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As 20th-century America progressed into its second half, the seeds of revolution and change were planted, rooted in various ideas and causes. People looking for a better life, protection against a fearful future, or something to believe in the 1960s and 1970s often turned to charismatic cult leaders. Evangelist Jim Jones saw the opportunity to lead vulnerable Americans to a set of beliefs he constructed, promising a sense of community and a socialist utopia to his followers. The shocking collapse of his Peoples Temple in 1978 left many questions. Time has uncovered a few answers, but scholars and historians still marvel at Jones ability to engage and control his followers.1. What Was the Peoples Temple?Jim Jones in San Francisco in 1977, photographed by Nancy Wong. Source: Wikimedia CommonsJames Warren Jones, known as Jim, was born in Indiana in 1931. He gained an interest in religion around the age of ten when he accompanied a neighbor to church. From there, he visited other houses of worship and became passionate about his spirituality. After marrying, he was called to become a minister in 1952.Later, he branched out on his own, gaining a reputation as a faith healer and preaching in an evangelical manner. He created the Wings of Deliverance church in 1955, which later became the Peoples Temple. The mission of the Peoples Temple was to create a society of equality devoid of class and race issues. The congregation believed that living by socialist principles would lead to a kingdom of God on Earth. Jones called his method of living apostolic socialism.2. The Temple Was DiverseJim Jones was praised with a Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award in 1977. Photograph by Nancy Wong. Source: Wikimedia CommonsUnlike many aspects of society in the mid-20th century, the Peoples Temple welcomed members from all races. Their belief in equality was one of the foundational principles, and the church was one of the few places in America where whites were the minority. Members of the congregation varied not only in their racial backgrounds but in age and social class. People who had been maligned by society were welcomed with open arms and treated with equality at the Peoples Temple.3. The Congregation Moved Several TimesGuyana is located in the Northeastern area of the South American continent. Source: Suriname Central / Wikimedia CommonsThe Peoples Temple was founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, where it enjoyed considerable success with its involvement in the community, which led to a growing congregation. Jim and his wife Marceline were happily married, had a son, and adopted several children. However, in 1965, Jones claimed to have had a vision of a nuclear apocalypse. He decided to move his group to California, asserting that a safer location was to be had there. The group moved to Northern California originally but then headed south, spending time in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The congregation would move for the final time in 1977.Jonestown from the air. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Wikimedia CommonsThe Temple rented land in Guyana, which borders the Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, Suriname, and Venezuela in the Northeast region of South America. Sparsely populated, the region offered a tropical climate conducive to agriculture.Three years before the migration, Jones sent workers to the acreage to prepare it for settlement. The community that became known as Jonestown was secluded, requiring travel by air or boat followed by several miles of rough jungle roads. By the time the majority of the congregation moved in 1977, the settlement, known as Jonestown, or the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, had already been built, with sixty homes, commercial-sized kitchens, food storage, laundry areas, an infirmary, two schools, and a large pavilion for meeting and worship. The goal was to create a utopia where the group could exercise their beliefs and create their idealistic community without government interference and oversight. It would also allow Jones to build and exercise his power further.4. Families Were DividedA sign welcoming visitors to Jonestown. Source: Wikimedia CommonsAnother method that Jones used to control his congregation was to split up existing families. He declared himself the father of all and discouraged sexual relations while at the same time carrying on numerous sexual affairs himself. He saw romantic relationships as a threat to the egalitarian ideas of the Temple and encouraged members to focus on their work in the community rather than their individual