Comment by watwut
6 days ago
> please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened.
I mean, common. Everyone knows what suicide is or means. No, it does not make it sound like an act of God for anyone who is above A1 level of English.
Most people who commit suicide were not hounded to the end of their rope, these people were murdered by torture via the legal system. The proximal cause of their death was their own hand, sure, but their deaths should properly be seen as some form of murder or at least manslaughter.
These deaths had an unambiguous causal actor other than/in addition to themselves.
It's an exceptional condition particularly since if you are harassed by any ordinary person you have a multitude of recourse-- up to fleeing or going into hiding and so we should be very very hesitant to attribute suicide to the actions of a third party in general. But in the case of harassment perpetrated by or via state power the victims are far closer to an inescapable situation and because of the vastly greater power the state must carry vastly greater responsibility for the total consequences of their malicious and improper actions.