AMOK CULTURALLY in MALAYSIA
The Amok term in Malaysia and the regions, seems to be more of a
‘concept’ than a concrete state of affairs. This essay finds that there are two
interpretations of the phenomenon in the historical record. The phenomenon has
several epidemiological tangents, they are martial amok –an act committed in a battle; beramok –a latent form of amok,
and true or solitary amok -this is
the modern interpretation. Amok is
committed by males only; whereas women retain a phenomenon called latah, this is a condition in both men
and women and while it involves adverse conscious behaviour, it is not the same
as amok. This indicates that there is
a cultural aspect to the phenomenon, which may have its origins in antiquity.
The aim of this essay is to compare the Malay and the European interpretations
of amok in a way that will decisively
display the cultural differences. It will then be possible to conclude that for
about five-hundred years in Malayan history, amok has been culture bound. The view is that the interpretation
can remain in epidemiological historiography. Which culture, and what the
interpretations are will become apparent. The classification generally known to
be a single act of amok will be the
focus of this discussion, and the conclusion will be that it is indeed a
culture-bound syndrome.
Firstly, it is
important to give a general explanation of the phenomenon of amok. It is an action a person takes,
the action being no less than a homicidal attack upon another person or
persons. Some ways both Malays and Europeans describe the amok assault (or the factors attached to it) include a depressed
state, ‘having seen everything red’, amnesia after the event, grief, sickness
of the heart, and suicidal disposition. Also indiscriminate attack,
unrestrained violence, drug violence and various other descriptive accounts of
homicide. The action -as perceived by others- is seemingly unprovoked, carried
out by Malay men and often ending in more than one death as well as the death
of the pengamuk; ‘one who goes amok’, Winzeler.
Around the
sixteenth century period, the first recorded mentions of amok were to be found, says Spore; he cites Portuguese Journals, as does Winzeler. Whilst the
perception of amok from then until
the eighteen-hundreds is perhaps somewhat unclear, the indications are that
martial amok and solitary amok were the most notable and thus the
most discussed and accounted for in the Malay regional history. Spore quotes
Crawfurd in capturing the early incidences: ‘the natives of the Eastern islands
ran a-muck before they ever heard of the Muhammadan religion, and the
unconverted natives at the present day equally run a-muck with the converted’.
This evidence was recorded toward the end of the eighteenth century by Crawfurd.
Key evidence
for allegations that amok may in fact
be cultural is the significance of other peoples not engaging in an action that
would be definable as amok. The
Chinese in Malay history for example have been noticed for not running amok. Spores claims that no Europeans or Indians have been noted for an amok, however he did find evidence of
three Chinese who did go amok; this
he claims was during the ‘entire Malay setting’, presumably four hundred and
fifty years or more. While Winzeler says none were to be found, he does offer some explanation for
this apparent lack of evidence. The suggestion is that the definition and
criteria used to define an attack was different, he also makes the claim that
the phenomenon was specific to the Malay and the Dayak of Sarawak. The evidence
suggests the culture of the amok
phenomenon was present in the Philippines, Sumatra, Java and the ‘margins of
the Malayan world’. Whilst these
examples are discussions of the ‘culture-bound’ part of the historic record,
there is a place for epidemiological or pathological explanation of the
syndrome.
There are many
suggestions and theories that the epidemiology, the medical interpretation, has
changed. For instance, Winzeler suggests
that the pathology had changed from a cultural concept to one of mosquito borne
illness or drug-related action and on to a psychiatric illness. This alteration
in diagnoses is consistent with the evolution of medical and cultural
knowledge. In a later effort to divulge the phenomenon, Islam is used as a
concept to explain it. Again, the evidence suggests this is a common reasoning
and that it extended back to the seventeenth century:- Winzeler, Spores.
Winzeler cites Judge Norris of 1842
as having said ‘Mahommedan crimes’ explain
amok. In that period of Malay
history, it may be likely that the traits of Islam were seen as a motive and
this was probably broadly accepted. As Spores indicates, Islam is the dominant
religion, and with its principles being open to radical interpretation such as
Jihad, the possibility exists that the culture of Islam is partly responsible
for amok.
However, the
evidence suggests that amok has
undergone a metamorphosis from an unremarkable cultural act to a phenomenon
shrouded in a mystique that outside cultures do not understand. Winzeler explains Malay people did not
necessarily find the practice unusual; that it had ‘heroic history’ and was
quite complex and accompanied, on occasion, with some form of motivating
humiliation; thus making it not dishonourable within the host culture.
