Thoughts on suicide, hara-kiri

All is well at the Munda wa Chitedze Farm and we are suffering very peacefully in these real hard times.

Yesterday, we gathered by the fish ponds reminiscing about 9/11, yes the day terrorists shook the very walls of American symbols of economic and military prowess. Having hijacked planes, the terrorists, on a suicide mission hit the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Dear Diary, as we were talking about this suicide mission, our attention as drawn to a story of this other teacher. The story goes that he had attempted suicide twice, but on the third attempt he did it, leaving behind three wives and eight children.

The story is told that the man was so much into playing aviator: Flying a plane without going to a aviation school!

While we were at it, another woman told us the story of this other man from the Shire valley, who had taken his life because his parents were rebuking him for impregnating three women.

The other day, a boy aged 10, who lived with his parents in the vicinity of the Munda wa Chitedze Farm also killed himself because his father did not want to buy him a new pair of gwaladi—plastic clogs!

You see, Dear Diary, suicide is all around us. As national police deputy spokesperson Harry Namwaza a day before the commemoration of the international day against suicide, between January and June this year, 281 cases were recorded, against 220 last year during the same period.

Of these, 246 were men. Worrisome.

It is a foregone factor that culturally men believe to be strong and they scarcely share their problems with others.

Dear Diary, I hold this to be so true. Someone close to me, as I was still in the hustle and bustle of your city took his own life. A day or so before, we were dancing at a wedding and he never seemed to have any problem that would lead him to such an act.

I agree with those who are advocating for the decriminalisation of attempted suicide. Those who attempt suicide need deep counselling, not incarceration. They need moral and psycho-social support not a jail term.

While we are talking about psycho-social support, or the lack of it, one wonders how accessible are these services to the man on the street? It goes without saying that pycho-social support I ultimately expensive in this country and it is scarcely available for those who need it the most.

With the hard economic times, it is very easy for some to have mental health issues that eventually lead them to commit suicide.

The discrimination that comes with suicide is just too much and we at the Munda wa Chitedze Farm believe the umbilical cord must be cut.

Dear Diary, why should members of the clergy who should preach love deny to conduct prayers for those who commit suicide? You see, they hide behind the façade that suicide is an unpardonable sin, since those who do so have no time to repent.

For all that, in some cultures, suicide has ever been seen as a heroic act. In Japan, the samurai would go through the ritualistic hara-kiri, where they ran over a sword to their death to avoid the dishonour of being executed.

Dear Diary, it is this kind of heroic thought on suicide that led Marcus Brutus to commit suicide than see Julius Caesar capturing him. Even Caius Cassius felt committing suicide brought him freedom. Remember, Adolf shot his family before shooting himself in the bunker when it became so evident that he had lost all the battles and the war.

Dear Diary, let me not bore you with suicidal thoughts and hara-kiri.