Letting off steam at a 'latah' session
Letting off steam at a 'latah' session
By Myra Sidharta
JAKARTA (JP): The women had worked hard all day to make the
party a success and now it was time for fun.
Seated around the betelnut box, they started to let go of
themselves. One woman shoved the betelnut box to her neighbor,
who exclaimed a string of words in startled response. Everybody
laughed. Another woman followed suit with her own verbal stream.
It continued around the room, back and forth, until the
expressions became increasingly vulgar. Yet the muttering of
usually forbidden expletives, the "dirty" words never heard in
polite company and seldom expressed by women, only seemed to add
to the hilarity.
The uninitiated would no doubt be shocked at the sight of a
group of middle-aged Malaysian women dissolved in laughter at
their deliberate use, or misuse, of language. Yet they were
taking part in a latah session, a socially sanctioned means of
releasing tension in a strongly conformist society.
Latah is also known by its scientific name echolalia, or the
often pathological repetition of what is said by other people as
if echoing them. It was first described around the turn of the
century by Dutch psychiatrist Van Wulften Palthe, who observed
the phenomenon in schizophrenic patients in Indonesia.
More recent research has found that latah is not exclusive to
the mentally ill in Malaysian and Indonesian society, but also
common in normal people, particularly middle-aged women, as an
escape from socially prescribed actions and reactions.
American psychiatrist Ron Simons conducted research in
Malaysia in the early 1970s and noted that latah during a
kenduri, a type of thanksgiving party, was accepted in rural
areas even though obscenities were expressed. A young girl would
usually run the risk of having her mouth rubbed with chili if she
swore. However, girls would sometimes pretend to be latah, making
slips of the tongue, to get attention.
Simons wrote that the uttering of obscenities during the
ceremony was an acceptable outlet for tension and emotion among
the peer group after a hard day's work. Living in a society in
which acceptance by others is of paramount importance and with
few permitted opportunities to vent emotion, the women
experienced almost childish delight in toying with the forbidden.
Unlike in Malaysia, latah is found among middle-aged urban
Indonesian women. The woman who swears and muddles her words may
be said to be the "laughing stock" of her group, yet her friends
are laughing "with" her, not "at" her in the communal release of
tension.
Other cultures have their own events where the taboo becomes
acceptable under special circumstances. During the carnival
season in Brazil, people parade in next-to-nothing and behave
with abandon. The same is true of Mardi Gras in European cities
and New Orleans, where the wearing of masks allows people to shed
conventional norms.
A parallel can also be drawn with the young people who took
part in the recent campaign rallies here. They donned T- shirts
in the color of their party, cut their hair into zany styles and
behaved wildly. They screamed and shouted, with the mass hysteria
of being together in a group sometimes descending into violence.
For them, it was fun, a chance to escape the mundane,
regulated pattern of their lives. Yet, as Riswandha Imawan of
Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta said, the youths used the
cloak of legitimacy of the campaign to release pressure.
"When those same people ride on a motorbike without any party
symbols, they become law abiding again," he said. "They don't
attack other people or force other motorists to the roadside to
make them give them the right of way."