Dear Friend and Reader,
On November 18, 1978, 913 people lost their lives in Jonestown, Guyana in a community set up by an evangelistic religious leader by the name of Jim Jones. It was originally reported as a mass suicide under Jones’ direction, but I have lost a few nights of sleep after watching MSNBC’s special “Witness: To Jonestown” and doing some research which has led me to the conclusion that it was not a mass suicide at all.
Today is the 30th anniversary of The Jonestown Massacre, an event that is barely conceivable to me and to most of us who see the painful images taken on that day of all those bodies spread out like a quilt in the jungles of Guyana. The name Jim Jones is an urban legend among my generation, and it evokes a feeling of darkness and death. For some reason, I’ve really never bothered to look into what happened. I think the pictures said enough for me.
Now, as I’ve filled my head with the facts and the conspiracy theories that surround the event, I still come back to my original question which was not so much what happened, but how and why something like this could happen. I am fascinated by what motivates groups of people to participate in one common goal. How can an entire group consciousness be directed in such an awesomely evil and violent way?
The Jonestown Massacre stands out in a few ways for me. One is that unlike Nazis or slave-traders, who were doing something really obviously evil, Jim Jones was a comrade to many. I sat down with my Grandmother last night and learned that she had corresponded with him many times as a result of her political activism in the Bay Area during the 60s and early 70s. He was very critical of America’s treatment of Black people, poor people and the disenfranchised. He disapproved of capitalism, racism and classicism.
The apparent intent of setting up shop in Guyana was to have a Socialist community where everyone participated equally and was provided for and given all of the things that many of them were unable to afford in America, i.e. medical care, shelter, a job. But what has really blown my mind is finding out that he was more than just a powerful personality and one of those people who can charm honey out of a bee: he was politically astute, socially aware, racially blind and a kind, generous man. There seems to be this common association with the term “cult” that pre-defines the members as somehow “weak” or “psychologically deficient” in some ways. This is just not the case with the members of the People’s Temple.