On September 6, 2020, the young Louay Saddam was found hanged, in what is believed to be a suicide. But the fatal sensing of the loss of this young man, whom his friends nicknamed “The Philosopher,” followed this tragic end, as this tragedy drove many to see who this young man was, and what he would be if he was destined to live a decent life.
Louay hails from the countryside of Al-Odain in the Ibb governorate, and according to the testimony of his friends who had socialized with him, he was about twenty-one years old, but he was, in his youth, an aspirational and ambitious young man who used the book as a haven to escape from the reality of loneliness and a feeling of exile. Mohammad Dabwan Al-Mayahi, one of the virtual friends of the suicided young man, put part of this biography at hand, on social media networking sites:
"He lived a very harsh life, his mother died when he was a kid, and his father emigrated and he did not return for 18 years, therefore Louay was raised in the house of his relatives where his childhood was sad and was always feeling lonely. He struggled to live, and books were his only refuge as he was occupied by reading books since his childhood and unique perceptions were formed inside him about society.
"He used to discuss his thoughts with the students in the school where he was subjected to abuse by his colleagues. Unfortunately, he did not find anyone to understood him so he was subjected to violence by teachers in his school who excluded him, they called him an atheist, and even incited his colleagues to unfriend him on the ground that he would corrupt them, and thus, everyone was talking about him as if he was a criminal. When he completed high school and had no opportunity to earn a living, he retreated to his solitude, his nightmares multiplied, and then he ended up giving up his whole life.”
Many of those who have read the publications and articles of the young "philosopher" have seen how his brilliance was reflected in the continuous satire of social culture and its patterns. Instead of taking his hand to invest in his intellectuality, the young man tasted the woes of those who believe that they are supposed guardians of the temple of virtue and values, which opened the door wide to the bullying and verbal abuse, which he faced whenever he started publishing his ideas on social media.
In this particular case, we can cite - in part - the famous saying of the world writer, Albert Camus, who believed that "it is a disgrace to humanity that someone commits suicide, while he was in need of a long hug". Obviously, we could change his orphan life and depression, and there is a possibility to deal with it, if we were outside this exceptional situation. Louay wrote a lot, debated and discussed, but he reached the moment of despair, which in the past forced the philosopher Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi to burn his writings as he implicitly discovered that this disintegrated and rambunctious society did not deserve it. Similarly, Louay deleted all his long articles on his Facebook account, except for one, in which he wanted to say everything, about a life that was not gracious to him:
“I swear by everything I have venerated in all my life, that the family is the only cause and responsible for all the evils that exist in this world, and I find no excuse for it that can leave the finger of accusation not directed at it.”
As for his definition of ego and selfishness, Louay sets the definition that he derived from the living reality:
The ego and selfishness in the individual begin to appear after his father, mother and genetic relatives abandoned him and did not take care of him. Because he became aware of his loneliness after his relatives left him while he was attached to them, so when they abandoned him and did not find other alternates with the same closeness that he felt in his childhood, He tries to compensate for this deprivation by loving a girl so that he feels close to her, but selfishness remains in him because he does not feel the care and attention of others in him. If we were a society in which right and capital were one, even as suggested by Marx, and love and attachment were one, we would be like angels.”
It seems that there is no doubt - here - in the responsibility of the corrupt social institution, but rather disintegrated in the devastation experienced by a young man in the spring of his life. Al-Mayahi, a close friend of the suicided young man, recalls the young man's embarrassment and fear, since the moment he decided to connect with someone he thought could be a cultural match:
"I remember the first time he texted me while he was ashamed and afraid, he thought I would oppose his opinions but I treated him with great respect which made him feel cheerful, I told him I was following him on social media and I read his articles and praised him for his great awareness. I gave him the WhatsApp number after that he texted me: we were discussing everything on and off, and we were reaching common convictions in some matters, and then leave the rest of the ideas open for future discussion".
At the end of my last conversation with him, I sent him an excerpt from a philosophical book on “the meaning of life” and why it is worth living, and he replied: I feel you are the only friend in my life who makes life worth living, I want to meet you, my friend, I am alone and I do not know what to do in my life?!".
