NIDDERAU, GERMANY: This is with reference to your editorial of May 31 titled “Death of innocence”.
Although your analysis about self-inflicted deaths makes sense, it fails to include other factors which are the cause of so many suicides in Pakistan. For example, in some other countries the amount of pressure placed on pupils by parents can result in depression. While it may not necessarily result in suicides, it can damage a child’s personality in other ways.
But the situation worldwide is not very different. Today, well over a tenth of the world’s population suffers from depression. The World Health Organisation’s recent World Mental Health Survey Initiative found that more than 120 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and that it is responsible for 850,000 suicides each year.
In my view, this evil circle can be conquered if youngsters are allowed to follow their instincts and not forced to achieve results which their parents expect from them. I know of a school in the UK, which practises this kind of philosophy, allowing its students to skip classes if they do not feel like attending them. The results are startling. Most of those who attended the school turned out to be relatively happy people who respected other viewpoints and did not become violent.
Perhaps, it is better to be happy and tolerant than being ambitious and ending up having depression.
Sharif Lone
Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2012.
