During
the Ecotones 3-G Conference hosted two weeks ago in Montpellier, brief mention was made of Jonestown and why it is not commemorated the same way the sinking of the Son Chapman is. In response, it was suggested that the reason everything was done to forget the Jonestown tragedy is because it occurred in full knowledge of the PNC dictatorship which ended in 1992. The culmination of a madman’s delusion into mass suicide, was essentially due to four years of neglect from the Guyanese government to intervene.
In reality, while the PNC latched itself onto the Wismar tragedy, not quite unlike a parasite, year after year and for its own political mileage, it cautiously distanced itself from the Jonestown mass suicide which claimed the life of over 900 people. The majority of the victims were Americans of African descent, the ethnic group constituting the core of the PNC support base and electorate.
Sadly, the PPP/C also, during its successive mandates following the dictatorship, failed to accord Jonestown its rightful importance in our history and as a result, the jungle eventually reclaimed the land on which Jim Jones’ cabins had trapped hundreds of Guyanese.
Jonestown is located in the vicinity of Four Miles, not far from Port Kaituma (Region 1). In 2014, during a land titling field investigation, Jonestown’s boundaries were carefully examined so that there would be no overlapping with the Four Miles proposed title (now titled). When we visited the site, debris was still visible, including a faded overhead signboard dangling over what was once the entrance. Most of the team abstained from entering the premises; it was believed that the lieu was haunted. There was a quasi-palpable sense of unease which I have to admit, was contagious. No one spoke much of Jonestown after we left, except to map GPS coordinates and delineate boundaries. Looking back it seems strange, especially since the team generally enjoyed uncanny story telling after dinner and a hard day out in the fields.
Jonestown seems to provoke the same sensation of discomfort, or alternatively ignorance, associated with broaching taboos. There is such a disconnection between Guyanese and Jonestown that it could fool anyone who didn’t know better, into thinking that the tragedy is a fragment of our history which happened hundreds of years ago. But Guyanese, while we do have an important role to play in keeping the memory of our ancestors alive, are not the sole culprits in forgetting this obscure part of our history.
Unfortunately, we have been cursed with Governments bent on negating their responsibilities in the tumultuous post-independence history of Guyana, unwilling to bring closure to the events which have scarred the country; unwilling to teach the nation to learn from history. When the PNC reinvented itself by forming the APNU coalition, it formally abandoned its responsibility in the downfall of Guyana during the dictatorship. By 2015, when the APNU coalesced with the recently founded AFC, it introduced itself as a “fresh approach” and a clean slate. Pre-1992 no longer existed in its books, although one of Burnham’s soldiers was now running for President.
When President Granger assumed office, he continued this pursuit to reformulate history. His latest invention is a term he dubbed “the troubles” (early 2000s) on October 13, 2016, when he delivered a speech to the House that lambasted the PPP for being responsible for the current state of affairs in the country. Interestingly, “the troubles” is a term formatted to suit a particular political agenda, and confines Guyana’s post-colonial history to the period spanning the beginning of the Jagdeo era to now. To the unfamiliar ear, it is almost as though anything beyond Jagdeo and the PPP, never existed; as if the Burnhamite dictatorship never existed. Jonestown never existed.
In light of the selective amnesia of our Governments and the minimal efforts at self-instructing ourselves where we can, we should not be surprised if “drink the Kool Aid” has become a banal expression used by young Guyanese and social commentators, to incarnate all that they’ve retained from Jonestown.
The memory of our historical legacies, our cultures and our heritage, can only be immortalised by our will. And until we realise that we are the vessels of history, we will continue to repeat the same mistakes and succumb to the Government Kool Aid.
