Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World

by Philip Dwyer

  Although Ibrahim’s motives could not be ascertained since he perished in the midst of the public melee in Arab Street, the colony’s English newspapers and its readers were convinced of the ‘nature’ of this egregious act. Indeed, Ibrahim’s actions were unquestionably categorised in the newspapers as an act of ‘amok’—a pattern of indiscriminate, homicidal behaviour supposedly observed mainly amongst Malay-Muslim men. Ibrahim’s ‘amok’ was, indeed, singled out and immediately identified as ‘one of the most shocking cases of amok-running that had ever occurred in Singapore’. 2 But what did amok-running really mean in colonial society? How can we account for the fact that Ibrahim’s actions were taken for granted as an act of ‘amok’, whilst bearing in mind the absence of any explanations or motives for his actions? More importantly, what can this phenomenon, as well as colonial perspectives about such ‘native attacks’, reveal about the significance of violence and power relations between colonials and indigenous populations in colonial society? How can we best analyse and understand examples of ‘male native violence’ such as amok, given that the analytical tools and current narratives of colonial histories at our disposition have mainly focused on frameworks opposing European actors of violence with indigenous resistance, instead of ‘native’ perpetrators of violence?

  In this chapter, I argue that colonial attempts to understand amok were founded upon an inherently occidental framework of analysis, which saw Malay violence not as culturally-sanctioned but as an affirmation of the primitive character of native men silently churning beneath their self-effacing and timid veneers. This interpretation of amok provided colonials with a moral high ground based upon European mores, in which amok could readily be woven into a totalising narrative that justified the ‘civilising mission’. It was further imposed upon indigenous populations through the use of harsh punitive measures designed to intimidate or coerce indigenous societies to comply with the new colonial system of thought, which was then set in place within the colonial-ordered world of indigenous lands. Analysing the relationship between this colonial framework of thought and interpretations of indigenous acts of violence, this chapter explores how colonial authority used amok as an instrument to assert control over indigenous societies, both on a physical and psychological level. Underlying this colonial system of thought is the seemingly inherently ‘schizoid’ nature of colonial policy—that is, the moralising discourse of the ‘civilising mission’ or the need to tame indigenous ‘primitive’ impulses through the benevolent tutelage of European imperialism, with the parallel necessity of corroborating the need for these indigenous societies to require colonial tutelage in the first place.

  As a case in point, consider the reactions to Ibrahim’s amok, which took centre-stage in the forums of colonial Singapore’s newspapers shortly after the incident. One concerned member of the public, signed ‘Q.E.D.’, wrote to the editor of The Singapore Free Press, urging the need to implement swift and effective punitive measures to help end amok in Malaya. To that end, Q.E.D. drew upon the observations of the Resident-General of the Federated Malay States, Frank Swettenham , who dedicated a chapter on amok titled ‘Faulty Composition’ in his book, The Real Malay (1900). Quoting Swettenham’s description of the delivery of justice in the 1846 case of Sunan, a Malay ‘amok-runner’ of Penang who was hanged, drawn and quartered, 3 Q.E.D. advocated for a similar punishment to be meted out in cases such as that of Ibrahim’s amok. ‘[W]hatever the explanation—whether these fiendish excesses were due to the result of fanaticism, superstition, overweening pride or ungovernable rage,’ reasoned Q.E.D, ‘public justice demanded that the perpetrators should be visited with the severest and most disgraceful punishment the law could inflict.’ 4 Thus, pointed out Q.E.D., in 1846 colonial authorities had ‘directed that the murderer be drawn from prison to the place of execution on a hurdle and hanged, and that after death, the body be handed over to the surgeons for dissection, and that the mangled limbs, instead of being restored to friends for decent burial, be cast into the sea, thrown into a ditch, or scattered on the earth’. 5 Reflecting that ‘this judgement must have made a strong impression on the Muhammadan population of Penang at the time’, the writer argued that ‘this line of policy […] would be far more effectual in exterminating this fearful species of crime than any effort in this direction by depriving natives of all dangerous weapons’. Thus concluded Q.E.D: ‘Destroy all notions of glory that may be attached to amok-running in the eyes of the natives and make the execution of such multi-murders as appalling as possible as in the above instance. This should lessen the prevalence of amok.’ 6

