Opinion
Minister for Loneliness
UK’s decision to appoint Loneliness Minister a milestone step that should inspire NepalPrawash Gautam
When in the summer of ’66, the Beatles released its album Revolver, what soon spread among the masses was the beautiful yet bleak track of Eleanor Rigby.
The lyrics weaved the story of Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie’s lonely lives in the gloomy setting of a church as the funeral-like music played in the background. Its haunting lyrics pierced into the deepest, darkest core of the masses’ psyche, where the lonely, alienated, depressed, or psychologically wounded in any way were repressed. American singer Dan Peek said later he regarded the song to be an overwhelming “picture...of the masses of lost humanity, drowning in grey oblivion” and remembered being “lacerated” on listening to the song’s chorus “All the lonely people/Where do they all come from/All the lonely people/Where do they all belong”.
So forceful was the song’s impact that the English singer and entertainer Tommy Steele sculpted the statue of the song’s subject Eleanor Rigby in Liverpool and placed a plaque behind it, which reads that it is dedicated to “All the lonely people”. The iconic Ray Charles did a cover of the song. In all, the reaction to the song can be described as society’s shock, awe and astonishment at how it revealed its own indifference or non-acceptance towards the lonely, alienated or those affected by any form of emotional and mental afflictions.
Fifty years later, it incited no less awe when on January 17, 2018, the UK named a Minister for Loneliness. And the appointment has become a major issue of coverage and reactions in major publications and broadcasts around the world. In the traditional societies of long ago, it was mostly unawareness and superstition that caused indifference to the lonely or the psychologically distressed. What plagued the modern times of the Beatles or today is a discriminatory attitude, even as superstitions and unawareness largely withered. That’s why UK’s naming the Minister for Loneliness is a big step in that it concedes the existence of a section of society long ignored. And, the decision is a strong testament to society’s changing response to the alienated section of society, and underscores important developments about it in relation to not only the UK but the entire world, including Nepal.
Shifting attention
“Minister for Loneliness” denotes two things at the same time. One, it tells of the scale of the debacle of psychological issues on health in society today. Two, it reflects a sharp turn in social and political acceptance of the urgency to seriously respond to loneliness or any psychological issues. A sharp turn because it marks a clear acknowledgement, along with strong commitment and willpower, from the top policy and executive level of those who were otherwise ‘unseen’, ‘unheard’. The entire project of tackling the issue of loneliness grew at the initiative and dedicated effort of a British MP, the late Jo Cox, who made it her mission to help the isolated. This engagement of a people’s representative with a sense of vision and mission is the first instance of direct, passionate intervention on psychological issues by the high level polity, and demonstrates polity’s seriousness on psychological issues.
Moreover, the choice of ‘loneliness’ itself in the new minster’s title gives something akin to tangible, physical form, or identity to experience of loneliness or other mental health problems. This adds to the idea of serious acknowledgement of loneliness as a problem and, given its relation with mental health issues, to the larger psychological issues as well.
‘Sad reality of modern life’
Indeed this lack of acknowledgement or acceptance to loneliness and other psychological problems is what indeed the ‘sad reality of modern life’ is in the true sense, and not loneliness or mental health problems themselves as the British PM Theresa May stated while announcing the Minister.
Still, it is true that changing values and lifestyles associated with modern technology and lifestyles have added a multitude of contributing factors to loneliness or psychological issues. Consequently, so serious are these issues in the UK that a 2017 report by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness tasked to investigate the reach and impact of loneliness found over 9 million of its 65 million total population were lonely. It also stated that 200,000 went without having a conversation with anyone for more than a month, and as high as 85 percent of young disabled adults (18-34 years old) feel lonely. And, so disastrous is its impact on health that loneliness is the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day—to physical health. And loneliness is often the precursor to various mental illnesses, and one of the major symptoms of all mental illnesses.
A home issue
And this grim reality is not merely of the developed UK or other countries but equally of countries like ours. It is very unlikely that we search our memory and not come across at least an individual who was/is lonely or afflicted by any form of mental health problems. We must all have ‘known’ them. Right in our eyes, many wander the streets of Kathmandu, hallucinating, paranoid, and schizophrenic. 37.5 percent of the country’s population suffers from mental health issues, according to a 2013 research. Undergraduates suffer from insomnia (35.4), internet addiction (35.4) and depression (21.2) due to overindulgence in internet and social media, found an Institute of Medicine (IOM) study in 2017. And with a big chunk of young population out in the Gulf or the West, loneliness and other mental health problems among elderly family members back home is a serious emerging issue.
It is in the light of these problems that Nepal should consider the UK’s naming a Minister for Loneliness. The decision has already spurred a series of debates about if the UK’s moves are indispensable elsewhere also. The New York Times even asked its readers to comment on precisely this very question—“Does Every Country Need a ‘Loneliness Minister’?”
Nepal need not take the question literally. But it should seriously reflect on the symbolism and meaning that the development in the UK denotes. It should spark motivation in parents, teachers, friends, relatives, acquaintance, health workers, caregivers, everyone from all walks of lives to reflect upon how they view and treat the lonely or anyone with psychological or emotional problems. Most of all, it should motivate political leadership and policymakers to explicitly acknowledge Nepal’s own grim reality of mental health problems, and to seriously chart concerted efforts at the top political level to address the issue.
Gautam writes on contemporary social and cultural issues