families.Jones instructed parents on when and how to punish their children and also held public punishments, both verbally and with a paddle. In addition to breaking apart families within Jonestown, the Peoples Temple was responsible for the division of multiple families in the outside world. Some married couples or other relations could not reconcile religious beliefs involving the Temple, leading to divorce and estrangement when one family member left to join Jones. Custody issues even arose when one parent chose to join the church, and one was against it.5. A Six-Year-Old Served As the Catalyst for Mass SuicideBodies of Jonestown congregants photographed by a member of the US military in 1978.A child custody battle is believed to be the incitement for Jones decision to lead his followers to death. As time passed, Jones teachings became more fanatical. Inquiries from the US government increased, largely encouraged by the Concerned Relatives organization that was founded by family members who had anxieties about the fates of their loved ones living in Jonestown. Jones became paranoid as a result, and this wariness was further fueled by drug abuse. The final straw came when Grace and Timothy Stoen attempted to retrieve their son, John Victor Stoen, from Jonestown.Joness followers farming in Jonestown. Source: Julia Scheeres via NewsweekGrace had defected from Jonestown in 1976. Her husband left a year later, but complications arose when he tried to remove his son, John. The couple had signed an affidavit not long after the childs birth that claimed Jim Jones was Johns father. Jones cited the affidavit and claimed Grace was an unfit mother, retaining physical custody of the boy. California courts awarded the Stoens custody of their son in 1977, but there was no way to retrieve him from Jonestown. This court order also prevented Jim Jones from ever entering the United States again without facing contempt of court charges for failing to return the child to his parents. This court case became a major threat to Jones power, setting a precedent for other families to seek child custody or adult conservatorship of loved ones lost to Jonestown.Congressman Leo Ryan. Source: Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives / Wikimedia CommonsTim and Grace Stoen visited Jonestown along with several other concerned relatives and Congressman Leo Ryan in November 1978. Ryans mission was to visit Jonestown and determine if people were being held there against their will. Cases such as the Stoens had brought national attention, which led to many in the US asking questions about the reality of Jonestown.6. They Didnt Drink the Kool-AidPhoto of drink mix in Jonestown after the massacre. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Wikimedia CommonsAs his paranoia grew, Jones believed that if push came to shove, mass suicide was the only way to save his congregation and himself from the outside world. He put his followers through suicide drills, in which they would be woken in the night, forced to congregate at a central meeting place, and given a drink they were told was poisoned. After the visit from Ryan and his entourage on November 18, 1976, sixteen people elected to leave with the congressman. Jones ordered an attack on the group as it attempted to board planes to leave the local airstrip, then led his followers to their deaths, distributing cyanide-laced punch. Some argue that the event was not a mass suicide but a mass murder. While some may have drunk the punch willingly, it appears that some church members were injected or may have been forced at gunpoint to take the liquid. The 304 children who perished at Jonestown, including John Victor Stoen, certainly were not capable of making the decision to die for their church.The kitchen at Jonestown. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Wikimedia CommonsThe phrase dont drink the Kool-Aid has become a common saying in the United States when encouraging someone not to fall victim to false ideals. This trope arose as a result of reporting after the Jonestown incident, but it wasnt Kool-Aid that poisoned the followers. Flavor-Aid was the drink used in the suicides.Regardless, the saying has mixed connotations today and is considered offensive by many who had family members among the deceased. Nine hundred seven people died in the poisonings at Jonestown. Jim Jones and his nurse, Annie Moore, died by gunshot. At the Temples headquarters in Jonestown, Sharon Amos slit her childrens throats and her own, adding four to the death toll. Five people, including Leo Ryan, were killed in the attack at the airstrip. The total number of deaths as a result of the events in Jonestown on November 18, 1976, is 918.