  As Q.E.D.’s initials or pseudonym (quod erat demonstrandum, ‘thus it has been demonstrated’) suggested, a firm demonstration of the full coercive power of the law would, according to the letter-writer, sufficiently intimidate and caution the local population from running amok. This coercive power functioned on a physical and psychological level. Even in death, ‘amok-runners’, who most colonials in Malaya believed were largely Malay-Muslim men, 7 would face the penalty of having their corpses disposed of in a manner that was ‘in flagrant violation of the Islamic teaching that requires all dead to be buried in a decent and religious manner’. 8 In this sense, European laws and colonial knowledge of indigenous mores were intertwined in a particularly shrewd but cruel strategy of resistance against amok that qualified as a form of psychological violence and trauma. More importantly, this form of colonial reprisal was not so much directed at the deceased perpetrator but at the native population at large, which the colonising power sought to intimidate, sanction and caution. But Q.E.D.’s suggestion also inspired similar threats. Indeed, this proposal seemed to have caught the immediate attention of the editor of The Singapore Free Press, for the latter published his reply on the same day as Q.E.D.’s letter on 7 June—just three days after Ibrahim’s amok. Taking Q.E.D.’s suggestion of harsh exemplary punishment one step further, however, the editor recommended that ‘all persons who run amok should be buried with the carcass of a pig tied to their bodies’ for, as he reasoned, death by hanging in the case of an amok-runner, who ‘does not fear death, but rather courts it […] is no more deterrent than convicting a European murderer to eat a lump of sugar’. Thus argued the editor:With Oriental phases of crime we must apply Oriental remedies. The pig is our ace of trumps in this case. It will deter from amok, if the man who meditates it has to face the certainty that there is no paradise but rather Jehannam for him, and that his grave companion is to be the unclean beast. That would probably smash amok forever […] Let us have ‘the pig, the pig, and nothing but the pig,’ as the real bogey for would-be-amokers. 9

  The journal’s ‘Oriental remedy’ instantly inspired a flurry of responses from members of the public. One reader, ‘W.W.B.’, enthused that ‘the suggestion of the pig is an extremely good one and in the interest of all law-abiding citizens’, expressing the firm wish ‘that the Government of the Straits Settlements [in British Malaya] will give the matter the serious consideration it deserves’. 10 Another reader, signed ‘P.A.R.’, wrote to affirm that the suggestion of such a punishment had been ‘strongly supported […] by several people with whom I have conversed on the subject’. 11 But this idea of ‘pig burials’ for Malay-Muslim amok-runners was not supported unequivocally. A representative of The British North Borneo Herald questioned the effectiveness of coercive punishment, raising the query that the inclination to commit amok might have stemmed from a non-voluntary impulse, such as a ‘temporary fit of madness’, culturally sanctioned as part of a ‘savage custom’. 12 ‘If to “run amok” means to commit wholesale murder after much deliberation and planning then let us adopt the pig threat in its entirety,’ reasoned this writer, ‘but if on the other hand the “amoking” tendency is the outcome of a brain diseased by long periods of mental worry, anxiety and jealous promptings then no threat will avail much.’ 13 In concluding, the writer stressed the importance of recognising amok as being distinct from murder in Malaya: ‘Murder is committed by
the civilised human being under the influence of morbid passions and therefore of a diseased brain. The savage “amoks” under somewhat exaggerated symptoms of the same state of mind.’ 14

  Although this radical suggestion of ‘pig threats’ as a deterrent of amok soon faded in time, the public discussion it engendered is illustrative of the colonial anxieties, perceptions and speculations that existed and circulated in British Malaya over the subject of amok. 15 As these correspondences between members of the public and the editor of The Singapore Free Press indicate, the grave degree of violence committed by ‘amok-runners’ both fascinated and deeply disturbed Europeans and the Anglophone community in the colony. Indeed, some were sufficiently provoked or inspired enough to support a particularly vicious form of reprisal deliberately aimed at desecrating both the body and soul of amok-runners. Furthermore, the careful descriptions in the press of the gruesome and lurid details of each episode of amok in Malaya, such as Ibrahim’s case in 1901, the 1846 case of Sunan, or that of the spate of ‘particularly violent’ cases of amok between 1898 and 1901, 16 also suggest that members of colonial society frequently encountered sensational and frightful examples of this purportedly ‘native’ form of violence.

