Kijun Times

This post was written by Lawrence T. White.

When I read Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent article (link is external) in The New Yorker about school shooters, I was struck by the numerous parallels between school shootings in the United States and a Southeast Asian variety of sudden mass assault—running amok.

Amok is a Malay word that means “furious charge of homicidal intent.” Running amok is a kind of killing spree that is well-known among traditional Malays in Southeast Asia. 

In 1901, a British surgeon living in Malaysia named John Gimlette described a fairly typical incident of amok.

Source: Lawrence T. White

A 23-year-old man stole a sword and attacked six people who were either sleeping or smoking opium. He nearly decapitated one man, killed three, and seriously wounded the others—all for no apparent reason.

Years later, an anthropologist described a similar incident of amok.

A young man was working as part of a construction crew. Because he was from a rural part of the country, some of his fellow workers called him “bush pig”—a serious insult. One night the young man attacked his fellow workers with a large bush knife as they lounged in their dormitory, killing six of them by nearly hacking their heads off. He was finally shot and killed by another man.

Dr. Gimlette identified three characteristic features of amok: (1) a period of brooding and separation before the incident, (2) a sudden homicidal outburst, and (3) a non-stop killing spree with no ostensible motive. These same features characterize many school shootings in the U.S.

The parallels don’t stop there. School shooters and “amokers” (to coin a term) are almost always male. Their killing sprees take place in public spaces that contain many potential victims.  They keep moving and killing until they are killed or commit suicide.

According to Gladwell, school shootings in the U.S. often follow a particular “cultural script.” The basics of the script can be found in the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters.

You write a manifesto. You get your hands on a gun—preferably an assault rifle—and lots of ammunition. You post a video online that contains a highly stylized sequence: You point a gun at the camera, then at your head, and then spread your arms wide with a gun in each hand. The final scenes are a close-up and a wave goodbye.

Running amok in SE Asia also follows a cultural script. Traditionally, the amoker uses a bladed weapon, not a gun. He kills as many people as he can until he is stopped. If the amoker is captured alive, he loses consciousness and later claims to have no memory for the incident.

There are, however, at least two important difference between school shooters and amokers.

First, according to Gladwell and others, it’s nearly impossible to construct a psychiatric profile that describes all or even most school shooters. Some are psychotic, but most are not. Some are depressed, but most are not. Some have been bullied, but most have not. Amokers, on the other hand, typically suffer from one or more psychiatric conditions including depressive psychosis, paranoia, and a history of violent or suicidal behavior.

Second, running amok is not associated with a particular age group, whereas school shooters are almost always young men.

Psychiatrists and cultural anthropologists classify amok as a culture-bound syndrome. A culture-bound syndrome is a pattern of aberrant behavior observed in a specific culture but not observed elsewhere. Other culture-bound syndromes include koro, latah, and bulimia.

By definition, culture-bound syndromes draw upon cultural scripts and express core psychological tensions within a culture. The disorder is a template for deviance, and those who suffer from the disorder gain notoriety in the society at large. Perhaps school shootings, in the ritualized American-style, are a new kind of culture-bound syndrome.