At
UN, Suicide Bombers Called Sane, High Vodka Prices Praised, Assisted
Suicide Assessed
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, September 10 -- Suicide bombers "do not suffer from
mental health problems," the UN's speaker on World Suicide
Prevention Day told the Press on September 10. Brian Mishara,
President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention,
accompanied by Werner Obermeyer of the UN's World Health
Organization, painted a picture of suicide as a preventable act of a
traumatized mind.
Inner City Press asked not only about suicide
bombers but also about assisted suicide. Mishara said that studies
of "terrorists who die in their acts" show that they do not
have mental problems. Video here,
from Minute 46:05. "They are screened out," he said,
because they are "noticeable."
Some
would say
that a person willing to blow themselves to pieces to kill others may
well be abnormal mentally. While Mishara called it "an act of
war, an act of violence" in which "death is secondary,"
he did not take into account the use or misuse of religious teachings
to inspire suicide bombing. In these, death is hardly secondary.
On
assisted
suicide, Mishara said it is legal in Washington and Oregon, where he
said there are n barely over 100 requests. Of these, he said, 43% of
those who get two doctors to approve their use of life ending drugs
don't in fact take the drugs. Could it be that getting the approval
is somehow empowering?
Mishara at UN, one year ago: sanity of suicide
bombers not shown
Mishara
said that when
Russia raised the price of alcohol and limited the hours it could be
sold, suicide rates fell, and that they rose again while protests led
to low prices for vodka being restored. The story seemed either to
favor a regressive tax on alcohol, or perhaps its prohibition.
Meanwhile, Mishara said that having suicide be illegal, even
technically, makes suicide more likely because it more difficult to
counsel people. As such he seemed to at once favor banning alcohol
and legalizing suicide.
The
briefing took
place at UN headquarters, where in recent years a security
officer
committed suicide in the Ex-Press Lounge, and where a staff member
or contractor of the World Health Organization-run
International Computing Center is said to have jumped to
her death on a lawn by the East River. Neither incident was
mentioned, nor the more recent mysterious death of
a UN employee in
Liberia who was under house arrest while being investigated for child
sexual abuse. As we reported yesterday, his body was flown to
Accra,Ghana for an autopsy, the results of which have not yet been
released.
Footnote:
while Mishara appeared to criticize the press for reporting on
suicide in ways he disapproves of, many in the UN press corps
remarked after his monotone briefing that he seemed depressed
himself, including as he ate lunch afterwards. At the risk of a bad
joke, all we can say is: get help! And that's not a joke. Suicide
prevention hotlines are everywhere, including online,
and should be
used.
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