Akha Hill Tribe Thailand

http://www.akha.org Heart of the Golden Triangle in South East Asia, the Akha Hill Tribe people find themselves living in the mountain border zones of five countries, fighting to sustain their way of life in a time of consumerism and destruction of the natural environment. Embattled to defend their traditional culture from seige by american missionaries, they hang on. See how you can help. Join: akhaweeklyjournal-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Make a donation or be a volunteer in Thailand.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Missionaries: Conversion IS Violence

Conversion as practiced by Christian Missionaries IS violence, there is no
other accurate definition for it.

Missionaries discuss the violent nature of their work in terms like "extraction theology", meaning to tear people out of their culture, communities, alienate them. Some say that this is wrong, but always it is discussed in the more general terms of "missionaries will be missionaries" rather than as the violent act it is.

Let me make perfectly clear that Christianity is a fraud, that takes the name of Jesus, the souls of people, despises both of them and tries to marry them to a lie, to the father of lies.

How odd it is how soon the lies start. From claiming to share the GOSPEL (by definition the 'good news' so it had better be!) the missionaries begin their rampage for control in the community. Church is added to the teachings of Jesus, then a white long haired blue eyed hippy is added, so that the natives will know just who invented Jesus anyway. Then come all kinds of mandates, passed off as Jesus mandates, when they most certainly are not. This includes prohibitions against smoking, alcohol, dancing, traditional dress, traditional ceremonies, and labeling most everything of what people do as "devil worship" and "demonic". No mention is made of how many people the youth pastor has slept with, how many Akha children have been abused at the mission hostel, how many girls raped.

When confronted with all these add on's to the Bible, where the missionaries claim to get their directions, the missionaries can not explain it. They can not explain that this and that are not forbidden in the Bible and why they are still imposing their manipulations, their witchcraft, on the indigenous as the "truth" or what Jesus taught.

Ask a missionary, given the choice, would they choose to follow the teachings of Jesus, or Christianity, and you will get suddenly a look of consternation, as if they have been taken in their own trap, mental dissonance that they can not cope with. They will go to the extreme end to never answer that question, to say it is impossible to want the one and not the other, to want Jesus, and not be Christian as the western voodoo people have constructed it all.

In life, litmus test is good for a lot of things. Ask a southern Baptist missionary why black people are still treated with racism in the south, and things like talking about the "gospel" will rapidly fade till they discover they are "late for an appointment", or the food doesn't taste so good after all, they "have to go".

Pat Robertson runs a TV show and a financial empire. He talks about need in the world, about his "Operation Blessing" where some woman narrates how the program gave relief to some poor bastard through "your donation". Nobody seems to notice that Pat is a millionaire many times over, like he gives a rat's ass about the poor. Then the show breaks to advertise his book on "Prosperity Theology". Financial gain, hoarding, consuming, having lots of bucks is proof that God is blessing you! And the lies go marching on.

But the horror is that this theology, the glory of whiteness we could say, is carried out into the market place, which for missions, is the indigenous home lands. And the entire suit case of lies shows up in the village.

What Jesus taught would never allow this.

It is violence.

In Thailand the missionaries go in large groups to elder's houses at night and try to force them to "give up the village'" to missionary control. In the case of the Akha, the missionaries bring other Akha, those they have bought off with their piece of prosperity theology. (Prosperity theology is called "lift" in these circles.) These mission or ATM Akha are motivated by their rewards program to try and convince, pressure, deceive or demand that the village leadership give up its control and soverignty to "god". (Them)

In the end, the pastor takes control of everything, is rewarded with a church, a house, an income that is ten times the size of the average village income, and in exchange for this he makes sure that no culture is allowed to manifest itself in the village so the missionarie's mandate will be obeyed. Never mind the disastrous results, that families split, villages split, marriages split as even this can be cited as what god said would happen, their god, no God that one can point to, no God that Jesus taught, no God that some of us grew up believing in.

