... - Joumey to Nowhere A NEW WORLD TRAGEDY $13.95 Rarely does a book come along which so transcends its apparent subject that the reader is ultimately given something larger, richer, and more revealing than he might initially have imagined. Already published in Eng­ land to overwhelming acclaim (see back of jacket), Shiva Naipaul’s Journey to Nowhere is such a book — a “power­ ful, lucid, and beautifully written book” (The Spectator) that is destined to be one of the most controversial works of 1981. In it, this major writer takes us far beyond the events and surface details surrounding the tragedy of Jones­ town and the People’s Temple —and gives us his remark­ able, unique perspective on the deadly drama of ideas, environments, and unholy alliances that shaped those events both in Guyana and, even more significantly, in America. Journey to Nowhere is, on one level, a “brilliantly edgy safari” (New Statesman) inside the Third World itself—a place of increasing importance in our lives—and on another, a book about America, about the corrupt and corrupting ideologies and chi-chi politics of the past twenty years that enabled the Reverend Jim Jones and the Temple to flourish and grow powerful in California and Guyana. Drawing on interviews —with former members of the Temple, various officials, and such people as Buckmin­ ster Fuller, Huey Newton, Clark Kerr, and others —on documents, and most importantly, on his own strong, clear reactions to what he observed, Naipaul examines the Guyana of Forbes Bumham, the CIA stooge turned Third World socialist leader, whose stated ideals of socialism, racial brotherhood, and cooperative agricul­ tural enterprise coincided so neatly, we learn for the first time, with those of the People’s Temple — ideals that led all too easily to violence and death. “In life,” Naipaul writes, “they had been hailed by the Guyanese govern­ ment as socialist heroes; in death they had become hopelessly American.” In California, he traces the ideas generated in the 1960s in the white radical and Black Power movements —and the evolution of those ideas in the 1970s into the preoc­ cupation with “self-realization,” ecology, and “life-style.” We learn of the Temple’s formation and of its respected place in the San Francisco community; of Jim Jones and his life, from his small-town Indiana background to his coming West; of the Concerned Relatives and their attempts to totally discredit the Temple and extricate (continued on back Hap) (continued from front flap) their family members from it. But above all, Naipaul relentlessly explores the American society that pro­ duced and nurtured Jones and his followers: the politi­ cians and social workers, the Zen Buddhists and the born-again Christians...and the down-and-outs and the poor —the junk people whom America professes to care about, but prefers to forget. Absolutely convincing, timely in its message, and writ­ ten with “the sardonic humor which has become his trademark” (The Times), Journey to Nowhere is “a bril­ liant achievement” (The Sunday Times). It is certain to be talked about—and argued about — for years to come. SHIVA NAIPAUL was born in 1945 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He was educated at Queen’s Royal College and St. Mary’s College in Trinidad, and at University College, Oxford. He makes his home in London with his wife and son, but at present is living in America, where he is writing his new novel. The recipient of a number of literary awards for his work, Mr. Naipaul is the author of two novels—Fireflies and The Chip-Chip Gatherers — and a book of nonfiction, North of South: An African Journey. Jacket design © 1981 by Robert Anthony, Inc. 0581 Also by Shiva Naipaul FIREFLIES THE CHIP-CHIP GATHERERS NORTH OF SOUTH: AN AFRICAN JOURNEY A New World Tragedy loURNEY To ’ NOWHERE by Shiva Naipaul Simon and Schuster NEW YORK Copyright© 1980, 1981 by Shiva Naipaul All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form Published by Simon and Schuster A Division of Gulf & Western Corporation Simon & Schuster Building Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 Simon and schuster and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster Designed by Irving Perkins Associates Originally published in Great Britain in 1980 under the title Black and White Manufactured in the United States of America 13579 10 8642 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Naipaul, Shiva, date. Journey to nowhere. First published in 1980 under title: Black and white. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Peoples Temple. 