A recent noisy and aggravated conversation on the eleventh
floor of the resort caught the attention of many.
Those looking up from below, including my wife, watched as a
fellow threw himself to his death.
My wife didn’t actually see the fellow climb over the
balcony railing, but she did see the flailing, falling man.
Many tradesmen, mostly younger rather than older working
nearby on the roof of a single story building, saw what happened as their
attention had also been taken by the commotion.
Emergency people were called and the police, in dealing with
what was in fact a suicide, offered the opportunity of counselling to all who
had seen the man fall to his death.
News of the man’s death ricocheted around the community
leaving those who had seen what happened asking “why” and along with that being
emotionally damaged.
The man’s fall from and death at the Maroochydore resort is
a microcosm of a near non-stop daily dilemma in which millions of people from
around the world are trapped.
Many die from direct violence, thousands of lives are
wasting away because of institutional violence and the world is held at ransom
by the military/industrial complex which sees every problem as a nail that
needs to be driven by a hammer.
Those in other parts of the world trapped by that
direct/institutional/military violence that fill news broadcasts everyday are
meant to find comfort in the idea that peace will evolve from overt use of
force. It won’t.
The counselling offered to those who witnessed the
Maroochydore calamity is a great compliment to a police force that has morphed from
being in the early 19th century little more than a protector of the
propertied, profit makers to being a general guardian of society’s wellbeing,
while maintaining law and order.
What we experience here in Australia is entirely absent in
other countries with the devastating complexity of “there is no other way” view
bringing down upon people degradation and violence of extremes that few here
can even imagine.
Those living with, and dying from the application of that
belief have only personal resources to fall back upon for no one is going to be
there offering counselling or other emotional support to deal with whatever
might be threatening them.
Emotional fragility can afflict even the
strongest, but take away the support mechanisms we all take for granted, along
with a lifestyle rich in comforts and even “strong” is a subjective term.