Decolonization begins in museums. This was clear to Bndicte Savoy, French art historian and restitution specialist, who resigned from the advisory board of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin in July 2017 to protest the museums unwillingness to fully acknowledge the colonial implications of its rich ethnological collection. Since then, many museums around the world, from Turin to Berlin, from Ottawa to Sydney, have finally begun to address the problematic issues of colonial exploitation and cultural hegemony that surround the acquisition of most of their artifacts.Cultural Hegemony, According to Antonio GramsciItalian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, 1933. Source: Wikimedia CommonsIn some cases, to maintain power, the dominant groupwhether a colonial government or a dictatorseeks the consent of subordinate groups. This consent is often fragile and filled with ambiguities due to the unequal power dynamic involved. As T.J. Jackson Lears writes in his The Concept of Cultural Hegemony, Ruling groups never engineer consent with complete success; the outlook of subordinate groups is always divided and ambiguous. Even when they appear to achieve stable success, dominant groups depend on the implementation of a critical process known as cultural hegemony. While there is no fixed definition for cultural hegemony, there is a man who has tried to define it in the context of Marxist philosophy. That man is Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937).Mussolini inspecting Italian troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War. Source: The National WWII MuseumOne of the most notable victims of the Fascist government, Gramsci was arrested in 1926 and spent the remainder of his life in prison, where he suffered from deteriorating health and ultimately died on April 27, 1937, aged 46. Despite his declining condition, he continued to write while incarcerated, creating his influential Prison Notebooks (Quaderni dal Carcere, in Italian), which were successfully smuggled out of prison in the 1930s.Gramsci was not only a Marxist and anti-fascist philosopher but also a writer, journalist, and politician who keenly observed the effects of power on his fellow citizens. These observations allowed him to develop the concept of cultural hegemony, which refers to the cultural (and not only political) dominance imposed by the ruling class over their subjects through a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign. While the concept of cultural hegemony is obviously linked to domination, it represents a more subtle form of control that doesnt need to rely on force and physical coercion.Armed anti-fascists leading a captured fascist leader through the streets of Rome, 1944. Source: The National WWII MuseumCultural hegemony is a means of gaining the consent of the masses by dominating education and media to shape peoples perception to the extent that the worldview of the ruling class is eventually accepted and embraced also by society as a whole. Over time, this ruling class worldview becomes the natural order of things, accepted without question or challenge.A key aspect of cultural hegemony is the complicitynuanced, sometimes unwillingof less powerful subordinate groups. Subordinate groups, Lears writes in discussing Gramscis notion of cultural hegemony, may participate in maintaining a symbolic universe, even if it serves to legitimate their domination. In other words, they can share a kind of half-conscious complicity in their own victimization. Gramsci, who spent much of his life under the Italian Fascist regime, witnessed such half-conscious complicity firsthand and understood it all too well.Cultural Hegemony in European MuseumsThe British Museum in London, photograph by Nicolas Lysandrou. Source: UnsplashThe British Museum in London and the Louvre Museum in Paris are two of the most visited museums in Europe and the world. According to the museums website, the Louvres collections are an invitation to travel a celebration of beauty in all its forms and guises, transcending classification. At the Louvre, a small, everyday Egyptian chair is just as much a masterpiece as the most iconic works of the Italian Renaissance.While both the Louvre and the British Museums extensive collections can be seen as an ode to the beauty and power of art, they also serve as a testament to the impact of Europes colonial history and the imperialist drives of Great Britain and France in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The same can be said of the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, visited by thousands of tourists each year.Kaygasiw Usul, mask made by Alick Tipoti, from Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, 2015. Source: British MuseumAmong the thousands of artifacts it houses, the Dutch museum also displays paintings, such as Schuylenburghs The Trading Post of the Dutch East India Company in Hooghly, Bengal (1665), and objects associated with and/or celebrating the history of the Dutch East India Companywithout fully addressing the companys role in the Dutch colonial and imperial expansionas well as colonial-era collections from two former Dutch colonies, present-day Indonesia and Suriname (formerly known as Dutch Guiana).European (and American) museums are overflowing with artifacts from the Colonial Period. The British Museum, for example, houses thousands of Benin bronzes, sculptures, and relief plaques made of brass and bronze created from the early 16th century onwards for the royal court of the Oba (king) of the West African Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria.Indian indentured laborers in Surinam, then a Dutch colony, photograph by Thodore van Lelyveld. Source: RijksmuseumMost of these pieces were looted by British soldiers when the British Army captured Benin City, the historic capital of the Kingdom of Benin, in February 1897, during the so-called Scramble for Africa. From then on, the entire region came under the control of the British Empire. Thousands of men died during and after the British took the city. The