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=> narsai and me

narsai and me
Posted by farid (Guest) - Thursday, October 30 2003, 8:13:44 (EST)
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I first met Narsai in 1983. I was stopping with a sculptor friend who lived down the street from his restaurant/market where we'd gone to get some lunch. In the window was a platter of sausages, "Assyrian Sausages" and so I had to ask. "He's Assyrian", the blonde faced girl working the cash register told me and so I had to go up to his office but he wasn't there that day. The next week he was. I put a sculpture on his desk as he worked the phone and said I wanted to make the first Assyrian public monument in 2500 years.

He agreed to help but he had to get the credit in every way he could. I figured it was alright so long as we did the work. Five years later after miles and hours and money and sweat and one last fight the night before, we installed Ashurbanipal in San Francisco. He said he was burned out after that and had other things to do. I think it was more because I refused to carve a separate space on the pedestal to highlight his name. He's up there as a donor and the name of our foundation is mentioned as well...but nowhere on the monument does it say he was the president, neither is there any mention of the special part he played. His luck. I wasn't going to sign the piece myself...misplaced humility perhaps or maybe I felt there wasn't room enough to give me the glory I thought I deserved. So I just carved, "For Bella and Luther Parhad"...my mother and father...I figured people would understand. Maybe if I'd carved "Fred Parhad" I would have been more sympathetic to Narsai's need for recognition...for all the name recognition he can get. I live by my work as well but I can't see competing with it.

I took on the Shumirum Monument on my own but it's always harder to ask people to donate money when you're the sculptor and seem to be the one benefitting yourself. So it took 13 years. And then I didn't have Narsai running cover for me...dealng with assholes like Nimrod and Bejan and Golani. There was no protection from their stupidities. Where Narsai knew from years of experience in dealing with people, catering to them...I reacted badly but well when they tried to interfere. In the end I could find no way to pacify their insatiable need to put everything to work for them and so I ofended them all. I'm not sorry in the least but it meant the Shumirum would wind up face down on the asphalt...as if she'd been shot and left there to rot. We win some, but we lose a lot.

Narsai took on the presidency of the Assyrian Aid Society when they showed him film of Assyrian refugees huddled in the snow after Saddam's army buldozed their homes. But what he would eventually do for them would be limited to those whose lives were destroyed by Muslims...not by Christians. He would rail against Saddam's depredations but kept quiet about the much greater harm done by Bush. Narsai and I made a deal...he gave me a place to live and work and in return he was entitled to a copy of every piece I would make for the cost of the casting alone. I needed the space and I also wanted to show us we could do what was routine elsewhere. I hoped to make the deal work out well for everyone and be able perhaps one day to pay him back, to justify the risk he took. After almost 18 years we came close. He donated sculpture to a state university and a foundation and saved $90,000 in taxes he would have paid. Had the Shumirum been installed he would have pocketed another $90,000...a duplicate casting of the Ashurbanipal placed anywhere would have meant another $70,000 in savings and he deserved every penny. Others do it as a matter of course, why not us? In time I would have repaid him everything and then he would have begun to profit at the sme time my work would have increased in value...a benefit to us both.

No one can say that Narsai began with me 20 years ago because he wanted to make money off of me. It was too much of a long shot to think so and I know he didn't. It was far more likely he'd get nothing of monetary value in return. Although he complained at the cost over the years and insisted we ammend the original agreement so he'd get two castings of each piece instead of one, I don't think he was prepared to be paid back and I know the idea of making money off my work and being "indebted" to me somehow bothered him most of all. Narsai, like Jackie and the rest of them needs control...needs to be needed. It's almst impossible for him to ask a favor...not from someone he feels he must maintain power over. For 20 years he struggled to get the best of me...to have me admit defeat, to tell him that without his help I never would have gotten anywhere. Several times he called off our deal just to see if I'd sweat. From providing me with a place to live we'd moved on to a monthly stipend and it was never enough to cover all my expenses so I still had to hustle to keep a family of six.

