Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World
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14.‘Amok Running’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 9 August 1901, 3.
15.This suggestion was last mentioned 10 years after the discussion on amok in 1901. See ‘Burial of Suicides’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 4 August 1911, 7. This news article suggests that the punishment may have been implemented in Malaya. However, I have not come across concrete evidence of this sentence being meted out. See a discussion of ‘pig burials’ in ‘Amok: Two Natives Awaiting Trial in Sandakan [Sabah] Gaol. Difficulties as Regards Decision’, The Straits Times, 15 April 1909, 10. Sunan’s case (1846) was last mentioned in 1960. See ‘Why Should an Amok Be Hanged? A Penang Poser’, The Straits Times, 22 October 1960, 7.
16.See, for instance, the case of Haji Ali bin Haji Hassan of Minto Road in Kampong Buggis, in ‘A Terrible Case of “Amok”’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 17 May 1900, 3 and the case of Hasan of Weld Road in ‘Amok Case In Weld Road’, The Straits Times, 11 May 1901, 2. Both cases cited here occurred in Singapore.
17.‘Correspondence: Amok’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 7 June 1901, 2.
18.‘Insanity Among Asiatics’, Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser, 23 October 1905, 2.
19.John C. Spores, Running Amok: An Historical Inquiry (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Centre, 1988). Spores’ work is, to the best of my knowledge, the only (non-medical) monograph on amok available today. As we shall see, literary scholars have contributed far more substantially towards a history of amok through their study of colonial literature and texts.
20.Some of the most popular works which feature amok as a main theme include Conrad’s first novel, Almayer’s Folly (1895), and his popular short-story, Karain: A Memory (1897). A film adaptation of the former was recently released in 2012.
21.Fauconnier’s novel was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt (1930). This award suggests that Malaisie enjoyed a wide readership and benefited from substantial publicity in its time.
22.Ronald C. Simons and Charles C. Hughes, The Culture-Bound Syndromes: Culture, Illness and Healing (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1985); also see the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV-TF—Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Washington D.C.: APA, 2000), 655 and 899.
23.Mahathir bin Mohamad, The Malay Dilemma (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2008), 151–52. The first edition of this book was published in 1970 by Asia Pacific, Singapore.
24.Cited in Ooi Kee Beng, ‘Malaysia: Abdullah Does it His Own Vague Way’, in Daljit Singh and Lorraine C. Salazar (eds), Southeast Asian Affairs 2007 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publications, 2007), 190. Also see Julian C.H. Lee, Islamization and Activism in Malaysia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2010), 47.
25.Philip Holden, Modern Subjects/Colonial Texts: Hugh Clifford & the Discipline of English Literature in the Straits Settlements & Malaya 1895–1907 (Greensboro: ELT Press, 2000), 47.
26.Julian C.H. Lee, Islamization and Activism in Malaysia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publications, 2010), 47; similarly, Thomas Williamson has also argued that ‘[t]hrough labeling dissent as an illness called amok, the state effectively hides its own violence’. Thomas Williamson, ‘Communicating Amok in Malaysia’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 14, no. 3 (2007), 343.
27.Eddie Tay, Colony, Nation, and Globalisation: Not at Home in Singaporean and Malaysian Literature (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 26.
28.Spores, Running Amok, 135 and 141.
29.‘Notes of the Day. Singapore Executions’, The Straits Times, 20 January 1937, 10. Also see Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir, The Hikayat Abdullah: The Autobiography of Abdullah Bin Abdul Kadir (1797–1854), trans. A.H. Hill (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1953), 169–74.
30.‘Perak’, The Straits Times, 27 November 1875, 1. According to John Cameron, this was the first case of amok in colonial Singapore. See John Cameron, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India (London: Smith, Elder /Co., 1865), 259.
31.Charles Burton Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore (Singapore: Fraser & Neave Ltd., 1902), 99–100; The body was displayed for only three days, for ‘Malay people became upset with Raffles’ humiliating public display of Syed Yasin’s body.’ See Maziar Mozaffari Falarti, Malay Kingship in Kedah: Religion, Trade, and Society (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013), 80.
32.‘Grave of Man Who Knifed British Resident Became a Shrine’, The Straits Times, 19 March 1955, 9.
33.Martin J. Wiener, Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness, and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
34.Amok is referred here as being ‘hyper-masculine’. Gaik Cheng Khoo, Reclaiming Adat: Contemporary Malaysian Film and Literature (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 193.
35.Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: Being a Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms: Etymological, Historical, Geographical, and Discursive (London: John Murray, 1886), 12–16.
36.Ng Beng Yeong, Till the Break of Day: A History of Mental Health Service in Singapore, 1841–1993 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2001), 58.
37.Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore, 100.
38.Swettenham, The Real Malay: Pen Pictures, 25.
39.Hugh Charles Clifford, In Court & Kampong: Being Tales & Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula (London: G. Richards, 1897), 79.
40.‘Perak’, The Straits Times, 27 November 1875, 1.
