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Internet Suicide Pacts Surge in Japan
darkmonkeh writes "The number of Japanese who killed themselves in online suicide pacts rose sharply last year, according to the BBC. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and the pacts may appeal to those scared to die alone. These Japanese internet 'suicide clubs' accounted for at least 26 deaths in the last 2 months."
So... 34000 Japanese killed themselves in 2003, and last year less than 100 people committed suicide as part of suicide clubs.
1 in 340, or 0.3 percent of suicides are accounted for by this?
People like to be horrified by the idea, but resources would be far better focused in pretty much any other way than worrying about this.
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Actually more girls attempt to commit suicide than boys in the US, but more girls fail because they tend to eschew more gruesome and reliable methods.
English is easier said than done.
You just pulled that out of your ass, didn't you?
The majority of suicides in Japan are older men, peaking at 71.1 people per 100,000 for men in the 55-59 age range. This is not particularly surprising, considering the pressures on men of that age (higher chance of being made unemployed, older parents to look after, higher rate of divorce, lower chance of promotion, etc.).
Young girls don't even come close; the 15-19 year old female suicide rate is 5.6 per 100,000.
Further statistics available here.
You do the math.
Very well. With a 2005 suicide rate of 91(!) per 100,000 (and the U.S's falling to just over 10, according the WHO), that means that the Japanese suicide rate alone is still over five times the U.S suicide and homicide rates combined. Surely that must be cause for some concern. (Whether one country is "better" than another is not relevant to this topic, just an irrelevant troll you brought up.)
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
ne of the most controversial aspects of World War II history, in relation to the present-day world, is the Rape of Nanking in 1937 when the Japanese army was moving through China and attacked the city of Nanking (sometimes spelled Nanjing).
This all arose as a result of Japan's invasion of Manchuria and its eventual attack on China proper. This is where there are two terms involved as to when WWII actually started. For the U.S. , WWII started on December 7, 1941 with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The war lasted around four years, ending in 1945. However, from the Japanese viewpoint, the war was really fifteen years long and is referred to as "The Fifteen Years War" since some Japanese date the war as starting with the invasion of China, the fight against the U.S. not taking place for over a decade.
There was a lead-up in the public to the war as there is with virtually any war and the society waging it. According to the book The Imperial Screen: Japanese Flm Culture in the Fifteen Years' War 1931-1945, 2003:
"The prelude, lasting several months, featured a montage of 'Chinese-inspired incidents' reported by the newspapers in headlings that quivered with indignation. The pattern was to last throughout the thirties, each incident being presented as 'unprovoked' and therefore inexplicable in terms of rational, historical causes."
Censorship, both government inspired and individual-inspired, became important both in film and in newspaper reporting. Even books were used to fan the feelings in Japan. For example, in 1938 there were 38 books attacking the Jewish presence in Japan which was quite interesting since, for all practical purposes, there were no Jews in Japan.
Even the language became controlled which a reaction set in to the use of foreign words in the language and English was labeled "the enemy language." The people were being put into a mind-set of war by their government and by the media. This becomes important when considering why some people consider that the Japanese have not sufficiently apologized for the Nanking massacre and other actions. In effect, the population was being given the mind-set that it was the Japanese who were being attacked and provoked by the Chinese, not the other way around, and why apologize for something you didn't actually start?
"During the China incident, the Japanese popular imagination tended to conceive of the Chinese as hostile, faceless masses, as columns of refugees stolidly trudging roads to nowhere, or as clumps of lifeless flesh littering trenches and riverbeds."
If you dehumanize a group of people then it becomes easier to justify anything that you end up doing to them.
According to the book Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society (2005):
"It is widely accepted among scholars that after the sudden collapse of the Chinese defense of Nanjing in December, 1937, rampaging Japanese soldiers executed thousands of prisoners of war, civilians as well as men suspected of being soldiers, and burned the homes of Chinese. According to some, as many as 300,000 were killed in Nanjing; Japanese accounts vary from several thousand to 200,000 dead, while some Japanese politicians deny that the massacre ever took place. The Tokyo War Crimes tribunal concluded that more than 140,000 people were killed...making it one of the worst atrocities committed by Japanese forces before and during World War II."
There are some Japanese, like the paragraph above notes, that simply deny that the massacre ever took place, much as some people are denying that the Holocaust ever took place, despite all the spoken, written and photographic evidence to the contrary. Even though over sixty years have passed since the events the feelings are still quite strong in China over what happened. That hurts Chinese-Japanese political relationships. Another thing that is a sticking point is when Japanese politicians visit war memorials to Japanese dead.
This all stems from the original invasion of China by Japan whe
Pink Floyd 1983 Post war dream lyrics "and it can't be much fun for them beneath the rising sun with all their kids committing suicide"
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
According to TFA, 91 is the number of suicide pact-related deaths in Japan in 2005. That is, 91 out of the entire population of Japan (around 130 million) died via suicide pacts (which encompass only a portion of total suicides). The 2003 data quote in the article gives a more realistic rate of ~27 per 100,000 and the WHO lists the 2002 average rate at 24 per 100,000.