Japanese professionals in their thirties are killing themselves at unprecedented rates, as the nation struggles with a runaway suicide epidemic.

Newly published figures show that 30,093 people took their own lives in 2007 — a 2.9 per cent increase in a year — leaving the country as the most suicide-prone anywhere in the developed world and rendering government efforts to combat the problem a failure.

Government analysis of the figures, for the tenth year consecutive in which suicides have remained above 30,000 mark, has exposed a series of new and troubling trends: people in their thirties are the most likely to kill themselves, and work-related depression is emerging as a prime motive.

When traditions die out, so do the people who used to live by them. We need traditions because they communicate eternal wisdom about human existence and the world we inhabit. They're like guiding stars, passed on from generation to generation. Modern society has replaced that cultural foundation with the hollow consumer lifestyle of materialism and individualism, and this is why Japan is seeing this epidemic. Note how the middle class males are suffering the most; they slave on corporate jobs and are exposed to the core of our rotten society. The correct way out though is not suicide. We need to fight back and rise up against the despicable, deeply anti-traditional society of today. We can win this war if we just organize and start to build consensus among the people who are open to change.