41.Swettenham, The Real Malay: Pen Pictures, 259–261. Swettenham’s (rather optimistic) opinion contradicts the reality of the situation, as presented in newspaper reports on amok. For instance, in the case of the 1901 discussions of amok, some still felt it necessary ‘to suggest to the Government the advisability of strictly controlling the possession, if not sale, of dangerous weapons’. See: ‘Amok-Running’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 6 June 1901, 3. This letter later inspired others, such as Q.E.D., to write to St. Clair about amok.
42.Swettenham, The Real Malay: Pen Pictures, 259–261.
43.‘Jottings From a Tropical Island’, The Straits Times, 30 May 1874, 2.
44.‘Running Amok’, The Straits Times, 22 July 1911, 12.
45.‘The Soul of Malaya: Frenchman’s Remarkable Book’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 25 November 1931, 7. This article is a review of Henri Fauconnier’s first novel, Malaisie (1930).
46.Arnold Wright and Henry Adolphus Cartwright, eds, Twentieth Century Impressions of British Malaya: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (London: Lloyd’s Greater Britain publishing Company Ltd., 1908), 227–228.
47.‘Running Amok. Dutch Admiral’s Experiences in Netherlands-India. Sees Terrible Punishment’, The Straits Times, 26 October 1910, 11. Also see Stravorinus’ account in: Johan Splinter Stavorinus, Voyages to the East-Indies, trans. Samuel Hull Wilcocke (London: G.G. & J. Robinson, 1798), 292; in the Dutch East Indies, amok was also ‘one of the only indigenous crimes recognised under [Dutch East India] company law […] defined by gender and ethnicity’. See Kerry Ward, ‘Defining and Defiling the Criminal Body at the Cape of Good Hope: Punishing the Crime of Suicide under Dutch East India Company Rule, circa 1652–1795’, in Steven Pierce and Anupama Rao (eds), Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 53.
48.Isabella L. Bird, The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither (London: John Murray, 1883), 208.
49.W. Gilmore Ellis, ‘The Amok of the Malays’, The British Journal of Psychiatry 39, no. 166 (1893): 326; cited in Spores, Running Amok: An Historical Inquiry, 88. Spores adds that ‘[t]he presence of the restraining device in the rural villages and in the more uncivilised parts of Malaya’ renders it ‘difficult to imagine such a pervasive presence of the device without its serving an utilitarian purpose’.
50.Robert L. Winzeler, Latah in Southeast Asia: The Ethnography and History of a Culture Bound Syndrome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 27. Winzeler notes that amok started to be considered ‘in psychiatric terms’ during this era. Prior to that, there was little infrastructure and few medical professionals who would/could have facilitated this shift in thinking about amok. As a case in point, the first ‘Insane Hospital’ in the colony was only completed in 1841.
51.Coroner’s Inquest & Inquiries, Microfilm Number: AD 008 (1910–1911), National Archives of Singapore, Singapore. Gentle’s colleague, House Surgeon Sugars (Singapore General Hospital), also scribbled: ‘Stabbed in the throat. Murder Amok?’
52.‘Dr. Ellis on’Amok’, The Straits Times, 16 August 1893, 2.
53.‘Lunacy in the Straits’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 31 May 1892, 3.
54.‘Why Should an Amok Be Hanged? A Penang Poser’, The Straits Times, 22 October 1960, 7.
55.‘Running Amok’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 15 May 1895, 3. Fox’s opinion that amok was exclusively restricted to men was also affirmed by the doctor Henry Berkley, who underlined that amok ‘seems to be entirely confined to individuals of that race (Malay) […] It never affects women.’ Henry Johns Berkley, A Treatise on Mental Diseases (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1900), 574. (Amok is listed under ‘Psychoses peculiar to tropical regions’.) Although women also committed amok (as described in the press), medical professionals never recognised them as being ‘true’ cases of amok. For instance, the 1906 trial of a Malay woman who had wounded three persons during an episode of amok in Perak could have given cause for commentators to challenge the assumption that all ‘amok-runners’ were men. (‘Untitled’, Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser, 28 February 1906, 2.)
56.For instance, a fatal stabbing incident involving a Chinese man from the Malay State of Kedah was later deemed not to be a case of amok—presumably because the culprit was not a Malay. ‘Kedah Stabbing Not An Amok’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 30 September 1937, 6. For one of the earliest newspaper records of amok committed by a Hokkien Chinese, see ‘Untitled’, The Straits Times, 2 April 1864, 2. Another example of an amok committed by a Sikh is found in the following article: ‘A Sikh Runs Amok’, The Straits Times, 13 December 1894, 3. Other articles indicate that Europeans in the ‘tropics’ committed amok: ‘Europeans Amok’, Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser, 12 January 1906, 3.
57.‘Latah and Amok’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 13 April 1912, 3.
58.‘Latah and Amok’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 13 April 1912, 3.
59.Swettenham, The Real Malay: Pen Pictures, 254.
