Letters to the Editor: Loneliness is one of the biggest public crises of our time
'People are clearly finding it hard or impossible to relate to each other.' File picture
Ireland is rated as the loneliest country in the EU with 20% (a whopping fifth of the population) experiencing loneliness on a regular basis compared with the EU average of just 13%, according to the EU’s Joint Research Centre published by the ESRI.
Loneliness and its associated side-effects with social withdrawal, alienation, and consequent detrimental mental health problems is one of the biggest public crises of our time.
The issue is often ignored because society does not want to admit that despite all the advances in technology people have never been more divided.
The joy of living has been significantly reduced for many in a way of life which is so sophisticated that there is no common thread going through anyone.
People are clearly finding it hard or impossible to relate to each other.
Many of course have very bad experiences which had profound effects on them.
The consequences of social withdrawal are a society which is paralysed and socially crippled.
People are distracted to an enormous level with material pursuits and status as their souls become emptier but have no real connection.
The live to work culture is also detrimental. It’s now an ‘intellectual society’ which is soulless much of the time.
In Ireland we have omertas of silences when we find them uncomfortable or embarrassing and of course there is always the smart ass that dumps on those trying to expose a society going in the wrong direction and what is going very wrong.
There is at present a lack of acknowledgement of what is the key reason why people suffer with mental health — which is loneliness in a lost techno world.
A UN report published in June examines Israel’s destruction of the Gazan healthcare system, which means that nowhere is safe to give birth, and the enforced starvation of the population, which has led to acute maternal malnutrition.
Reproductive violence has resulted in a 41% decline in live births and a 70% increase in premature-births.
Almost complete destruction of neo-natal intensive care units is denying thousands of newborns access to the care they need for life.
A sharp rise in pregnancy complications is leading to inter-uterine deaths, and miscarriage rates have risen by multiple hundreds fold.
Women in Gaza are now far more likely to die in childbirth.
Lack of essential nutrition has led to increased numbers of serious foetal anomalies.
Along with the lack of clean water, this has also resulted in mothers being unable to produce breast-milk — a problem compounded by the lack of baby formula.
The UN Commission finds the documented harm to birth rates and neonatal health caused by Israel is “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”, ie, genocide.
Another report released in summer, by the Palestinian Feminist Collective, brings together witness and survivor testimonies; news coverage; academic research; UN reports; and findings from international human rights groups.
It compiles accounts of rape of Palestinian women and men, including children and elders, by Israeli soldiers — evidence that sexual violence is systemic.
Sexual torture often precedes death.
The report also includes accounts of sexual violence carried out by Israeli Forces and Israeli illegal squatter-settlers in the West Bank.
The authors note this “institutional practice” is part of “a wider system of sexualised and gendered violence spanning detention, warfare, surveillance, reproductive destruction, family separation, domicide, and the desecration of Palestinian bodies”.
In May, Israel was added to the UN blacklist of countries committing sexual violence in war zones, yet Israel continues with impunity.
Abortion Access Campaign has been highlighting the horrific situation for Palestinian women and girls throughout the three years of Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
Israel must immediately end all attacks on Palestinian healthcare and their restriction of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population.
Ireland must exert more pressure on Israel to end the siege of Gaza completely.
There needs to be Gazan-led reconstruction of damaged neonatal/maternity units and safe medical evacuation for the critically ill.
Unrestricted entry of medical and reproductive health supplies, food, baby formula, and clean water must be distributed by Gazan-approved humanitarian organisations.
We also call for a halt on the Irish export of dual-use products to Israel and firms involved with the Israeli military.
Export more humanitarian aid, not components for death and destruction.
I am too young to remember the Cuban missile crisis but am old enough to remember the fallout from Chernobyl and the day Joe Jacobs took to explaining the availability of iodine tablets to Marian Finucane.
The booklet I received last week has but one deficiency.
As a laminated high-value production, the pages are unsuitable for use in the smallest room in the house.
Maybe I should build a bomb shelter or better yet a seed vault.
I might have to move to Svalbard or a tunnel in the Urals altogether.
If Sky’s latest reality TV show is anything to go by, the end of the world will resemble a Brexiter’s reunion where unseated politicians try to track and trace a missing parcel.
In the meantime, we shall travel hopefully, pray on a daily basis, and reverse the charges on long-distance conversations with God.
Sarah Harte accentuates yet again the litany of State obfuscation, reticence, and reluctance when it comes to ‘whistle-blowing’ against dreadful and tragic injustices within the State remit. (Opinion, October 7.)
Instancing several patent cases of poorly and reluctantly accepted travesties, she hits a rusty nail on the head to clarify the essential offending element to proceedings.
“My takeaway is that the State is much more accommodating to those who are in the inner sanctum. If you’re not in the inner sanctum by virtue of connections or even gender.... you discover that when you challenge the State, you run into opaque internal arrangements.”
People often ask these days ‘Who can we trust?’ with all the morass of ‘fake-news’ festering apace.
One has to feel that it’s not the key arms of the State.
The prevailing modus operandi of most of the main organs of State, is not too far off the notorious MI5 secret service three-tier approach: Deny, Delay, Destroy.
How sad.
