Posted by pancho (148.244.221.156) on January 22, 2002 at 11:06:28:
Some of you may remember my mentioning an idea about re creating some ancient designs and artifacts, setting up small factory studios in Iraq and selling to the West. I began work on a lovely vase some time ago and in between trying to do everything else have managed to make the first prototype...had a slip casting mold made of the piece over in Dolores Hidalgo...a small town twenty miles away famous for ceramic ware.
I dropped the mold off at one shop this week and asked them to cast a few just to see how the shape and design hold up. If that works well I will refine another prototype and have several molds made. Next will come the application of the glaze colors and a final assessment of the overall thing. If it looks good enough, the next step is for Narsai to contact some of the designer and buyer types he knows to see if the thing is marketable and at what price etc.
The pieces could be made in Mexico but that ruins the overall plan. It will be an excellent selling point to say the pieces are made in the very land where the original design was uncovered...and made...and by the descendents of the same people AND using essentially the same earth, or clay, or mud. Ya gotta have these "hooks" to hang people´s interest on. There are a zillion vases and pots made by everyboy´s cousin. Each vase or platter or bowl, there are several more artifacts to reproduce, would come with a handsome card explaining the piece and our Heritage...in that way we spread the word...people are always interested in new things, even new old things...and they like to be able to say a thing or two about what they purchased.
The best part is that we wouldn´t be making them somewhere else and just sending money to Iraq...that gets old and debilitating soon enough. It wouldn´t take much of an investment, given the exchange rate, to set up a small shop, small to begin with. Instead of ever becomming huge...it would be better to keep it a sort of cottage industry...the high rate of return would allow us a few luxuries such as keeping each shop small and independent...better for the workers and their families too.
There are beautiful jewelry designs...belt buckles, rings, earrings bracelets...I´ve already made several and we managed to sell every piece we ever offered for sale...silver bracelets going for $300.00. That buys a lot of stuff in Iraq these days.
When I suggested this at aina naturally it was shot down because I said we could not make an exclusively Assyrian thing of it...that everyone over there needs a job and has children to feed. They said I loved Muslims...and hated Assyrians and what about Simele? I said that all we needed to do was make a big point of ONLY helping our own to set up the same jealousy and resentment cycle we have suffered from in the past...which was fine with them because the prospect of Muslims and Kurds one day burning down our Assyrians Only Need Apply business and hopefully killing one or two of us, was just too delicious for them to pass on.
We have to stop this way of thinking...it is dangerous and extremely de trope. The entire country must be made a healthy and vital place once more. There will be no such thing as a successful Assyrian Christian ghetto or subdivision surrounded by rotting Muslim carcasses...just wont happen.
Neo Assyrians make no distinctions...just as our god Ashur accepted all who applied...we will hire anyone who comes to work...what are they working on after all if not the dissemination of materials about and from our Heritage? Aren´t they all doing our work for us and benefitting themselves and their families? Only a Christian believes god will smile down on him and protect his child from diptheria while cursing Muslim children next door. I keep telling you...these guys are NOT Assyrian at all.