However, it must also be admitted that the “the missing embrace moment” does not bear the full responsibility of his dilemma, as the behavior of suicide, when immersed in it psychologically, outweighs its torments, what we assume from the moments of romance, poetry and thought, as preludes to the industry of the fragmented boy. Thus, there is depression as a novelty that seems urgent to popular culture but it is at the core of its composition, and for more than seven years it fought a war that destroyed the future of a country.
On February 8, 2022, students of the Faculty of Mass Communication at Sana'a University woke up to the dead body of a young man hanging in the wooded courtyard of their university. After the investigation, it became clear that it belonged to the young man, Faisal Al-Mikhlafi, a media college student. There is no irony here that Al-Mikhlafi’s age is close to matching that of Louay Saddam, but the fact of what is believed to be his suicide, highlights the other side of the subversive system, which has deepened corruption in the hearts and aspirations of young people.
Moreover, Al-Mikhlafi had no conceptions that might seem to clash with the spirit of the traditional society, but the state of Sufism in his poetry and philosophical reflections seemed to be a last resort, to avoid the subsequent end of his life.
Dr. Dawlat al-Hasbani, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mass Communication at Sana’a University, remembers another saying by one of her students, who was brought to her mind by Faisal’s suicide:
"Nothing is favorable, this life is not worth clinging to, or trying to fix, Professor! Death is a return to righteousness." The sayings that Faisal recorded on his Facebook page, whether in the form of poetry, or bitter satire for living, give the same impression, which makes language something more than a romantic lyrical state, to a good indication of the fall of the ambitious, glorious youth into depression and a state of uselessness.
No doubt that the war is also an active factor in the human tragedy in all its aspects, and its vindication is an accusation of our young victims, whose culture and high taste could have been used for the common good of the nation, not to make the case of suicide more poetic than we can bear. So, in front of a corpse hanging on a tree, we can now return to see the extinct soul that preceded the body. Faisal Al-Makhlafi says:
“I lived searching for myself despite my full realization I had that I would not be found, and knowing that I was incapable of carrying this weight, but I carried it and freed myself by carrying it into rare desires and limitations I would never have felt. The apparent consciousness I reached was and still, as I know, is calm and rebellious, and I still believe in my feelings, regardless of the different groups in which I live.
I have always lived with the coolness that would faithfully work alongside talent, while there were long stories I did not free myself to write about, rather, they remained in my heart as something sacred and hard to justify to the world, often alluding to certain places and conspicuously as the use of a woman as a tool. I considered that these allusions are in fact the source of the deep inspiration that I reached in every final result from which loneliness evaporates into nothingness.
Yes, nothingness, but it became visible nothingness. After Faisal ended his life (or so we think), activists on social media circulated another account of a young man, who defines himself as a "lost Taizian", and its vocabulary bears the same language that presented us with the fears and sorrows of the suicided young man, to the extent that many believed that the account is a pseudonym for Faisal himself.
On February 10, the account holder wrote a long post, identifying himself as Moataz Al-Arabi, and it looked as if it was a project for an upcoming suicide victim. The young man defines his activity as “writing so that he does not die of pain,” Al-Araby says, denouncing:
“I do not know who published and said that this account belongs to Faisal Al-Mikhlafi, who committed suicide a few days ago, and I do not know how people believed this widespread talk as if there was no other person anguishing and suffering in this miserable country.”
As for this official general abandonment, and pushing either the condemnation of the tortured victims, or pushing the rest of the youth to this nihilistic form of perpetration, there is a collective and individual responsibility represented in raising awareness of the destruction left by war in the psychological structure of society and its members, and this includes raising the stigma on those who suffer and standing by their side in view of the fact that they are not the only ones in this hell, and that it is normal for most young people to become depressed in light of the unknown end.
To conclude, leaving the state of denial is the first step to treatment, as “depression” is one of the epidemics of the era, which needs society to unite to push those who suffer from it to psychological counseling centers, which can contribute constructively to alleviating this endless headache. Here, the discourse should be directed to civil society organizations, to intervene in this aspect, and play a significant role in developing policies to support aimless youth, in a way that directs their behavior positively towards work, not self-destruction. Additionally, it is the responsibility of the international community to intensify support in this side, to reduce the high cost of medical treatment and recovery. Further, light should be shed on the phenomenon of depression by young people who went through such experience, and were able to turn it into success stories, is a very valuable thing, and it can push the wave in right and desired direction.
