The increasing number of Malaysians reported of having mental
health problems today is very worrying. It is of note that the mental health
problem was already taking place as one of the main social problems in our
society, even before the outbreak of COVID-19. Life pressure as the result of
economic hardship, family problems, and social pressure were identified as
among the main factors contributing to mental health problems. The climax of
suffering from mental health problem is when the patients deliberately choose
to end their suffering by committing suicide. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the
number of suicide cases reported in Malaysia was 609 in 2019 and increased to
631 in the year 2020. Meanwhile in the year 2021, within only five months into
this year, from January to May, a total of 468 suicide cases were reported. The
main factor contributing to the increasing number could be attributed to life
pressure caused by the impact of COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic really caused a huge negative impact on
people living all over the world, partly as the result of the decision by most
governments to implement drastic measures to contain the spread of the COVID19
virus. Measures such as lockdown and closing the border paralyzed the economy
of the country. Businesses are closed, people are losing jobs, with no income
to sustain daily life expenses, and matters are made worse when there is no
clear sign of the end of COVID19 pandemic within the foreseeable future. Even
after more than one year people are suffering and hoping for the end this
pandemic, yet the prospect of returning to normalcy is still unclear. This invokes
sense of hopelessness among the public and put them further under pressure,
which could lead to depression and burnout.
Most of the countries in the world including Malaysia, are working
hard to return to normalcy. Therefore, every country now is struggling to vaccinate
their people because they see this is one of the best hopes to bring people’s
lives back to the normal, where the economics sector and social life can be running
as before the COVID-19 pandemic started. But, to achieve normalcy is not that
easy although the COVID19 outbreak is successfully contained. The impact to the
economy caused by COVID-19 is devastating, which also affects other aspects of
life such as social life, political stability, healthcare system, education
etc.
In other words, people must accept the fact that life post COVID-19
will be more challenging than before, despite being able to ‘back to normal’
life. But people need to ‘recuperate’ from the ‘injury’ that they sustained as
the result of COVID-19 pandemic, which required a lot of ‘medicine’. For
example, someone who lost their job or closed their businesses would have severe
consequences in their life as they would be facing financial burden, not being
able to maintain their living standard and social life, having a problem to
maintain their children’s education etc. To ‘treat’ all the ‘injuries’ requires
adequate ‘medicine’, meaning that they need to get their job or restart their business
with at least similar income, otherwise they would have to adapt to lower
standard of living. Failing to do so, again, would also further affect their
mental health.
Based on the past experience, for example, in the aftermath of the
Asian Financial Crisis in 1997/98, it was not possible to recover 100 per cent
from ‘injuries'. The economic prosperities post 1997/98 crisis were lower than prior
to the crisis. Following the crisis, the overall wellbeing of the society has
slightly dropped. This phenomenon happened every time economic crises occurred
in the world which is dominated by the capitalist system. In other words, the
trend shows that every time crises happened, people’s lives post crises became
more challenging and under pressure. Compared to many previous economic crises,
the devastating impact to the economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is more
severe. Therefore, we can expect that the impact on people’s lives is also more
severe. If the number of people having mental health problems was already high
before the COVID-19, then it is not surprising if the number of cases could increase
drastically despite the return to normalcy has successfully achieved afterwards.
The question is, why? Is it a normal phenomenon? The short answer
is because our economy is managed using the capitalist economic system. This is
not normal; this is the consequence of the implementation of such economic
system which has track record of being destructive implications and marked by
cycles of economic crises over centuries of its implementation. Therefore,
people’s lives will be more devastated and consequently the number of people
having mental health problems will increase as long as capitalism dominates the
world. To end this destructive cycles, we need to tear down the domination of
capitalism and replace it with the Islamic economic system under the shades of
Islamic leadership.
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