Jonestown

On Monday night, I watched a documentary about Jonestown on PBS (Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, to be specific). I've been thinking about it ever since. It's such a bizarre happening, 900 people out in the jungles of Guyana all drink poisoned kool-aid and die. I'd heard sketchy details before, but didn't really know the history behind it all. This show started back at the beginning of it all, followed the Peoples Temple from Indiana, to California, to Guyana. And it was told with the voices of those who lived the experience, people who were part of this "cult," people who lived in Jonestown, people who saw everyone around them die. It was a very well done program.

So the part that has really stuck with me is this: the survivors really don't regret anything they did. They never say, "Oh, I wish I had never joined up with Jim Jones; that was a mistake." The one regret they have is that Jonestown didn't work. One woman said that, to her, Jonestown was heaven, and since that didn't work, she has a hard time believing in a heaven. Quite the statement. I guess the overall "learning moment" for me was realizing that these people weren't crazy, and they didn't go into it thinking they were joining a cult. They really felt they were doing what was right, and trying to live a good life. The problems came in when their leader went loco. The 900 people who drank poison weren't crazy, even though it seems that way. They just came together as a group, trying to take care of each other, trying to find happiness, to find heaven on earth. And when faced with the chaos of that fatal day, they chose what they thought was their only option. There are a lot of circumstances surrounding that event, too many to relate in this blog post. I recommend that documentary to anyone who wants to learn more. It really is enlightening and educational, and not just about the Peoples Temple, but about human nature.