He points out
(in Winzeler) that a culture study
by Teoh suggests that previously ‘Chinese and Indians only rarely ran amok, it became very common for them to
do so – more common, in fact, for the Chinese than the Malays’. Again citing
Teoh, Winzeler relates three changes in the evolution of amok: the suggestion is that in the nineteenth century it was only
Malays who amoked. Other peoples
became amokers in the twentieth
century, and that -as well- the causal factors that were held responsible for
the act had changed. What this means is that while over the five-hundred year
colonial period there had been many cultural, physical environment and social
changes, the phenomenon of amok had
not changed -people still ‘run amok’.
Yan describes
a pathology that may be closer to the truth about amok than what European cultures are prepared to acknowledge. His
suggestion is that the homicidal amok
is revenge for state sanctioned distress and an escape from oppression into
death. And that the host culture realised a necessity to disassociate
consciousness from the criteria to avoid blame being sourced to it. This is how
the historically tolerant Malay people seem to have constructed amok in its present form. Coupled with
the permissive doctrine of Islamic intent toward “infidels”, the act had
seemingly become culture-bound. But Yan makes
it quite clear that in this instance, as yet, no clear criteria exists that can
define a cultural syndrome; this leaves two possibilities in his discussion, is
the syndrome universal or unique in cultures.
Yan quotes
Gullick of 1958 realising the significance of cultural oppression: ‘amok was also culturally sanctioned as
an instrument of social protest against their ruler if he abused his power’.
This is a clear indicator that the phenomenon is a social construction, and
therefore bound up in Malay cultural history. However, it appears that the
European interpretation of amok is
necessarily different because it needs to place contextual meaning upon a
social phenomenon that may have its criteria constructed by oppression. As a
causal factor Crawfurd in Prince
established: ‘the spirit of revenge, with an impatience of restraint, and a
repugnance to submit to insult’, in Malay culture.
McKenzie in introducing the subject of
culture-bound syndromes, announces: ‘culture changes what sort of delusions and
hallucinations are thought to be normal and what are symptoms of madness’.
However, the combined evidence’s that are presented to support the various
epidemiologies, and the cultural explanations that are presented from the early
colonial periods about amok, later
find themselves to be argued against and refuted throughout the centuries. Both
with emperical evidence and with modern diagnoses of physical conditions that
have in the past been applied as a causal factor. For instance, Saint Martin
credits Captain Cook in 1770 with the first discovery of amok; and the causal factor was possession by an evil tiger spirit.
He is sure: ‘the behaviour observed in amok
200 years ago in the primitive tribes will necessarily differ from that seen in
contemporary cases’. Yet the Portuguese evidence recorded homicidal amok in Malayan history in the sixteenth
century.
Not tolerating
twentieth century diagnoses, Winzeler lambasts
Fitzgerald and Galloway, accusing them of bigotry for their logical diagnoses
of amok that concluded: ‘defective
character…neurotic nature…oppressed condition’; and so on. This effort by
Winzeler is a strange claim to make, because his argument is itself an
expression of European bigotry.
Prince in his argument quotes Murphy who
realises that homicidal assault is a plain occurrence in society and that it
occurs all over the world, not just Malaysia. He makes a logical statement:
‘their manifestation, sequels and etiology are so varied that there is little
point considering them as comprising a single syndrome’. Interestingly, Prince has used the history of the homicidal
Nazis during World War Two in an apparent attempt to compare amok with the horrors of war. However,
he fails to acknowledge the methodology of the Gestapo and their Fascist
intellectual inquiries in the prelude to war. German society was rife with
fascism and internalised oppression. The historical significance of this fact
is not realised today; did Germany suffer mass martial amok without Prince realising it in his work on the cultural
aspects of amok.
Murphy’s work on the
cultural aspects in Hammer confides that: ‘In regard to the usefulness of the
general approach the answer is…Once we cease to regard psychiatric syndromes as
stable patterns to be found in all societies and epochs, it becomes quite easy
to spot apparent shifts’; and ‘Although some of these will undoubtedly prove to
have been no more than shifts…I believe that some will prove to represent
genuine changes in symptomatology’.
The evidence of the
historical record, and the researchers mentioned in this essay suggest that the
history and of amok is convoluted and
consistently unclear, but that it is a social construction. Amok does occur and that there are two
socio-cutural versions of it; one European and the other Malay. The conclusion
is that the concept of amok is
culture bound as a phenomenon. The bulk of the evidence suggests that it can be
viewed as culture bound, and that this can remain intact as there are over
thirty-four syndromes listed as endemic in particular cultures. In addition,
those early categorisations in history following through to today constitute a
useful medical record of syndromes.
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