As he climbed the step ladder and put his head through the noose that he had made himself, it is hard to imagine Farm Minister  Toshikatsu Matsuoka's state of mind at the start of this month when he hung himself from a door in his own living room.  Apparently, Matsuoka  saw suicide as the only way of escaping the impending storm of investigations into his financial dealings. Reports say that he left 8 suicide notes full of apologies and  remorse.

The suicide of Matsuoka has in turn triggered a renewed focus on the phenomenon of suicide in Japan more generally. Almost every newspaper in Japan has in the last week rolled out alarming statistics on the suicide rate, the second highest in the  developed world with over 30,000 Japanese taking their own lives every year.  (e.g. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070608TDY01001.htm )

So what is behind this high suicide rate and can the government do anything about it?  There are essentially three main factors affecting Japan's suicide rates, which I want to  discuss below.

1. The 'Japanese Culture' Factor

Japan is actually famous for suicide: seppuku, kamikaze,  hari-kari are all words familiar to Western readers on Japan. There are indeed ritual methods of suicide in Japan and often, Japanese who take their own lives are doing so essentially on a point of honor—Minister Matsuoka included. With a Confucian  heritage that stresses the group over the individual, there is a case to be made that this bias makes Japanese more predisposed  towards suicide i.e. people are more likely to see 'beneficial'  aspects for other people in their own exit from life. 

Other commentators point to a lack of religious taboos concerning suicide in Japan while some have claimed that  Japanese may even see suicide as a 'respectable' death;  nationalist writer Yukio Mishima probably saw his own  suicidal end as a noble 'Japanese' act. Elsewhere Japanese suicides have been linked to its  alcohol-drinking culture. For example, a study published in the  British Journal of Psychiatry (no.188, 2006) found that 'heavy  drinkers among middle-aged Japanese men....constitute the  majority of Japanese suicide victims.'

All the above may well help to explain the high suicide rate here but it would be unwise to single out one and some of the  arguments get carried away with Japanese 'difference'. After all, both Islam and Christianity have had their martyrs and putting  others before oneself is not confined entirely to East Asia.  Perhaps however, it is fair to say that Japanese culture, because  of the importance of reputation and peer perception, likes to keep its skeletons in the closet. Therefore, rather than suicide being a heroic way out, it is a convenient way of avoiding spilling the beans. In an old J@pan Inc (no. 67, 2006) Shinichi  Ishizaki who runs NPOSSC, a helpline for distressed Japanese  students, affirmed, 'Fear of revealing one's inner feelings is a  major problem in Japan that causes children to either become violent or irrationally angry.'

2. Globalisation: Socio-economic Change

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim who wrote an entire book on the subject of suicide argued, 'It is too great comfort that turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh.' For Durkheim it was much more the lack of social regulation and social integration that caused people to take their own lives than any physical hardship endured as a result of economic poverty. Thus the breakdown in social networks produced by the forces of industrialization, in tandem with its Protestant ideology and emphasis on the individual, were behind the rise of suicide figures in the West.

It is such thinking that actually seems to lie behind most of the Japanese media's explanations of the issue. While the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-8 saw a growth in suicides, the consequences of economic prosperity are often perceived as the root causes of social ills i.e. the growth of urbanization, more mobility in social organization, freedom to divorce or not get married, materialism, consumer culture and so on.

These have broken down traditional community structures globally  and are routinely blamed for higher rates not only of suicide but also of delinquency, violence, crime and bullying. (The latter in particular is also seen as a growing problem in Japan.) But can the government really do anything?

Durkheim was most interested in 'anomic suicide' - suicide caused by a breakdown of traditional social norms. If this is the cause of most suicides then more suicide may just be something we have
to add to the list of necessary evils for rapid socio-economic change.

While much is made of individuals feeling alienated from society, states and governments intervene more regularly with the everyday lives of their citizens more than ever before. In this sense government intervention and social disconnect are two sides of the same coin. Indeed, Durkheim agreed that too much integration and regulation, as well as too little, can also drive people to suicide.

The Japanese government aims to cut suicides by 20% by 2016. It plans to do this by providing extra counseling services for depressives, 'preventive education', stress reduction for the
overworked and unemployed, and a crackdown on Internet suicide notices. While hopefully some of these measures will help cut the current rates it is hard to be optimistic - social problems tend
to require organic social responses and solutions more than government targets and regulation. And Japan is probably not so different from anywhere else in the developed world where Prozac
is a household name.

3. New Social Networks

The World Health Organization confirms that a rise in suicide deaths is a global trend. In part this may be put down to new social networks that use suicide as a weapon of protest. Most obviously there are 'suicide bombers' who are so weak in terms of political power that they are forced to create an ideology that allows them to justify giving their own lives for the sake of their cause. 

In Japan suicide has also become a popular act of resistance. While an increase in bullying has led to an increase in teensuicide with victims driven to despair by their tormentors, there have also been a number of coordinated pacts formed via Internet communities and blogs. As young people search for ways to escape a system that they find it impossible to identify with, in an age where the stakes in identity are at unprecedented levels, suicide has started to become a more popular option and, ironically, a way of finding solidarity.

Some hope that online communities may also act as a break on suicides as those who fail to find solace in their immediate social surroundings find friends, networks and outlets on the Internet. It is my personal opinion however, that although online media may help potential suicides find a limited degree of support, there is no substitution for physical human interaction that people can only find in the immediate world they inhabit: their family, school, workplace, clubs, or neighbourhood.

Thus it is these everyday immediate social structures that  potential suicides and those attempting to support them should  focus on. The Internet may be full of people but is arguably a  very lonely place too. The Japanese government would therefore be advised to 'crackdown' on a corporate culture that forces employees to work into the small hours and at weekends rather than Internet suicide blogs.

Ultimately, what went through Minister Matsuoka's mind as he prepared to hang himself will remain a mystery. Suicide remains a difficult phenomenon to understand as even Durkheim recognised
himself. And so I leave you with his words to close:  'Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.'