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Akha Human Rights - Akha University
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Please remember to do a site search for other related documents which may not be shown here. Antonio Graceffo
Antonio Graceffo's Trash on the Akha Appears Once Again Antonio Graceffo should go back to Brooklyn and write about the Italian Tribe and leave the other tribes alone. I am sure the Native Americans, and their long history of struggle would not appreciate Graceffo's two choice system. But Antonio keeps weaving doomsday into the life descriptions of Tribes like the Akha. The Akha go on and live, marry, produce children, plant crops, fight for their land. What does Graceffo do? Has he done even that, oh, spare us his future genetics, leave him as he is.
We quote from the article that you can find at this link.
"The dilemma of ethnic minorities lies in the choice between preserving cultures and integrating individuals into a broader society." Gee, I didn't know it was so desperate, I thought that was the opinion of nation state governments and dominant races, not the Indigenous themselves. "But in the Akha communal system, every member of the tribe must do his traditional job. The healer is called when people are ill.She is paid in food.(Spare us Graceffo) The shaman, the keeper of traditions and ceremonies, is called when a new house is built or the village is transplanted. He preserves the culture and teaches it to the young. Gaining his permission before making any major changes in the village serves the dual purpose of supporting the shaman and his family, (What, is this off a TV sitcom?) but it also preserves the forest, as the shaman is the one who knows when the resources have been depleted and the village needs to move. (Oh, nomadic people is it?) Now the shaman and the healer have no customers, (Yes, being a people is just a business) because the Christian villagers won’t patronize them. The villagers don’t know when the village is supposed to move, and the children aren’t being taught their sacred ceremonies." Nothing in Graceffo's description, is very sacred, his knowledge is absurd, yes, go back to Brooklyn. Elders are not paid. Ceremonies include meals for the entire village of elders and the children. "In most cases, if they remain within their shrinking cultures, they are condemned to lives that are nasty, brutish and short, in Thomas Hobbes’ phrase , faced with poverty, ill health, and a bare minimum of education that leaves them functionally illiterate. If they leave to seek education and opportunity away from the village, they contribute to the death of their culture." More trash talking Graceffo, maybe he could quote himself in such a fashion at a Native American ceremony, I am sure they'd know what to do with this racist idiot. "they also lose their semi-nomadic ways" another tourist description. Americans travel from Brooklyn to LA, suddenly they are nomadic? "are forced to remain in one place, where they deplete the soil." Oh really Graceffo, deplete the soil, what are you, a governmental apologist? The hilltribe have been doing rotational cropping for more than a century in villages in the same place, where is the depleted soil? Don't you do the least amount of reading? "Migrants originally from southern China like many Southeast Asians, the Akha have long been in the border regions of Laos, Burma and Thailand. " Lets see, the Akha are still in China, a mere 105 miles or less from Thailand, closer to Burma and Laos, so how are they 'originally' from China? They still live in the same region, how are they migratory? What, a 105 miles for 600,000 people is migratory? "but the Akha are completely passive. In Thailand they are ill-equipped to understand the political events which affect their everyday lives." Once again Graceffo shows his complete grasp and knowledge of the Akha in Thailand, where many Akha hold political office of some level, where there are very powerful villages, and where he of course would not be welcome for very long. "Since most Akha refugees are not Thai citizens, their children are not permitted to attend school. However, Thailand’s royal family interceded and under a royal foundation has been building schools in refugee villages where non-citizen tribal children can study. In some instances, Akha children have been given permission to attend school but the parents cannot afford the tuition. In others, the distance to the school makes it impossible for the children to attend." Graceffo must have been kissing ass in a mission, as this is the same crap they put out. There are very few Akha villages in Thailand that don't have a Thai school in the village or very close to it. So what fiction is Graceffo writing here, no access to schools? There are Akha who study in Bangkok, Chiangmai, the US, maybe not as easy as participating in the national education system as Burma where they are full citizens, but not as Graceffo describes it. "It won’t be long until the Akha have lost their cultural memory. Although some villages struggle to maintain the culture, it is clearly on a path to destruction as long as children are shipped off to schools, missionaries invade villages, and the villagers are denied land rights. " Why does Graceffo write this? Because he specializes in being a doomsday prophet for the tribes with their permission or because he is just damn ignorant? But even further, why does he care? Because he has any interest in preventing such a tragedy? Hardly. "They are told that their tribal culture is stupid, and that what they have is backward and without value.” This is Graceffo's parting comment on his cheery article. Seems he believes it, or wishes it to be true, as if having found all in the world save a mirror. M
Antonio Graceffo Is A Dishonest Writer
One such individual who crossed our path was Antonio Graceffo. In 2004 he came to our village in Northern Thailand to stay with our family, in our dirt floored hut. He likes to write. Unfortunately he doesn't care what he writes, as long as it sells articles. He writes pure falsehoods, made his best to smear us, and just brushed it off when we asked him about it. In fact, he was trying to get us to supply him with a COPY of one of OUR books that we had already published it, so that he could "tweak the stories a little and resell them". So we found it offensive when he wrote articles about how he "worked with us" and so forth. He never has, and obviously never will. Further, we found it disturbing that he saw the Akha people and most of the subjects of his writing as just an angle for a story, not humans, hardly walking in anyone's shoes. Just a score, "tragedy sells" was his angle to us. So for the two times in the village this guy is an expert, and then procedes to write a lot of garbage. Unfortunately, he didn't pay his bills in the village and his cost of transport. And he is not a man of small appetite. Might not have mattered so much if he wasn't busy writing rubish about us and using our lives and stories for his selfish purposes. Although he took photos of villagers, he never asked for their permission to publish said photos and get paid for it. In numerous articles on the web he bemoans that we "can't help the Akha of Thailand any more" as if he cares, but has never once written us to ask how HE could help the Akha, paid his bill or corrected any of the disinformation he put out. So where ever you might be, if Antonio shows up with camera and pen, and wants your story or that of the people you work with, ask him how much he is going to make before you give him the boot. Antonio Graceffo Smears The Work to Assist the Akha Antonio Graceffo's Dishonest Portrayal Of Our Work With The Akha People Over the last year we have repeatedly asked Antonio Graceffo to retract dishonest statements he has written about his relationship to
our project and our work with the Akha. He has never corrected
the disinformation.