Obas palace was looted and burned, several Benin chiefs were executed and the last independent Benin king, Oba Ovonramwen (1857-1914), was exiled to Calabar.Thousands of ceremonial objects, from statues and reliefs to ivory tusks and commemorative brass heads of former kings, were distributed among British soldiers as spoils of war. 304 bronzes found their way to London and many more were acquired in later years. Today various Benin artifacts are also on display in museums across Africa, from Benin City to Ibadan, from Lagos to Kaduna and Enugu, as well as in the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM).British soldiers inside the Obas compound during the siege of Benin City photograph by Reginald Granville, February 1897. Source: Wikimedia CommonsSome can also be found at the Weltmuseum in Vienna, in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge, as well as in Stockholm and across the United States, in Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia. In Europe, however, most of them are in German museums, in Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, and Leipzig.The controversy surrounding the Benin Bronzes continues as historians have pointed out that the Benin Kingdom, along with other West African kingdoms, played a crucial role in the transatlantic slave trade, capturing slaves that it later sold to the British in exchange for goods such as bronze. It was from these materials that the Benin Bronzes were made. Indeed, some argue that the Benin Bronzes are more than works of art stolen by colonial officials: they are objects created thanks to the suffering of thousands of Africans.Decolonizing Art in BerlinThe Humboldt Forum (and the Berlin Cathedral in the background), Berlin, Germany, 2023. Source: Wikimedia CommonsThe Humboldt Forum proudly stands in the heart of Berlin, on Museum Island along the shores of the Spree. It is housed in the recently reconstructed Berlin Palace, which served as the residence of the House of the Hohenzollern from 1443 until 1918, directly across from the Berlin Cathedral and the Unter den Linden, a majestic boulevard that connects the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate and the (in)famous Bebelplatz. It was here, on the evening of May 10, 1933, that Nazi supporters burned some 20,000 books.Since its opening in 2020, the Humboldt Forum has frequently been referred to as the German British Museum, a label that is both flattering and problematic. The Forum brings together two former museums, the Museum of Asian Art and the Ethnological Museum (Ethnologische Museum) of Berlin. Since 2010, the Ethnologische Museum has been at the forefront of discussions regarding restitution and decolonization.Berlin, photograph by Adam Vradenburg, 2019. Source: UnsplashAmong the objects and art pieces displayed in its four wings is a sculpture of Surya, the Hindu sun god, from Eastern India, displayed not far from a Peruvian clay vessel of a monkey with a lime container. The presence of these objects on German soil, far from the place where they were conceived and created, tells a story of colonial exploitation and land appropriationat best, it reflects economic transitions that occurred during a period of aggressive imperialism and unbalanced power dynamics.This is particularly true for the extensive collection of Benin Bronzes displayed in the Humboldt Forum. In 2020, just days before the Forums inauguration, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a letter from Nigerias ambassador demanding the return of the Benin Bronzes. Less than a year later, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Information and Culture sent a written request to the British Museum asking for the repatriation of old Nigerian antiquities, including of course the Benin Bronzes.King with two accompanying figures, housed in the Humboldt Forum as part of the Benin Bronzes collection, 16th century. Source: Staatliche Museen zu BerlinNegotiations began in 2021. As of 2024, while the British Museum insists it is open to discussion with partners in Nigeria, boasting excellent long-term working relationships with Nigeria colleagues and institutions. In July 2022, the German and Nigerian governments signed a Joint Declaration, an agreement that entailed the transfer of ownership of more than 500 Benin Bronzes to the Nigerian state. About one-third of these artifacts will remain on loan in Berlin and be exhibited in the Humboldt Forum.In August 2022, when the restitution of some of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria was finalized, Claudia Roth, then German Minister of Culture, declared: This return will serve as an example for all museums in Germany that have collections stemming from colonial contexts. I am very pleased that further agreements to return such collections will follow over the coming months.and in New ZealandMuseum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. Source: Wikimedia CommonsIn any post-colonial country, the process of decolonization is inextricably linked to the revitalization of Indigenous languages. Throughout the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Mori language (Te Reo Mori) is used alongside English on explanatory panels, a sign of respect that is being increasingly shown also in Canada. The name of the museum itself combines the two most widely spoken languages in Aotearoa/New Zealand, English and Mori.Te Papa Tongarewa literally translates as the container of treasures but, as we read on the museums website, a more complete and nuanced interpretation is our container of treasured things and people that spring from mother earth here in New Zealand. Its worth noting that the Mori term papa is typically used to describe both Mother Earth (Papatnuku) and the traditional carved Mori treasure box called a papahou. And while Tongarewa refers to a semi-transparent type of greenstone, it can also be used to describe anything someone holds dear, including a loved one.A Mori treasure box (papahou) owned by an unspecified tribe from the Bay of Plenty region in the North Island and today housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, 18th century. