A case study that I’m doing is the mass suicide in Jonestown plotted by a cult leader Jim Jones. Since Jim Jones was young he studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and many other leaders, trying to find out everything. He was different as a child compared to other children, he was obsessed with different religions and deaths. In 1952 Jones became a student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church, he had a reputation for a healer and an evangelist. Not a lot of people like him for trying to have a racially diverse sermon. He created a group known as The Peoples Temple of the Disciples Christ or known as Peoples Temple in 1955.
It’s a group to spread different message of christianity, politics and mainly racial equality as his father used to be associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Jones didn’t get along with his father due to their different racial views on the black people. Jonestown was a name for the for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. Which was based in Northwestern Guyana, but it started back in Jones’s hometown Indiana and he would hold his own sermon through radio for people to listen. In 1960 the Temple decided to get more public coverage by opening a soup kitchen for the poor also giving them jobs, free food, clothing and coal.
He was appointed to the Indianapolis Human Rights Commision and he made media coverage and more people knew about him. But they moved in 1960’s to California with around 100 of his church members and started his church branch. In 1974 Jones bought land in Guyana to build home for his members that has reached 1000 people. But he didn’t treat people with their rights people didn’t get food and they were not allowed to leave. Jones began his loyalty test by making people drink a red liquid with poison. But he told them afterwards that there wasn’t any poison. Former members of
Peoples Temple looked for help and Leo Ryan a congressman went to Jonestown to see what’s going on. On November 14 1978 Leo Ryan and his crew flew to Jonestown to find more information on Jonestown and help people leave. The day of the suicide when Leo Ryan and some of the Peoples Temple tried to leave on November 17, they left Jonestown and waited for their plane at Kaituma airstrip. Soon the members who escorted Leo Ryan and his crew shot fire on their plane and the people. Jones told some of his member and shot 5 people dead. Leo Ryan. Don Harris, Bob Brown and Greg Robinson and Patricia Parks were killed.
On the same day Jones was leading around 909 people to a mass suicide. Cyanide were were put into cups with Kool-Aid. Children were the first to die and the people who refused to drink. Then the members were told to lie with their family so they can die together and “enter to heaven together”. If anybody decides to reject to drink, they were either were forced violently to drink or they were killed. After this Jones shot himself or asked one of his member to shoot him in the head and died with his closest people. Jim Jones had planned this mass murder and a total of 909 Americans with 300 children had died.
What are the ideologies linked to the mass suicide and points of view, values and perspectives One viewpoint that caused the mass suicide was Jim Jones. Jim Jones a religious cult leader that caused the mass suicide. He believes that Jonestown was a place for people that follows his religions and believes his teachings were right as he cares for the people in need. ” My whole life I have suffered from poverty and have faced many disappointments and pain,like a man is used to. That is why I want to make other people happy and want them to feel at home” He also believes in “revolutionary suicide” and practices them in Jonestown.
He calls them White Nights which it’s his suicide drills to see if his followers are loyal. Revolutionary suicide is when God rewards them in their after life. He believes these because he values all his Temple members and he values different racial equality and accepted African Americans as his members and cared for them. He would preach for the African Americans and brings them to Jonestown. Jones also values himself as a modern god that will help the world by his teachings and beliefs to make it into a better world.
Jim Jones views and values have been shaped by religious ideology as since he was young he was interested a studied different religions and teaches his own religion. People with this ideology has been brought up in a religious community and believes on his religions as he became a reverend to share his beliefs. Jones’s preach about how he was the reincarnation of Ghandi, Jesus Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine as he sees himself as a leader that will lead the world into a better place. He had no bias towards anybody and helps the ones in need like God.
Also another ideology that his views and values have been shaped by is his cult ideology. People with this ideologies believes whatever they’re doing is right and think his followers will follow him do what he says. Since Jones is the leader of a cult his motifs and goal in the end was the mass suicide that led 909 americans killing themselves for believe in Jim Jones. Stephan Jones has a view on Jim Jones as he is the only son of Jim Jones and Marceline Jones. Stephan Jones believes that his father Jim Jones actions towards the mass suicide was not forgivable as it is something that we should do.
It was until his father came to Jonestown he started to change due to his paranoia and drug addiction which felt like prison in Jonestown. Jones did not like his father with the way he treated the people in Jonestown by sexually assaulting them and his drug addictions which he did not stop. Stephan believes this because values human rights and wanted people to have the same rights as everybody else. Stephan didn’t like his father’s views on communism and this proves he values Human Rights. Such as the right to life, right to freedom, right to equality and right to freedom from interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence.
He would live in Jonestown with his family but he won’t help his father to do his evil acts. Stephan views and values have been shaped by a victim ideology. Ever since Stephan was young he wanted to kill his father for the things he did when Jim Jones was addicted with drugs. He has seen the way he treated his Temple members and they way he treated Stephan. He said “I was so enraged, I could think about killing him. I think that’s one thing I never really been capable of, up to now, really taking someone’s life even my father”. Because of this he was able to survive from the mass suicide in Jonestown.
He is one of the few survivors that was able to avoid any harm and violence from his father. People with this ideology has been scarred due to an unfortunate event. Something that had happened to them that will stay with them for long term. So Stephan Jones will not ever forget what happened before the Jonestown mass suicide from what his father did. Another ideology his dominant ideology which is doing something following what the society believes is right. Since society doesn’t believe in Jim Jones with the way he thinks that he’s a God or revolutionary suicide, he thinks the same with the society and doesn’t like his dad for it.
People with this ideology usually tends to go along with what’s “right” to their society. If their society disagrees on something that person will also disagree. Another viewpoint is David Dick was a CBS TV reporter who was in South America and the first newsmen to arrive at Jonestown after the mass suicide. He saw the dead bodies from the sky and was shocked. David believes that the Jonestown mass suicide was one of the worst violent crime he has ever witness working for CBS as a reporter. David Dick also believes that something like this could happen and he was the first people to write a report on it.
He said “I was almost killed doing stories in Nicaragua and Beirut, but I hope I never see anything like what | saw in Guyana. It’s unfortunate, but you have to explain Jonestown to a lot of people. A lot of time has passed. It’s become on of your lesser known tragedies. ” He believes this because he values the people lives and he’s always on the search for stories to be told around the world. His jobs consists on the telling the world factual information, so he would care about other people that is in trouble. He also values God and the Bible and he follows the words of the Bible.
Jim Jones had a different view on God as he thought by doing the revolutionary suicide was the right thing but David thought it was wrong. David Dick views and values have been shaped by his religious ideology. People with this ideology believes that his religion is right by following their words and live they way they were taught. David Dick is a Christian and goes to Espicopal Church and he’s a member. As Jim Jones believes his religion is right and follows what he believes, David is different as he thinks Jim Jones broke all the rules of Christianity and his religion was wrong.