I wrote Antonio last year, (who asked me to use one of
our manuscripts for reprinting and modification - glad I
didn’t do that in hindsight) and asked him why he wrote
his original piece a year ago, after being a guest in our
house and seeing how tough life was for my family. I also
asked him to pay his bill to the village. He has never
offered to do that. He never got permission to publish any
photos of Akha families we took him to see but did so anyway.
The Akha got not a dime out of it. Antonio did. That is how he
finances his travels, write stories about the grief of other
people, grief he doesn't really care about.
We knew we could live in town but did not, as we knew in
town we could not help the Akha or know their story day to
day.
As well, on a daily basis the Akha came to us for help,
the Peace and Justice Center remains open in Thailand and
volunteers still go and stay there.
But Antonio never responded, and then in the past year
before I got my family out of Thailand, he continued to
write this rubbish on many sites, various versions of it,
and never once went and saw my family or asked them if
they needed help. My wife and four small children there.
We continue to help
the Akha directly and push for their full human rights and
continue to provide support and aid
to Akha villagers in Thailand and the region.
We have met many volunteers and westerners over the years
who visited to the village in 15 years of work. We never
met anyone like Antonio.
Antonio Gracefo NEVER worked with our organization. He
came to the village twice, did his best to exploit the Akha at
every opportunity for photos, stated basically that
tragedy sells and the more the better.
He lived with my family as our guests, and ate our food.
A great deal I might add. Although I took him with me to numerous
villages, he did not pay what he said he would for fuel
either, a very expensive part of our overhead. Apparently he
thought of us as his drivers.
He was angry because we would not lend him guides to take
him into Myanmar where he could see conflict between
Shans
and Burmese and ‘see people get killed - it sells'.
He writes sensation as if he cares about people, he
does not.
He bemoaned that there would be no one to help the Akha
after I left Thailand,
but continued to stay in Thailand and never asked us once
how to help villagers that we took him to see.
His article also contains many pieces of disinformation.
‘Where do the funds go?’ he says in one article, like he
did not know the poverty of our family, we lived in a dirt
floor hut, obviously we were not spending it there, but
Antonio doesn’t show this. Though there are pictures of
Akha there is no picture of the makeshift hut we lived in.
We have asked him about his articles repeatedly, but he
seems to feel that in this kind of exploitation and
sensational writing it is not important, who he gores.
We feel that he has recklessly done damage to our efforts
in spreading information that is false and that misleads
people as to our work and serious long term committment to
help the Akha.
Once again, Antonio never worked with us, and he never
made a single donation of money or aid to the Akha people
when he visited. He only in part paid for the food he did eat,
and only on one occasion gave 20 baht to an Akha woman whose
picture he grabbed, because her husband had been killed by
the army. For a story of course.
While he waves around his pen, he has not done
anything to address the ONGOING abuses of human rights of
the Ahka people. Maybe there is no "story" in it.
***** Dear Friends, I stumbled upon your note about Antonio Graceffo while exploring the internet in search of comments that might validate my own impressions of him. I wasn't surprised to find yours. Clearly Antonio's Wall Street attitudes still dominate his perceptions of the world around him. Thus, he doesn't see the spiritual, cultural, or ethical conflicts found even on his own website, which has essays on oppressed minorities in Asia alongside invitations to "read about the formation of McDonalds global fast food empire"). On another page he pushes workshops in making "Confident Cold Calls" and "Building a Business Network ('Never Cold Call Again!')." As if that weren't enough, we're also treated to Antonio the professional fighter, adventure writer, business English teacher, blogger, talk show personality, and "film star." A real Renaissance Man! With so many agendas to push, it's not difficult to see how Antonio might come across as opportunistic. He says it best on his home page, describing life back in New York: "I felt spiritually bankrupt...Before investing time into any activity, I would calculate the financial return it would bring me...The only reason I ever went out was if I thought I could meet someone who was important to my financial future and success." This is, without a doubt, the same Antonio Graceffo I met in 2007. Thanks for listening, and good luck in your endeavors.
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