Peace: What is it really?

By Nhlangano Nyembe

I was chatting with a colleague of mine recently about the World Cup in South Africa and inevitably, the subject of the high crime rates in South Africa surfaced. He mentioned how he had read media reports about how dangerous South Africa is. I went on to agree with the reports however also stating how exaggerated media reports tended to be and that although the crime rates were relatively high, South Africa is not a war zone and is a perfectly liveable country with its problems like any other. He then went on to say that he had read somewhere that in South Africa, 18 000 people are murdered every year but in Japan, 30 000 people commit suicide every year, so which is the more dangerous country? I found this very interesting because it was a comment about structural violence.

His figure of 18 000 is not correct. It is actually around 25 000, but that is still less than the number of suicides committed in Japan annually. In a recent article in the Mail & Guardian, some US based “think-tank” called the Institute for Economics and Peace compiled a “Global Peace Index” in which they rank countries based on some 23 criterion “including violent crime, political stability and military expenditure, correlated against a number of social development indicators such as corruption, freedom of the press, respect for human rights and school enrolment rates”, as to how peaceful they are to live in. In this study of 146 countries, South Africa is ranked 121st while Japan is placed in an appealing 3rd place. Remarkably, America is placed 85th, a whopping 36 places ahead of South Africa.

What is telling about this study is that it does not take into account structural forms of violence. This view argues that violence is not necessarily physical in nature, it can come in other forms as well. Violence can be structural. That is to say it can be perpetrated by social structures such as government, religions, culture etc. on citizens. If a government does not supply adequate healthcare to its population resulting in the premature deaths of citizens, that is structural violence. If religion imposes rigid rules on its members such as the prohibition by Jehovah’s Witnesses of accepting organ donations, that is structural violence.

While Japan may be a physically safe country, the high suicide rates say something about the structural violence that is prevalent in that society. In Japan, the culture is so rigid and expectations so high, that often, the only way of coping is to commit suicide. The Japanese are highly secretive people who don’t air their dirty laundry even to their friends, never mind the general public. Problems are dealt with by oneself or within the family. Psychiatric or psychological help is almost non-existent. There is a word that is commonly used when one is facing trials and tribulations, “ganbarre”. It literally means “fight”, but can be said to mean good luck or persevere (on your own, because no one’s going to come to your aid). To add to that, suicide is often seen as honourable in this country. It’s not a taboo as in many other cultures.

Another thing which could be said to be a contributing factor to these high suicide rates in Japan is the lack of down-time. Everybody is always busy in Japan. They don’t have time for anything other than work, even their own families. I work in a high school and the teachers here arrive at 7h30 at work and leave at 20h00, everyday. This includes weekends although they work fewer hours then. The students come to school everyday, including weekends as well. Their entire lives are based around the school. If you don’t have any time to yourself and your family, how are you ever going to deal with problems when the inevitably arise? The family structure in Japan, which is rigidly imposed but is hardly what it appears to be, contributes immensely to such a situation. In Japan, with the exclusion of housewives, retirees and college/university students, everyone can be said to be an indentured labourer (even though they may be well paid, it still smacks of slavery). Your entire allegiance is to company, school or country (and in some cases, they can all be one and the same thing). This also results in a high rate of deaths from over-work.

Appearances are everything to the Japanese. While everything seems hunky-dory on the surface, there are festering psychological wounds underneath all of these seemingly perfect lives. That is why they are so obsessed with brand names. It is one of few ways they can express their individuality as human beings in a society where conformity is everything. While a collective society has its advantages, such as those which the Japanese have been able to exploit to their fullest by becoming the world’s number 2 economy in only 50 years, there are disadvantages. The Japanese are highly emotionally expressive people of remorse, shame, disappointment and sadness. But these emotions are expressed physically in public, in tears, but that’s where this expression ends. Beyond that, to actually be able open-up to someone about those feelings and how they can be resolved, that is rarely ever done. Like a sealed glass bottle in a freezer, when emotions are kept bottled-up, with no outlet for release, the consequences can be explosive. If people are not able to express their individuality beyond the latest fashions which they have purchased and material goods they have amassed, then they will never be able to express their feelings, which are about as individual as individuality gets.

No matter how prosperous and safe a country can be, in the end we are all human and we all have problems which need to be dealt with without ending one’s life. This analysis, if you can call it that, is by no means limited to Japan. Many other countries are afflicted by this scourge. The Scandinavian countries come to mind as an example of societies with high levels of prosperity and peace but also hidden structural violence. If such a societal structure leads to such high numbers of self-inflicted fatalities, then the structural violence in such a society is real and is something which needs to be addressed.

This leads back to the question posed in the title to this piece: “Peace: What is it really?” As my colleague pointed out, can countries with such high suicide rates, not withstanding their lack of physical violence, crime or war, be really said to be “peaceful”?

I am from Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa and am currently based in Japan teaching English. My formal training is in International Relations and Politics, which degree I received at Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa. I am 34 years old and have a keen interest in international politics, sociology and general philosophical discourse. I have a particular affinity for conspiracy theories and therefore would like to think that I am a conspiracy theorist or conspirologist. I don’t take anything at face value, I question everything and everyone’s motives. I take my partying very seriously and enjoy my drinks (a lot).

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