Visiting Jonestown: The cult-murder crime scene undergoing a dark tourism boom
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In the world of travel, it’s clear that dark tourism is booming. People have long been fascinated to see the very worst of mankind, and there’s an appetite to see more and more macabre places.
We’ve seen YouTubers going into active warzones in Eastern Europe, concentration camps from World War II and beyond, and countless other places that have been torn about by war, environmental disaster or murder.
In the same way that people love reading biographies of history’s most notorious dictators and the evil that they espoused, there’s a fascination in seeing the remnants of true despair and destruction. Now, in the depths of South America, there’s a growing travel industry based around the Jonestown Massacre, one of the most harrowing tragedies of the last century.
Back in 1955, Jim Jones formed the People’s Temple, which became a respected religious organisation that was based around racial integration and social justice. Unlike most religious groups at the time, in which America was still segregated, this allowed both Black and white folks to worship together. The organisation slowly began to mutate and moved from Indianapolis to San Francisco, and eventually to the jungles of Guyana. Subsequently, reports of human rights abuses leaked from the commune, and in 1978, US Congressman Leo Ryan visited the settlement in order to find out what was going on.
As the Congressman tried to board his plane back to America, alongside journalists and one defector, they were gunned down by Jones’ armed guards. With severe repercussions from the US government likely, Jones gathered his followers, a group around 1000 people strong, and asked them to commit “revolutionary suicide”.
Huge vats of grape-flavoured drink were laced with chloral hydrate, Valium and cyanide, and drunk by the group, with many, including children and the elderly, forced at gunpoint to drink; 918 people ended up dying, with around 300 being children, and Jones eventually died after shooting himself.
Read more https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/visiting-jonestown-the-cult-murder-crime-scene-undergoing-a-dark-tourism-boom/
Content retrieved from: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/visiting-jonestown-the-cult-murder-crime-scene-undergoing-a-dark-tourism-boom/.