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of ArtAs we have seen, the Mori terms papa and tongarewa have a multitude of meanings and nuances that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate into English. When used together as part of the official name of the Museum of New Zealand, they serve to honor and celebrate the two dominant cultures at the heart of New Zealand society, the Mori and the pkeh (anyone of European and/or non-Mori descent).Te Papa is more than just a museum. It is a leader of the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Program and works closely with Mori iwi to locate, identify, and negotiate the return of Mori ancestral skeletal remains (kiwi tangata), Moriori remains (kimi tangata/kimi tchakat), and preserved Mori tattooed heads (Toi moko) to their rightful owners. Over two decades, from July 2003 to May 2024, according to the museums website, Te Papa has repatriated 850 Mori and Moriori ancestral remains from overseas institutions, including from countries such as Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and others.A Mori p (village), 1880s. Source: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa TongarewaThe history of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington is also the history of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Te Papas predecessor was a tiny museum opened in 1865 behind Parliaments buildings: its official name was the Colonial Museum. Some five decades later, it was renamed the Dominion Museum. In 1992, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act established Te Papa from the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand and the National Art Gallery as a forum for the nation to present, explore, and perverse the heritage of its cultures and knowledge of the natural environment in order to better understand and treasure the past, enrich the present and meet the challenges of the future. Entry to Te Papa is free for all New Zealanders.The Egyptian Museum in Turin, ItalyThe Egyptian Museum (Museo Egizio) in Turin, Italy houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian artifacts in the whole world outside Egypt. Source: Museo EgizioThe Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin, the largest museum of Egyptian heritage outside Egypt, has a (relatively new) permanent exhibition room dedicated, according to the museum itself, to the study of the Egyptians attitudes to life and death through their relationship with mummification and the concept of afterlife, starting from the study of human remains and the grave goods that in some cases accompany them.The ethical concerns surrounding the most appropriate (and less sensationalized) display of human remains are at the heart of the process of decolonization, and the Museo Egizio doesnt shy away from addressing them. On September 30 and October 1, 2019, it hosted the conference Human Remains. Ethics, Conservation, Display, a follow-up to similar conferences held a few months earlier in Naples and Pompeii, with the declared aim of exploring and giving voice to different and interdisciplinary approaches.From left to right: middle coffin, inner coffin, and mummy of Nesmutaatneru, Late Period, Dynasty 25, 760-660 BCE. Source: Museum of Fine Arts BostonThe Museum also launched a survey to gauge public opinion on the display of human remains in museums and display cases containing human remains throughout Museo Egizio are marked with a red triangle, giving visitors the choice to view or avoid these displays. For decades, museums around the world have sensationally showcased mummies, human remains, and artifacts acquired during the Colonial Period and treated them as scientific curiosities and/or trophies of war. For years in the 19th century, Westerners traded thousands of Toi Moko, the preserved Mori tattooed heads, for muskets during and after the Musket Wars in Aotearoa/New Zealand.Scientists stole, dismembered, dissected, and ultimately transported the bodies of various Aboriginal Tasmanians to Great Britain for scientific study. Today, the tide has finally turned. We now know that the acquisition of these artifacts and human remains was enabled by a general climate of cultural hegemony, power imbalance, and outright violence.Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, photograph by Donna Lay, 2019. Source: UnsplashIn recent years, many museums around the world have finally begun to work with the governments and Indigenous communities of the countries where such artifacts were conceived and created to either determine the most appropriate and respectful treatment of human remains or to repatriate them. While some institutions have decided to replace human remains altogether with digital reconstructions, other museums have chosen to continue to display them and now provide full explanations of how and when such remains (and art objects) were acquired.Other museums, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, have begun to translate explanatory panels into the Indigenous languages of First Nations on whose lands the museums were built, showing the world that decolonization does indeed begin in the halls of our galleries and museums.

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The end of this week spells the final gasp for BioWare's Anthem. I suspect most people won't think too much about it - that's why, almost seven years after it first launched and five since EA pulled the plug on development, the Anthem servers are due to be shut off on Monday January 12. But I can't help feeling a real pang of sadness; Anthem as it launched wasn't the game it needed to be, and ultimately it never got there. But for me, it was so close that I could taste it - and now all that's left are the bitter memories of my favorite mech RPG that never quite was.Read the full story on PCGamesN: As Anthem breathes its last, I still find myself mourning just how close it came to being the BioWare game of my dreams

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