But when one explains all these never ending contradictions, injustices and deceptions, it is all brushed aside, that somehow contradictions will always exist and we should just except it all on, what else? Faith!

The missionaries always talk about god and Jesus, but in the same breath they are pushing the lie, asking the indigenous people to accept lies and contradiction, to "never mind" about the details of it all. For after all, what choice are they giving them?

I remember the night a bunch of Akha and Lahu stooges for the missionries came to my wife's traditional village. They put on their dog and pony show, they angered the elders whom they had not gotten permission from, they didn't care. We asked them on video what good they had brought to the village, they could not say, just fumes. We asked them if a christian Akha village would be allowed to have just one ceremony for old times sakes, we knew the answer. We asked them how much it cost for all of them to come there that night, and who paid for it? Did they care which families didn't have rice? Would they buy rice? Would they offer "Rice Conversions"?

"Don't keep looking at the money!", the missionaries in north Thailand told me, their posh homes, new four wheel drives without a scratch, (visible on www,akha.org under the mission link) were no contradiction for them with what Jesus taught.

All of this against a backdrop of dying, imprisoned, starving Akha who were holding faithfully onto their own traditions, not bothering anyone. In northern Thailand the mission assests are in the millions of dollars, but the pandering to the donors on websites for more money so that they can save Akha girls in danger of prostitution, help the poor Akha, never stops.

Akha girls taken from their villages to "save them", since the DEA took their fathers to prison, are rotated through the mission money pump, used to attract donations, then dumped back out on the street, suffereing from institutionalization, dependency and complete alienation from their families, village, culture, language and identity. Getting any help at all requires that they completely refute who they are as evil, Akha.

When one asks the missionaries about this violence, they lie. They deny. They leave.

The missions declare they don't know what has happened to them, that they can not explain why, regardless of all their reassurances, they never ended up back at the village, but are more often than not, hooking in Chiangmai. After all, the standard of ease that the mission made the girls get used to, in order to exploit them for money, would be impossible to find in the village. There is little an Akha girl has to sell that can continue to provide that standard of living after she is no loner needed. Super Pimps, the missionaries make more money off the girls than the men and mammasahns the missionaries claim would sell them for sex.

The fall, once again, is a violent one, without conscience on the part of the people who have removed the Akha girl from her village, an Akha girl calling on her phone, trying to sell herself one last time that night, on the streets of Chiangmai or Chiangrai. Just a few kilometers away, "orphanage" after "orphanage" sees the western bigots tucking their little blonde children into bed, counting their bank balance, making sure the gate is closed, and all the wards are in their nooks for one more night, the new wards, who in a year or two, will also need a cell phone.

Can we say none of the children treated in this fashion make it? No, but the children will be the first to manifest brainwashing or readily admit how the system was run, the exploitation, and what it did to them, what it took from them, far more than their virginity.

The teachings of Jesus require that one put others before themselves, that one deliver on the definition of the Gospel being in fact GOOD NEWS, and that one take responsibility to care for others, which is no short term committment. Care would certainly not take a child from a single parent, to make money off her when for a few dollars, the woman or man could be helped in a fashion that would allow the family to stay together. Little knowledge do the Akha have of all the Tim La Hay, James Dobson and Pat Robertson sermons on "Family Values".

The missionaries are violent, conversion is violent, and neither one have anything to do with the redemption or teachings of Jesus.

Missionaries need to get out of the indigenous community and stay out, and keep their hands off indigenous children.

The indigenous people MUST fight this plague, with force if necessary, as the children of the indigenous must be protected from the scourge of missionary genocide.

Lies, even for the most devout, can have nothing to do with Jesus.

For more information go to www.akha.org - Content Links: "Missionaries and Fake Orphanages" and "Mission Documents".
Deportation Can't Hide Thailand's Treatment of the Akha Hill Tribe!

