, published by Britain's New Economic Foundation, ranked Jamaica as the third-happiest country in the world. Last year, the same study ranked us as the 28th happiest.

A brilliant cartoon poked fun at these improbable designations. The cartoon depicts a squalid Jamaica - broken NWC pipelines, garbage-strewn streets, and an old newspaper declaring: 'One million squatters'. At the centre of the image sits a ramshackle hut with stolen cable fuelling a tiny TV. Lying in bed is a noticeably pleased couple - ostensibly on the downside of a wicked 'sort-out' (as one popular - and now former - radio personality might put it). All that's missing to fully explain the designation are two empty Guinness bottles and a half-smoked spliff.

Jamaicans have endured the types of economic stress that would drive weaker people to suicide. Indeed, during the height of America's worst economic drought - the Great Depression - suicide rates did, in fact, skyrocket. In a four-year period during the Depression, the suicide rate exploded by 25 per cent.

Our recent economic situation is, indeed, as dire as America's Great Depression. While the rest of the world begins to see the light at the end of the dark, desperate tunnel that was the global economic crisis, Jamaica has continued to languish, experiencing 14 consecutive quarters of economic decline. The jobless rate continues to increase - reaching epidemic levels among the nation's youth. Those who are fortunate enough to have jobs face stagnating wages - an exceedingly difficult pill to swallow given rapidly rising inflation.

Frightening Social Conditions

As if the economic situation wasn't depressing enough, our social condition is downright frightening. Jamaicans, particularly urban youth, continue to be slaughtered daily like animals. Low levels of employment and education among youth, in particular, have created a generation of unskilled idlers with little direction in their days or lives. Fatherless households have become the norm - the standard home is, in large part, captained by a mother who herself has barely stopped playing with dollies.

Jamaica faces a mental-health crisis, but little has been done to transform a culture that stigmatises those afflicted by serious mental issues. Even outward demonstration of stress - particularly among men - is frowned upon as feeble and pathetic ('bad man don't cry').

Of late, not even our beloved politics has proven a worthy opiate for the populace. The major parties present absolutely no distinguishing ideologies upon which to stake our hopes. In the eyes of most Jamaicans, the PNP and JLP have simply become two sides of the same worthless, corrupted coin. So singular and self-interested their purpose - an all-out struggle for power simply for the sake of wielding it while enriching themselves and their cronies - that this newspaper has aptly dubbed them 'the gangs of Gordon House'.

The real question, then, isn't, "Why are we experiencing all these suicides?" The question is: "Why has it taken so long?" The answer lies in the truth buried within the aforementioned cartoon. We are a society infatuated with sex, drugs (ganja), and rock 'n' roll (dancehall). This great triumvirate has long served as our escape from the harsh realities of Jamaican life. It is what makes us - if not the third-happiest country on earth - certainly the third coolest. 'Jamaica nice' - especially if you're a 14-year-old stumbling, drunk and high, around a party; or a married man with a multitude of female company from which to choose. It is within this 'niceness' that we've taken refuge from reality.

Rapper Kanye West put it best: "Everything I'm not, made me everything I am." All that we aren't as a nation - all our flaws and shortcomings - distinguishes us. We are laid-back; fun-loving; easy-going; calm; cool. 'Jamaica, no problem' - except, of course, homicides, road fatalities, broken homes, tattered economy, and now, introducing - suicides. Like Kanye also rapped: "It all falls down." The fantasy can only last so long before it awakens to the cruel reality and can take it no longer.

Din Duggan is an attorney who now works as a consultant with a global legal search firm. Email him at columns@gleanerjm.com or dinduggan@gmail.com, or follow him at facebook.com/dinduggan and twitter.com/YoungDuggan.