  Yet, for all the attention paid towards amok as a ‘fearful species of crime’ in Malaya, 17 there was no general consensus on some of the most basic questions concerning the juridical definition of amok. Indeed, as the 1901 discussion over Ibrahim’s amok in The Singapore Free Press illustrates, members of colonial society differed in their beliefs over whether amok qualified as a premeditated criminal act, or an involuntary malaise and mental illness that pushed Malay-Muslim (male) victims to commit aberrant acts of violence. Some of these colonials considered amok as a form of mental disorder innate to ‘Malay nature’ or character. As case in point in 1905, the Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser warned that ‘lunacy [among Asiatics] is by no means uncommon, the amok of the race being but a mode of expression of an inherent mental weakness’. 18 A combination of fear and uncertainty on the seemingly uncontrollable, volatile and violent ‘nature’ of ‘amokers’, along with the colonial determination to maintain order over the indigenous population in Malaya thus contributed towards demands for forceful, stringent measures against amok. Yet, at the same time, in stark contrast to the heated debates and speculations over the uncertain origins or causes of amok, the definition of amok was vague, but largely unquestioned. The word itself was freely and commonly employed in colonial Malaya. The assumption that ‘amokers’ were Malay-Muslim men also went mostly unchallenged. So too was the supposition that these ‘amok-runners’ committed violent acts spontaneously without any provocation. Thus, members of colonial society easily and unproblematically identified and interpreted events such as Ibrahim’s actions in 1901 as ‘amok’.

  Historicising Amok

  Despite the gaps in our knowledge of amok, little has been done thus far to historicise or to situate amok within the broader context and framework of colonial discourse. 19 Rather, much of what we know, understand or think about amok stems mostly from popular literature, along with a handful of articles from journals on psychiatry. Indeed, amok is a prominent trope in the work of nineteenth and twentieth century novelists and travel-writers such as Isabella Bird , W. Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad . 20 Non-Anglophone novelists, such as Stefan Zweig (Der Amokläufer, 1922) and Henri Fauconnier (Malaisie, 1930), who were equally fascinated by amok and its connotations of an exclusively ‘native’ or ‘primitive’ example of violence in Malaya, have also brought some of the more sensational and dramatic aspects of amok to a wider audience by using it as a key theme in their writing. 21 Given that the bulk of our understanding and imagination of amok continues to be fed by the imaginative world of fiction, it is perhaps unsurprising that many of the invented myths and colonial perspectives on amok have continued to persist into the post-colonial.

  As case in point, amok remains classified as a ‘culture-bound syndrome ’ in psychiatric and popular literature today. 22 More astonishingly, Malay politicians such as Mahathir bin Mohamad , the former Prime Minister of independent Malaysia (1981–2003), have echoed the familiar colonial discourse that European intervention or ‘civilisation’ eradicated amok in Malaya. Mahathir wrote in his polemical book, The Malay Dilemma (1970):Amok represents the external physical expression of the conflict within the Malay, which his perpetual observance of the rules and regulations of his life causes in him. It is a spilling over, an overflowing of his inner bitterness […] In a trance he lashes out indiscriminately. His timid, self-effacing self is displaced. He is now a Mr. Hyde – cruel, callous and bent on destruction. But the transition from the self-effacing courteous Malay to the amok is always a slow process. […] Today the amok is only a legend. Civilisation has subdued the Malay […] But it remains an essential part of his make-up, a basic part of his character. 23

  Other Malay-Muslim leaders have also interpreted or appropriated amok in unexpected ways in post-independent Malaysia. For instance, in 2006 during the General Assembly of Malaysia’s largest political party, UMNO’s (United Malays National Organisation), Secretary-General Datuk Mohamad Rahmat cautioned non-Malays from challenging UMNO’s stance on communal racial politics, which favour ethnic Malays, by directing a pointed message to non-Malays: ‘Don’t test the Malays, they know “amok”. We don’t want to reach that level.’ 24 Indeed, some Malay politicians have latched onto amok as a marker of a ‘displaced, essential masculinity’, 25 by deliberately citing amok as a possible knee-jerk reaction to threats against Malay rights. 26 In these ways, amok is a striking example of how colonial discourses can be reappropriated as an instrument for communal politics in the post-colonial era.