2. Jones, Jim, 1931-1978. I. Title. BP605.P46N34 1980 289.9 80-29138 ISBN 0-671-42471-8 The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from the following: “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” by W. H. Auden from W. H. Auden: Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelson, copyright © 1940, re­ newed 1968 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, copyright © 1968 by East/Memphis & Time Music. The author wishes to acknowledge the generous help of the Guggenheim Foundation during the writing of this book. Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. —W. H. Auden PART ONE CHAPTER At Piarco Airport in Trinidad, I all but jumped ship. My wretchedness had been building throughout the long flight from London. I was separated by no more than an hour from the jungly nightmare of Guyana. It was early afternoon and it was raining hard. The crowded aircraft, invaded by sultry tropical air, steamed with the blended vapors of sweat, tobacco and alcohol. Boxes and bags laden with London-bought treasure crammed the overhead racks and over­ flowed from under the seats. This treasure was, for the most part, so tawdry, so down-at-heel, that it could only heighten my appre­ hension of what lay ahead. It consisted, in the main, of food— canned goods, tins of biscuits, confectionery—and the commoner household utensils—cutlery, towel racks, pots and pans. This cargo emphasized the fact that I was on my way to a land of endemic scarcity; a land where, a couple of weeks previously, just over nine hundred Americans, in thrall to a faith healer espous­ ing a mixture of socialism, racial brotherhood and cooperative agricultural enterprise—the stated ideals, in short, of the Guy­ anese Government—had died in a desolation of murder and sui­ cide: a messianic climax which, in its reliance on Fla-Vor-Aid as a »3 14 Journey to Nowhere sweetening agent for the cyanide soup administered to the vic­ tims, was not without its horrible and deserved bathos. The first Guyanese to arrive on the scene had plundered the encampment. They had also behaved badly at the Kaituma airstrip, not far from Jonestown, where Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation had been ambushed by Jim Jones’s assassins. Before the stunned survivors could intervene, the locals had stripped the fallen bodies of cam­ eras, tape recorders and other technical equipment. When water was requested, some had demanded payment. Still, as one of my fellow passengers (a Guyanese) had pointed out to me, there was some comfort to be drawn from the catastro­ phe. It had always annoyed him when his English friends asked him where Guyana was located. Mostly, they would place it some­ where in Africa. “This thing,” he said, “has put Guyana on the map.” He even hoped that the sudden flood of publicity might stimulate some badly needed foreign investment. Not many weeks before, I had been to another of the Guianas, to neighboring Surinam, the former Dutch colony which had re­ cently been given its political freedom. Surinam was still suffering the aftermath of the panic that had swept over many of its poten­ tial citizens (the majority of them Indians—or Hindustanis, as they are called there) on the eve of Independence. Clinging to their still operative Dutch nationality, thousands had fled to Hol­ land. Almost a quarter of the Surinamese population of half a million now live in the Netherlands. This stampede gave rise to a joke which, I suspect, is not unique to Surinam. The Surinamese say that the exodus led to the prominent display of a sign at the airport: “Will The Last Person To Leave Please Turn Off The Lights.” It was a panic with which I could easily sympathize. If Guyana, their immediate neighbor, loosed into the world by the British in 1966, was anything to go by, the Hindustanis, the Chinese and the Javanese—these last an exotic reminder of the Dutch colonies in the East Indies—had every reason to be worried and fearful A NEW WORLD TRAGEDY >5 about the implications of Independence. The excesses of an un­ restrained and cynical black supremacy were at hand. All they had to do was peep through the fence and look at what was going on in the yard next door. They packed up and left. But in 1978 these fears had not yet been realized. Surinam, despite incipient Third World frailties, despite the modish Cuba- inspired affectations of its young black and mulatto intellectuals, was still a reasonably charming and civilized place. The Dutch, in parting, had been generous with their guilders. This, together with the income derived from bauxite mining, was sufficient to create an atmosphere of somewhat raffish prosperity. The shops of Paramaribo, the capital, were well stocked with imported goods. You could buy good cigars, Dutch cheeses, French wines. Whores from Colombia and Santo Domingo crowded the numer­ ous nightclubs—even the vehicles of sin had to be imported— providing competition for the cheaper Guyanese girls.