Tags
Children of Jonestown, Jonestown/Guyana, Mass-murder-suicide, Peoples Temple Agricultural Project/Guyana, Peoples Temple Church, Reverend Jim Jones, Revolutionary Suicide, Youth Climate Activists
Aerial view of Paradise off of Clark Road – Camp Fire, Northern California
November 15, 2018
Photo Credit: San Francisco Examiner (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
As California burns and super-storms ravage our southern and eastern coastal states, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Reverend Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. Today, November 18th, is the fortieth anniversary of the mass murder-suicide of 916 Americans at the People’s Temple Agricultural Project at Jonestown in the northwest forested region of Guyana.
The 276 dead American children had no choice.
Teacher with Children Singing – Jonestown – Guyana
Photo Credit: California Digital Library
Victim of his own megalomania and alternate reality, the Pentecostal leader coerced his followers into ingesting cyanide-laced, grape-flavored Flavor Aid.
“Revolutionary suicide,” the Reverend Jim Jones called his final, defiant act.
In his article, “Guyana: Jonestown tragedy remains a cautionary tale 40 years later,” Mohamed Hamaludin—a now retired, Guyana-born journalist who writes a commentary for The South Florida Times—shares his firsthand experience while covering the story for the Caribbean media.
Based on their inaction to curb our fossil fuel consumption, our climate change deniers in Washington D.C. are pursuing a collective, suicidal path. Our well-being and that of our children, grandchildren, and future generations is inconsequential.
Youth climate activists occupy office of Nancy Pelosi – Washington D.C.
November 13, 2018
Photo Credit: Common Dreams (Waleed Shahid/Twitter)
Will the voices of reason be ignored? Will the protestors be silenced? Will the world’s richest and most powerful nation persist in forcing its people and the people of the world to commit “revolutionary suicide”?
Three Worlds One Vision 
I would rather call it “reactionary suicide”
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I agree. Much more appropriate.
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It’s always so disheartening to see the destroyed towns just due to the aggression between countries. Just as this too I recently read a news where nearly thousands of them suffered.
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Shreya, I don’t understand your response. While the destroyed town in the championed photo may look like a war zone, the devastation was caused by a fast-moving wildfire.
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Yeah I know as it was mentioned in your post but I was talking about such a site destroyed by war.😊😊
I hope you got it.😋
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Got it, Shreya 🙂
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Gosh! Was that 40 years ago. I must be getting old. You have drawn an important parallel here
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Yes, Derrick, it’s now been 40 years, yet it seems like yesterday when the gruesome details of the massacre touched our lives.
So glad that you see the parallel between Jonestown and the existential crisis that we now face on our planet. I was heartened to learn about the protests in London yesterday, organized by a new group, Extinction Rebellion.
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I’d like to think they had a choice earlier in the process: the choice not to follow this particular leader. Charismatic, corrupt leaders lead many over the edge. We all have agency as to whether we follow or fight, at least for now. At the back end of the process, choices narrow and disappear, whether concerning climate change or basic human rights and freedoms.
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Yes, the adults did make a reasoned choice to join People’s Temple. Isolated and trapped in their tropical jungle “paradise” with their deranged leader, they were left with few options. Many did refuse to drink the poison; others tried to escape into the surrounding jungle. Physical force overpowered them.
As you point out, our “choices narrow and disappear” over time. In the face of our global ecological collapse, our choices are closing in real fast.
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Your last sentence gets to the heart of our dilemma, Rosaliene. Thanks.
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A terrible event and a timely reminder. To me, people should base everything they do and everything they believe on the evidence. The evidence is quite clear that, for example, Donald Trump is not a good president, climate change is man-made and a huge challenge to the human race, aliens are not watching us closely, ready to turn up and save us from ourselves, and the Irish were not slaves in the Americas and did not have it worse than the African slaves. People need to stop accepting nonsense without facts, or worse still, they need to stop appointing people like Trump or Jones to do their thinking for them.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, John. When we look to people like Jones and Trump to save us from all that ails our society, we give them power over our lives.
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As long as current ideologies exist, socially and religion, nothing is going to change much with the human race… change must start at the roots, in the homes and neighborhoods, the streets and fields before there will be change at the top… 🙂
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” -Mother Teresa
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This is what concerns me, Dutch. Our species is trapped in ideologies that only serve a tiny group of super-rich and powerful elite. I don’t believe that ripples are enough to save us from ourselves. We’ve gone too far to the edge of the abyss. We now need a great tsunami that awakens human consciousness worldwide.
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The point is if enough people create ripples, at some point in time you will get your tsunami… that is why one needs to work from the ground up, not the top down… 🙂
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for sharing my post, Cyril. Hope that all is well in your world 🙂
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Pingback: “Revolutionary Suicide”: Remembering the Jonestown Massacre – By Rosaliene Bacchus
Thanks for sharing, GuyFrog 🙂
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😔
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I was living in my native California when the Jonestown massacre happened. The news hit hard because many in my circle of friends and family had known some of the victims. One of the victims was my congressman Leo Ryan. I had met him in high school when he held a town hall style meeting there. So sad and tragic…
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It was, indeed, Robert. As a native of Guyana, I share in the loss of their families in California.
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Did you ever read The Black Hole of Guyana by the late John Judge. It’s an account of his investigation into US intelligence involvement in the Jonestown Massacre:
https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/Jonestown.html
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Thanks for sharing the link, Dr. Bramhall. Yes, there’s a lot about the Jonestown Massacre that may never come to light.
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916 people. 276 Children. I had forgotten those numbers. Thank you for helping us remember. Slow poison is more insidious. You inspire me to do more. I’m not sure where that more will fit in, but more is needed.
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I also need to do more, JoAnna. More awareness, more acceptance of the other, more tolerance, more giving, more understanding, more compassion…
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As we remember to love ourselves too.
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Thank you for drawing this interesting parallel Rosaliene. Grim reading but true. What is happening in the UK at present is another kind of (economic) suicide, in my opinion.
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I agree, Denzil. Those who voted in favor of Brexit had no idea of what it would entail.
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Kind of the same “brains” as those who voted for the Donald, eh?
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Yes, although I have been out of the UK for over 30 years I still follow events there with interest, while feeling pretty happy that I am not working and living there at the moment. I feel the most sorry for young people who voted to remain in Europe but now have to live with the consequences of the decisions of the older folk.
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Beyond sad then and now.
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Insightful parallels, Rosaliene!
Jones lived in & amassed his following
not too many miles from where I live.
Many people in this town still can’t forget.
The American people & others
are being forced to drink the kool-aid 😦
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Thanks, David.
Human tragedy
Connections through space and time
Linger in Jonestown
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What a sad and tragic event! It is hard to believe it has been forty years!
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Thanks for dropping by, Dwight. A great loss for the American families affected by the tragedy.
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I remember the shock we all had when we heard what had happened.
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What a tragedy. Hope such things never happen again
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Atul, under our current climate change denier president in the USA, I fear that a far greater tragedy of global proportion is in the making.
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Ya. May god give sense to Mr President.
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So if they kill themselves does that mean those who pollute the earth go unchallenged?
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As I see it, Lander, we-humans are all on the path of collective suicide through our systematic destruction of Earth’s ecosystems that support life on our planet. Do we-humans go unchallenged? No other living species can challenge our behavior. Our future is in our hands.
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Can’t argue that.
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