  The above discussion has sought to trace the evolution of occidental perceptions and negotiations of amok within the broader framework of European encounters with indigenous peoples in the Malay archipelago. In doing so, it examines how colonials regarded amok as a symbol of the ‘violent and ungovernable manliness of the natives’ 27 —a dangerous trait of ‘the real Malay’—which needed to be suppressed and controlled. Moreover, colonial understandings of amok both fetishised and exoticised aspects of native violence. In the following discussion, this chapter turns to how colonial administrators, doctors and other observers were armed with self-righteous beliefs on the need for the ‘civilising mission ’, as well as pseudo-scientific theories based on speculation and superficial observations which merely sought to affirm and corroborate their implicit bias on native violence. It aims to illustrate how violence (or in this case, ‘native’ acts of violence) could be re-appropriated as justification for the colonial civilising mission in Malaya. This challenges some of the existing literature on amok, which has unquestioningly presented the notion that the ‘penetration of modernising influences’, as well as ‘[t]he forces of modernisation also generated changes in the Malay personality’ to such a degree that the Malay tendency to ‘commit amok’ vanished in time. 28

  Further, this chapter considers the role of psychiatry and law in the framework of colonial violence in Malaya. Extant literature on amok has overlooked how such disciplinary mechanisms, which were often presented either in technical legalese or in the more palatable language of the ‘civilising mission’, could also be a form of masked violence against Malays in the colony. For instance, the penalty of public hanging was not only alien to indigenous peoples; it was also a terrifying tool of repression in its own right. Consider the testimony of the Malayan scholar, Munshi Abdullah (1796–1854) on local reactions to public hangings: ‘When people were hanged in public […] some cried from fright, others shook to their very bones at the sight; many also took caution to themselves; not forgetting it for their lifetime.’ 29 Some of the other punishments carried out in the aftermath of public executions could also be deeply disrespectful or culturally insensitive to Malay-Muslim communities in Malaya. One well-known and oft-cited example is that of Sir Stamford Raffles ’ decision to exhibi
t the mangled corpse of Syed Yasin , a Pahang ‘amoker’ who had stabbed William Farquhar , the first Resident of Singapore, in 1823. 30 Although Syed Yasin , who perished during his amok, had been ‘so cut about by the infuriated people that [his body] could not be recognised’, a furious Raffles commanded that Syed Yasin’s already mutilated corpse ‘be sent around the town, in a buffalo cart, and the gong beaten to tell the people what he had done; and after that hung up in the iron cage […] on a mast; which was done, and it remained there for a fortnight’. 31 In the eyes of Malay Muslims, Syed Yasin’s punishment was thus extremely harsh, for swift burials (within a maximum of three days) were the expected norm amongst Muslims. Indeed, the severity of the penalty remained a topic of discussion in Malaya even as late as in 1955, when a correspondent of The Straits Times underlined the fact that ‘the stern treatment of the body of a holy man appalled the Malay population. Proper burial with the appropriate rites is essential for the last offices of the meanest layman. For a priest to be denied such last rites was too dreadful to contemplate.’ 32

  In light of some of the more recent scholarship on justice systems in Victorian England, it may also be useful to draw parallels from the argument that punitive measures and actions against male culprits and perpetrators of violence could have also operated on a gendered understanding of violence, crime and punishment. 33 As case in point, Martin Wiener’s 2006 study on how changes in ideas about manliness affected decision making in the Victorian justice system in England offers an interesting comparative on the severity of the punishment meted out to ‘amok-runners’, who were judged as perpetrators of a ‘hyper-masculine’ form of violence. 34 These parallels, comparisons and possible connections between justice systems in the metropole and the colonies stimulate and encourage further work on an analysis of amok and its evolution within a historical framework.