The end of life — II

The symptoms of depression range from “persistent sadness, a lack of interest in life, tiredness, disturbed appetites, an inability to concentrate and low levels of self-confidence to suicidal thoughts and acts”, all of which sounds dangerously similar to what the otherwise healthy 24-year-old Laura feels having decided to end her life this summer. Then there is one’s career and, no doubt, meaningful professions do exist that can create a sense of significance to life. So, if there is a career to lift one’s spirits then you are on your way to adding some meaning to your existence and therefore have a “life”. Otherwise, if you feel badly enough about the lack of prospects in your future, you can choose to end it all.
The most glaringly hypocritical part of the whole euthanasia movement, that Aviv reveals most objectively, is how it essentially boils down to the “secularists” pitting themselves in a war against religion and, in the case of Belgium, one they have most definitely and smugly won because it is against Catholicism, religion’s easiest target in the west. “In Belgium the right to die is viewed as an accomplishment of secular humanism, one of seven belief systems that are officially recognised by the government. Belgian humanism, which was deeply influenced by the 19th century Freemasonry movement, offered an outlet for those who felt oppressed by the Church, but it has increasingly come to resemble the kind of institution that it once defined itself against.”
So, in rejecting the Catholics, secularists in Belgium ended up mimicking them exactly, becoming their mirror image in one thing only: the successful execution of an agenda, theirs being to eradicate and then replace religion from their society by all means necessary with their own evolving set of values. “Since 1981, the Belgian government has paid for ‘humanist counsellors’, the secular equivalent of the clergy, to provide moral guidance in hospitals, prisons and the armed forces. Humanist values are also taught in state schools, in a course called non-confessional ethics, which is taken by secular children from first through 12th grade, while religious students pursue theological studies. The course emphasises autonomy, free inquiry, democracy and an ethics based on reason and science, not on revelation.” So, it turns out the free will that parents are apparently left with is to enroll their offspring in a class for 12 years with one of two types of values to influence them, Catholic or Freemasonary. A rock and a hard place indeed!
In Belgium, the euthanasia law is seen as “an emblem of enlightenment and progress”. The practical manifestation of this is evident from Aviv’s article in that the subject is discussed over pastries and coffee with teenagers, sometimes children as young as eight, as part of their class on non-confessional ethics. Early exposure, as in the first grade, seems to be the way of the secularists, whether it comes to sex education or, in this case, to have the choice of death handy in one’s back pocket. One of the most chilling moments in Aviv’s piece is when a son finds that his mother is no longer in the world after she has been euthanised. The way the law operates in Belgium, family members are not required to be notified in the case of a person being approved for euthanasia and may learn about it only after the fact if the patient so chooses. His estranged relationship with his mother ends without closure and he struggles with that possibly for what could be the rest of his life.
In February of 2015, Belgium’s king signed into law a controversial bill that will allow for chronically ill children to be euthanised. “The legislation, which grants children the right to request euthanasia if they are ‘in great pain’ and there is no available treatment, makes Belgium the first country in the world where the age of the child is not taken into consideration.” Whatever the process, it is truly fascinating what politicians and now doctors deem as acceptable and, of all things, lucid by those suffering from mental illness or acute pain, emotional or physical. All their contempt for the God that they apparently love to play themselves when it comes to other people’s lives undeniably lurks behind the scenes.
To be fair and respectful of other societies’ sensibilities, there are many people who make a strong case for euthanasia, and these are usually the only ones Hollywood and their counterparts all over the world portray: older people, once dynamic, alert and high functioning who cannot bear the idea of disintegrating mentally and physically into an alive but brain-dead existence. So, in the worst-case scenario, if those people wish to end their lives, suicide, of which there is plenty of the non-violent variety, is available. In general though, who can deny that it is natural for us as humans to feel angst and despair, sadness and loneliness during the course of life? For most of us these emotions are recurring, some of us are even genetically predisposed to them.
Each person’s resilience to those feelings varies and there is no one way to calibrate what accounts for one person’s ability to survive and carry on versus another’s. But of all of the reactions in the offing to unquiet minds, death should not be a solution provided for by the state. Just because a social stigma is associated with suicide does not justify for it to be morphed into a procedure sanctioned by society and publicly recognised as an act of ‘mercy’ with politicians and doctors as the grim reapers. It is dangerous and alarming as far as its repercussions that will no doubt affect future generations, especially its youth, in an unprecedented way.
All popular values and behaviour of the first world find themselves at the doorstep of the third world before you know it, especially when they are fast-tracked. Be it through music, movies, art, books or social media, the atheistic element, which incidentally also happens to be the most favoured piece of the cultural revolution of the west, permeates into the east via a trickle or a flood sooner or later. Euthanasia will follow in its turn. The idea of government, federal and local, sanctioning suicide, whatever deemed the plausible reason for its need, is part of the ghoulish turn the west has already taken. Like most other offerings, euthanasia is guised as ‘dignifying’. So, for those of us infatuated with the west and obsequious to its aims to increase our own levels of ‘civility’, I end on a couplet from Iqbal who too was once besotted by Goethe and Nietzsche before he realised how they had failed him, how in the final analysis the inadequacy of knowledge ultimately and inevitably fails mankind.
“Teri dua hai ke ho teri arzoo poori
Meri dua hai teri arzoo badal jaye”
(You pray that your desire may be fulfilled
I pray that your desire change itself).

(Concluded)

The writer is a freelance columnist