60.Ng, Till the Break of Day: A History of Mental Health Service in Singapore, 1841–1993, 60.
61.Ng, Till the Break of Day, 60.
62.Swettenham, The Real Malay: Pen Pictures, 253. Also see ‘Red Murder’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 28 December 1904, 2.
63.Frank Athelstane Swettenham, Malay Sketches (London: John Lane, 1895), ii.
64.‘When a Malay or Chinese Runs Amok. Thrills in China and New Guinea. Story of Narrow Escapes from Two Madmen’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 27 September 1932, 3. Former colonial policemen, however, disagree with such an assessment. As one recalled: ‘We all felt that if we came across an amok we were in for real trouble […] everybody expected you to do something and what on earth could you do?’ Charles Allen, ed., Tales From the South China Seas: Images of the British in South-East Asia in the Twentieth Century (London: Futura Publications, 1984), 122–123.
65.Botho Scheube, The Diseases of Warm Countries: A Handbook for Medical Men (London: John Bale, 1903), 511.
66.Warwick Anderson, Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2006), 141.
67.F.H.G. Van Loon, ‘Amok and Lattah’, The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 21, no. 4 (1927): 434; in Spores, Running Amok: An Historical Inquiry, 103.
68.‘Malaya of Yesterday and To-Day’, The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 10 March 1924, 3. However, colonial administrators and writers such as Hugh Clifford also stress that the ‘metamorphosis’ never penetrates the real character of ‘the Malay’ fundamentally. In his cautionary tale of Saleh, a Malay prince who was educated in England, Clifford notes that Saleh found ‘English’ values of ‘honour, duty, morality […] new ideas difficult to assimilate’ and ‘numbing to the brain’. Saleh is incapable of coping with the idea that he was ‘made all wrong from the beginning’, loses manly ‘self control’ and finally runs amok. Hugh Clifford, Sally: A Study and Other Tales of the Outskirts (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1904), 34–41; 81, 94.
69.Richard Keller, ‘Madness and Colonization: Psychiatry in the British and French Empires, 1800–1962’, Journal of Social History 35, no. 2 (2001): 296–297.
70.David Arnold, Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 2.
© The Author(s) 2018
Philip Dwyer and Amanda Nettelbeck (eds.)Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern WorldCambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Serieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62923-0_10
Fascist Violence and the ‘Ethnic Reconstruction’ of Cyrenaica (Libya), 1922–1934
Michael R. Ebner1
(1)Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA
Michael R. Ebner
Email: mebner@maxwell.syr.edu
In the spring of 1931, Italian colonial authorities ordered the construction of a fence on the border between Libya and Egypt. By September, 270 kilometres of cement, chain-link fence, and barbwire stretched from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Oasis of Jaghbub. Italian authorities constructed the fence in order to deny Omar al-Mukhtar and his resistance fighters safe-havens and material support in neighbouring Egypt. Thus Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, which was already completely separated from Tripolitania (Libya’s western province) by the desert of Sirtica, had now been also cut off from Egypt to the east of the fence. The peoples of Cyrenaica, particularly those living on the fertile highlands of the Jebel Akhdar , were the major source of support for Omar al-Mukhtar’s anti-colonial insurgency. 1 The year before the fence went up, Italian authorities ordered the deportation and internment of between one-half and two-thirds of the civilian population of Cyrenaica—between 90,000 and 110,000 people. General Pietro Badoglio , the governor of Italian Libya, explained the policy and its potential consequences to General Rodolfo Graziani , the military governor of the province responsible for implementing the deportations:Above all it is necessary to create a large, well-defined area to separate the submissive population from the rebel formations. I do not deny the significance and gravity of this measure, one that could mean the destruction of the so-called submissive population. But at this point the path has been laid out and we must follow it until the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish. 2
Under Graziani’s direction, the Italian military rounded up the Bedouin population and marched them across the desert, sometimes hundreds of kilometres, to a network of concentration camps located in desert and semi-desert regions near the western coast of Cyrenaica. 3 Thousands of sick and elderly people died during the deportations and, inside the worst camps, mortality rates from disease, starvation, summary executions, and other deprivations were high, up to twenty-five percent in some camps. According to ‘Umran Abu Shabur, a survivor of the El Agheila camp, ‘Every day we counted about fifty dead bodies who were taken from the concentration camp for burial. They were either hanged, or shot by the guards, or died because of hunger and disease’. 4 Survivors of special ‘punishment camps’ alleged that internees were beaten, tortured, raped, and maimed by Italian and Eritrean camp guards. 5 When Italian authorities dissolved the camps three years later, on
ly 70,000 people were released. Estimates of the number of deaths resulting from the deportations, concentration camps, and wartime hostilities range from 35,000 to 70,000. 6 The internment of civilians in Cyrenaica, and their subsequent resettlement, constituted the culmination of the Fascist regime’s increasingly violent efforts to ‘pacify’ Cyrenaica.