June 15, 2004

Despite the fact that the Thai Government deported me in April of this year, it does little to cover their treatment of the Akha Hill Tribe and illustrates a lack of perception of international publicity. Not that the Akha story wasn't publicized already but the forced and sudden deportation highlights the plight of the Akha to the international community.

As well, it caused a lot of Akha to realize the level of my commitment to improve their situation.

The way forward is an international campaign to increase public awareness of Thailand's disregard for International Human Rights Law and their long term genocidal campaign against the Akha.

These realities were made blatantly clear in the just released Thai Human Rights Journal with two articles about my work with the Akha people, one entitled the "Akha Genocide".

The seizure of the farm lands of Hooh Yoh Akha in Chiangrai Province illustrates this point and galvanizes the resistance against Thai government policy.

As well, in America and other parts of the world, where Thai restaurants are popular, most people are naive about Thailand, have never heard of the Akha Hill Tribe, and are shocked that such an abusive situation has been able to hide in the closet for so long, that American diplomats know of the situation and say nothing.

And of course the initial Thai Government response to a suddenly new form of bad publicity about the "wonderful land of smile" is to promise "dialogue" and then not answer emails!

Not worried, with plenty of time on my hands, my efforts are methodical to inform the world about Thai Government policy and why requirements must be attatched to all agreements, cooperation and aid to the country of Thailand.

Where will people buy their shrimp and rice? Who will fill the flights of Thai Airways?

Burma which does not do near as well as Thailand in covering up its human rights problems, has been radically effected by campaigns against anyone doing business in Burma. Why should not the shoe be on the other foot it fits so well, the country which masters "constructive engagement", Thailand?

Considering that only 20,000 of the 70,000 Akha in Thailand have Thai ID cards, the ease with which Thais can come and live or go to school in the US if they have enough money must be challenged!

When Thailand was recovering from the failure of corrupt banks and the subsequent collapse of the baht, Thai students studying in the US were allowed to get green cards so that they could work in order to compensate for the currency exchange rate differences.

I must ask how Thailand has ever offered such generosity to the Akha, most of whom have no cards of any kind?

In the aftermath of the Drug War rampage of 2003 in which more than 2274 people were ruthlessly murdered by the Thai Government it is little wonder that Thailand no longer sits on the UN Human Rights Commission.

What restrictions will be passed against an Army that uses weapons bought or given from the US, such as M-16's, to bash the faces of hill tribe men? (Please go to http://www.akha.org/content-cat-10.html)

Will Humvees continue to be supplied by the US Government to a country which is using them to run over rice lands stripped from the Akha people such as at Hooh Yoh Akha in Ampur Mae Fah Luang, Chiangrai Province? (http://www.akha.org/upload/hoohyoh/hoohyoh.htm)

Will millions of American tax payer dollars continue to go to the Thai Government so that they can continue to murder the hill tribe?

Such connections to any other CEO Dictatorship would lead to an outcry in Congress or Parliaments. Yet on the Bush watch an unprecedented human rights disaster has occurred around the world.

The American missionaries who procure, abuse and exploit Akha children will be fought at their base of support, the ax laid to the roots of the tree, exposing their practices and the realities to American Church congregations who support them.

Rather than repent of the abuses of American Indians, the American missionaries have taken their scourge to a similar people in the far away mountains of northern Thailand and Burma, to places from which the flow of heroin, missionaries with/and CIA drug trafficking can not be sorted out, to conduct the busy work of looking like they were spreading the gospel. Considering the gospel is oft referred to as the good news, we wonder just what kind of gospel the missions are preaching?

Will Paul W. Lewis, the infamous Baptist missionary with perhaps more than one job during his time in Burma, ever stand before an Akha court and be asked about his involvement in the heroin trade?

Will the Akha get to send him to prison or take away HIS children?

Will the Akha women every be able to ask him why they were sterilized and then abandoned?

Speak up, demand justice for the Akha people, and ask yourself just what the average Akha person will be eating next time you slow down for that Thai Restaurant!

Matthew McDaniel
USA


 
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