When PolyOne received permission from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq to use the Citadel of Erbil for our announcement and inaugural exhibition, we knew the event would be incomplete without Tishk Barzanji. Tishk and his family left Kurdistan in 1997 in one of many waves of Kurdish refugees.
Kurds are the largest ethnic population in the world never to have had their own nation. Approximately 40 million people, a population larger than many nations. In 1916, the WWI Sykes-Picot treaty carved up the Ottoman Empire into British and French mandates. Carved along arteries of the 20th Century oil economy, the colonial borders cut through the heart of territories the Kurds occupied for thousands of years. As a result, the Kurds have been separated behind the national borders of modern day Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. All four host nations consider the Kurds terrorists because of their century-long fight for independence.
“In the Beginning...”
The Citadel of Erbil is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the oldest continually inhabited city on our planet. For over 6,000 years people have lived within the ancient fortress. It rises on a hill above a bustling bazaar which was once a stop along the Silk Roads of commerce. In our Cradle of Civilization.
It’s believed the fortress sits atop the temple ruins of the Sumerian Goddess Inana - better known throughout history as Ishtar, Aphrodite and Venus - Goddess of Love & War, and all Creation. The Sumerians, our oldest recorded civilization, called the Citadel Urbilum, the City of Four Gods. Four Gods through time, but here, One.
PolyOne is a platform for telling stories. We believe all art tells a story.
Given our global mission, we felt it was important to begin PolyOne's story with a celebration of how far humanity has come. We announced our modern NFT marketplace, our digital bazaar, with the largest outdoor NFT Exhibition in our world at the time. What better place to announce the Genesis of our creator's platform, than atop a temple to the God of Creation in The Cradle Civilization, where all the threads of our stories connect in the book of Genesis.
The Recent Story of War...
When ISIS invaded Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, the Iraqi Army, heavily armed coalition artillery, put down their weapons and fled. Desensitized to images of war, most people don't recall the utter devastation ISIS left in it's wake. What most people recall was the footage of ISIS storming the museum of Mosul and destroying our global heritage of priceless works of art and history.
Two months later, in August 2014, ISIS made its next advance on Erbil. Only this time the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, with inferior arms but battle-hardened and brave after their 100-year fight, defended Erbil, their Citadel, and our world from the scourge of ISIS. Their defiance bought Coalition Forces the time to coordinate their air campaign. The Peshmerga continued to fight ISIS until the war officially ended in December 2017.
In September, 2017, a few months before the war with ISIS ended, the KRG strategically held their historic Referendum on Kurdish Independence from Iraq. Despite a landslide victory America and its allies decided maintained their one-Iraq policy. In opposition to the Referendum, the West turned a blind eye as Baghdad shut all borders, closed Erbil’s airport and launched an offensive to kill any hope of Kurdish secession and the creation of an independent state of Kurdistan.
For the Kurdish people the momentary thrill of victory, quickly turned to the agony of defeat.
The long march...
A refugee’s path is never easy. To leave everything and make a treacherous trip to an unknown land and rebuild your life is an incredible feat. To beat the odds and become a person of note, as Tishk Barzanji has done, is nothing short of extraordinary.
Tishk honored PolyOne with the beautiful works featured in this drop. And, he paid tribute to his fellow Kurds, a people on the losing side of history who have a proverb "No friend but the mountains."
The story of the Kurds has withstood the test of time: A people without borders, with their capital in The City of Four Gods; a people divided into four by our First World War; a people who beat throughout time like the four ventricles of a beating heart, as one.
On our long march of Human civilization, we are at a crossroads. The enduring story of the Kurdish people may cradle a pearl of wisdom. In modern civilization no one should be denied the right to self determination. Borders are only a figment of imagination - arbitrary lines drawn in the sands of time. The only borders that matter are the ones we draw in our own hearts and minds. North, South, East or West, Now is our Time to beat as one.
From a child who had to flee his Cradle in Civilization, we present a man creating the best of civilization - Tishk Barzanji.
