Posted by pancho from pool0024.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.24) on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 at 9:18AM :
It must strike people as silly...childish...vengeful...to chase after this poor bruised woman. Not so. It isn't because she wouldn't buy sculpture from me any longer...because she WAS buying, or out of a fit of pique and then sheer stubborness that I go on like this.
This was not just one of those things...an isolated incident, "forget about it and get closure". Nimrod did the same thing years earlier and in another city entirely...did it with the theft of the Ashurbanipal Libraray in Chicago. Jackie did it next...tried to... in San Jose with the Shumirum.
The "it" in each case is the taking away or disabling of projects that threaten to expand the field...to get us out of our Diapers...to provide a badly needed alternative. The one thing, above all others...even more than another dance pary, that we need...is to inspire and attract our coming generations. If we fail at that, we can all dance the night away at some Ballroom in Hell...cause when we drop dead, the thing dies with us.
I'm relieved by the discovery that the Assyrian Heritage and the Assyrian, not Christian, but Assyrian people are alive, though not quite "well" in Iraq and other parts of the Mideast. But I'd also like to keep our Christian ones who don't live in the MidEast any longer, connected...maybe even forming the bridge to our Muslim brothers and sisters...bringing us all back home together without the irritation of this religion business that has us all clawing at each other's throats. It isn't just the "other side" that is screwy and vicious, YOU'RE side is the same way. These religions are driving us to murder and mayhem...and we're going to do some REAL harm soon if we aren't careful.
In the West there's every chance that we'll drift off and become just Christians. That's why the Ashurbanipal Library was so important...and the reason Nimrod stole it from the men and women who started it...who didn't start it to help John place a feather in his AUA buttocks.
Same with the Shumirum Monument that Jackie tried to hijack. Sure the library is still there...the Shumirum could have gone up in San Jose. But you're missing the larger picture...the spirit of the thing has to remain as clean as it can...or else you'll get one library and no more...or else you'll kill the spirit of the artist and you'll get no more.
These people, these Jackies and Nimrods aren't helping any of us...you've got to also SEE clearly or you wont understand and you sure as hell wont be able to see where you're going...or what we should aim for.
I didn't ask Jackie for her help with anything...she came offering it...but it wasn't "help" she was offering...she was coming to steal the monument to use for her own personal goal...of COURSE it was supposed to be for YOUR benefit as well...but that's exactly our problem to date...we have Leaders who use us primarily for their own benefit...and leave the crumbs for us. As long as we're immature enough not to see that...we aren't going anywhere but down.
This is what they do...this "help" they offer that also sets a cap on us. Just as soon as the composer, or writer, musician or artist asserts herself...thinking primarily of the needs of the project and not the Leader...they will lash out at you and try in every way they can to cripple you and break you...if they can't merely discourage you and make you walk away and leave the thing in their hands.
This drives our best people away...this discourages people after one or two tries...which these Leaders don't mind at all, because a truly capable or, god forbid, a brilliant Assyrian who can't be CONTROLLED is a disaster to them...to their rule...to their goal.
That's the reason Jackie isn't going to get away with this. If both of us have to go down in flames...it's okay. There will be other Assyrian artists...there will be other Nimrods and Jackies...but we need the afrtists far more than we need any Bejans or Johns. Let them pay the price too for a change...so far it's been the artist and the rest of us who've done the paying...who've suffered the loss... I want to share the pain.
I remember Jackie telling me the AANF wanted her to come out to Detroit to represent us with some other groups at a conference. Well she said, she wasn't about to hop out there and deal with those jackasses...that she had a business and a family...that means there wasn't enough in it for her...because she leaves her business and family at the drop of a hat all the time...it was Lincoln's one recurring complaint. She threw up her hands in mock exasperation and said, "who do we have Fred...who am I going to send, Atour Golani??? Who...who do we have? Do they expect me to be the one they run to all the time"???
Of course the answer was "Yes". She DOES expect them to come running to her every time, she's worked dilligently to become just that in people's minds...like every man is supposed to make a grab at her. And she labors mightily to be the only show in town...brooks no competition...wants no one else to pop into our minds BUT her.
She wants to be the only one so she can rub it in our noses that we HAVE no one else...and at that, that we have to turn to an Armenian. That was her favorite part...you could hear the subtext in her voice..."look at these Assyrians, it takes one who is half Armenian to show them what to do".
I can't help it if people don't want to listen...that isn't my problem. My task is to speak up...to speak out...hers is to sue me and my friends to try and stop me. I know how the kid, or the woman or man feels when they report improprieties in a "respected" official. I know that other people really do say..."forget about it...move on....how can this person have done such a thing etc."
It is very frustrating...unless you know how to laugh...let's not forget to laugh.
-- pancho
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