Suicide and Speaking English
Over a leisurely pizza with a fellow volunteer on mild day during a brownout in a medium sized city on a small island in the Philippines, I contemplated a paradox.
My companion had recently pulled out her handy iPod--pimped out with news update capability. She had shown me a single, bleak statistic: for the 2nd year in a row, America has lost more soldiers in Iraq & Afghanistan to suicide than to combat.
It's shocking. It's wrong. It's an outrage. With better psychiatric knowledge of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with more counseling, better combat conditions, better communication with friends & family--better everything--how could this be? And why?
Perplexed and disturbed, my companion and I hashed out the possibilities:
1) Maybe combat nowadays is fundamentally different. Maybe occupying an Afghan town where anybody could be your killer is different than sitting in the trenches, staring down Jerry or Charlie through the mist and mud.
2) Maybe the wars we're fighting are fundamentally different. Hitler was the embodiment of evil, after all. And Japan attacked America. Afghans? Iraqis? It's a bit harder to feel like you're part of a righteous crusade.
2) Maybe the "I Want" generation is more inward-focused than, say, the "Greatest Generation". Maybe World War II G.I.s more readily accepted that the killing they were doing and the death they were courting was simply duty to their country.
3) Maybe our society views war and killing in less cut-and-dry terms. Maybe our concept of morality--right and wrong--are more complex nowadays. Maybe it is a greater psychological burden on the contemporary soldier.
4) Or maybe, quite simply, more suicides are reported or attributed to PTSD and military service. As my companion pointed out, they sure as heck didn't have suicide statistics during the Civil War. After all, PTSD used to be called "Shell Shock." Maybe you've seen the videos. It's nothing new.
I don't have the answer. But the paradox, and the possible reasons, reminded me of something else I'd been puzzling over for a year.
Practically from the moment I arrived--a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to improve English language fluency--I was informed from every corner than English was on a decline.
This was hard to digest. I searched for statistics. I asked for explanations. I found some, but none seemed very convincing. The statistics were weak and the explanations--mostly, that today's students were less well-behaved than previous generations--reeked of the all too perennial and usually innacurate complaint of incorrigible youth.
Besides, for some intuitive reason, I found it impossible to accept that, even on a country whose economy has been backsliding, English skills are sinking. After all, exposure to English-language media via radio, television, videoke, and especially the internet is increasing. Houses that had no running water a generation ago have televisions. Towns that had no electricity have internet. And on top of that, the local dialects continue to be shrinking, crowded out by the dominance of English and Tagalog.
So, I hashed out the possibilities. Maybe English proficiency was actually increasing but other factors made it seem otherwise.
1) Maybe the standard for English proficiency is higher. Filipinos who a generation ago spoke "survival English" may have considered themselves English speakers. Today, "Call Center English" may be the standard, which requires command of technical vocabulary as well as the ability to problem solve in the L2.
2) Maybe a broader cross-section of Filipinos speak English today. In the past, English may have been quite good among the higher socioeconomic levels. But I work in one of the most economically depressed areas in the Philippines. And English speaking is expected here, too. This could create the impression of a lower English standard when in fact a higher proportion of Filipinos are actually using the language.
3) Neighboring countries' educational levels and English speaking proficiency has surpassed that of the Philippines. Simply put, there are more English speakers in Asia, and worldwide. The Philippines doesn't have the English L2 monopoly anymore.
4) There are a lot more people in the Philippines than a generation ago (with the current birthrate, the population doubles every 29 years). A lot more people have to learn English.
5) Maybe it's just human nature to think that things were better in the past, to focus on the problems of the present, despite the material evidence to the contrary (I am constantly surprised to hear how many Filipinos state with conviction that things were better during the Marcos presidency. Note: I'm not saying they're wrong, because heck, I wasn't there; I'm just surprised because I've previously heard & read otherwise).
Suicide and English speaking are strange companions, sure. And I don't have any statistics or authorities to back up my reasoning. Even if I'm right, I don't know what to do about soldiers committing suicide or changing the perceptions about English speaking.
Thoughts?
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