Amuk

Due to the new killings outbreak in Binghamton, I was asked: "When people 'run amok' In Malaysia and Indonesia does it happen in clusters or cyclically?"

"Running amok" (derived from the Malay word amuk, meaning "mad with rage") is as much a product of the copycat effect, as any other language's similar behaviors. The word was made popular by the colonial tales of Rudyard Kipling (an important Freemason writer whom I recently discussed here in conjunction with Slumdog Millionaire).

"Running amok" is merely a culturally-framed phrase to attempt to describe the underlying suicidal behavior that is viewed as a "murder-suicide rampage" today.

For example, here is how Wikipedia approaches this:

Behaviour strongly reminiscent of amok is also found in Western societies, and indeed the term is often used to refer to the behaviour of someone who, in the grip of strong emotion, obtains a weapon and begins attacking people indiscriminately, often with multiple fatalities. The slang term going postal is similar in intent and more common today, particularly in North America. Police describe such an event as a killing spree. If the individual is seeking death an alternate method is often suicide by cop.

In contemporary Indonesia, the term amok (amuk) generally refers not to individual violence, but to apparently frenzied violence by mobs. Indonesians now commonly use the term 'mata gelap' (literally 'darkened eyes') to refer to individual amok.

Norse berserkers and the Zulu battle trance are two other examples of the tendency of certain groups to work themselves up into a killing frenzy.

The 1911 Webster Encyclopedia comments:

Though so intimately associated with the Malay there is some ground for believing the word to have an Indian origin, and the act is certainly far from unknown in Indian history. Some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. Thus, in 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amok at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.

All of these behaviors, whether of school shootings, going postal, workplace violence, church shootings, rampage killings, or running amok, are all about suicide.

Even the Wikipedia writer agrees:
"Amok episodes of this kind normally end with the attacker being killed by bystanders, or committing suicide."

"Some observers have related this explanation to Islam's ban on suicide, which, it is suggested, drove Malay men to create circumstances in which others would kill them."

Amok is "in fact, the Malay equivalent of suicide."

To ask for firm answers about "amok" is to try to understand the essence of suicide, which, of course, is one of the most mysterious topics about humans that exists.

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