When the thing in Mexiso blew up and Lew and his neighbors and friends concocted lie after lie to get the police to arrest me of deport me because he knew I was cooperating with United States Marshalls to catch him...I was hogtied because I was asked not to make a move against Lew in the open. I had to stand by as charge after charge was levelled at me and the community so alarmed at this one-man crime wave that I represented until there were 13 of them and I was looking at an unpleasant future. I was stopped in town at night and my life threatened...I was attacked near my home...people threatened our lives in front of my children, a man tried to run me down and hit my car instead...I was charged with things that would have gotten me lynched in other parts of Mexico and by doing nothing to fight back against a mountain of charges and investigations by Mexican police as well the United States Embassy and State Department I placed myself and my family squarely in harms way...just because I tried to help my government. I even had to endure 12 hours in prison...not jail...prison before being bailed out. Luckily my case won the interest of some influential people there who sensed a terrible injustice was being done and slowly people began to believe that I was being set up by a very effective con man...but not before I had to hide out in a neighboring town for a day and be prepared to run for the border because I was looking at a year in jail while the hearing into whether I'd stolen my own horses took place...and if the court had believed their lies, I would have stayed in for ten years more.

At some point my lawyer decided it was time to start fighting back through the courts. neither the Marshalls nor Interpol came for the guy so I'd taken it upon myself to get rid of the lot of them. No one moved fast enough to get them away from my family so I did...and that made me some more trouble with the Mexican FBI who thought I was "interferring". I just wasn't going to make sitting ducks out of my wife and children is all. I already owed my lawyer considerable and she'd agreed to take sculpture in return but I was looking at fees now and I needed cash. I asked narsai for $2,000 to begin my offense, which was my best defense at tat point...and he sent me $1,500. I knew the guy had the money. I also knew this was his way of turning the screws tighter on me. He'd been after me for years to go back to the pedestal of the Ashurbanipal and carve some sort of dedication or inscription to him...something I refused to do. He sent me money, so can't complain...except he didn't send enough...like my monthly stipend, it was just enough to keep me dependent on him...and asking for more. I wasn't able to mount a defense though I did get out of prison. Fortunately strangers came to my aid and I was able to begin the fight back. Today all charges are dropped and done away with because the lying witnesses against me all scattered and the authorities were finally convinced it had all been an elaborate scam to get me gone.

And narsai now comes asking me to help raise money for needy Iraqis...when he himself wouldn't help me, not really...when I was looking at ten years in prison for things I didn't so. And he came at the last minute when there's no time to cast him anything...and I'm pissed anyway. I don't believe in ZOWAA and I don't believe in AAS...but then I don't believe any of them. This is a quick fix to salve their own consciense...we always give "help" too late and just enough to barely fix a problem...like he wouldn't send me all I needed, when I needed it most...just enough to satisfy himself that he'd "done something". The irnoy is that in thais same year he was clamoring for the paperwork that would enable him to claim a tax write-off worth $90,000 to him...but left me short $500. Had I capitualted to him entirely he would have "helped". But it's as clear as his work with AAS that he was out to help himself first, like they all are...and only if he benefits enough.

I replied that I would help raise funds only for Majdolin, because it's time we took responsiblity for our actions...had the effects of our foolishness thrust before our own faces. But he went off to Tahiti and I have to leave before he gets back. He cautioned me several times to not leave a paper trial...that I expose myself too much...that I should only have verbal communication so I can deny or "forget" later on. He left messages for me to call him and wouldn't answer emails because he had things to say he wanted no record of.

Narsai is a wonderful man in many ways and like all of our leaders he's immersed in the world of business where people fight and claw and clamor for recognition, name recognition and brand-name recogntion. To them it's a golden opportunity to write your name all over a monument...like writing it on the sky and I offend them with my silly attempt at humility. They want all the credit they can get...I'll setlle for the work instead...what does it matter really who did it...especially if it can survive beyond its creator.

After 20 years we're through. I don't want to see him or talk to him. When I was at my lowest all he could think of was that I might finally be forced to "give in". He was waiting for me to say the magic words..."I'll write your name on Ashurbanipal" and his purse strings would have opened...like Jackie would have bought more and done more if my fly had oppened. I can't say I'd rather spend ten years in prison than do that...but I'd be willing to risk it a little. A man who would do such a thing to anyone doesn't deserve his name on there. Narsai is the best of a pretty sad bunch of "great" Assyrians. Let's take the good he has to offer...even as he watches out to make sure he gets far more than he gives. Let's at least not kid ourselves...because if we get wiser, we'll demand better. Narsai's okay for who we now are...but we'd better improve a lot in the years to come.



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