[MIDDLE EAST - IRAQ] [KURDISH REVOLUTION]

"The Displaced Mullah Is the Shining Face of Kurdistan's Revolutionary Movement"

Kurdistan: "New Organization", 1990's. Original silkscreened poster, 63.5cm x 46cm, printed in red and white on heavy black paper. Slight wear to edges, almost neglible, and some minor surface cracking to the very heavily applied paint are the only things that could be considered defects. A very good example.

An exceptionally striking image printed in dramatic red and white onto black card, depicting a heavily armed figure in traditional Kurdish dress beneath the legend in Kurdish:
"The [Displaced] Mullah; The Shining Face of Revolutionary Kurdistan"

The figure depicted is, in all likelihood, a stylized portrait of Mahmoud Barzanji, a national Kurdish hero from the unrest of the early 20th century who became the first King of Kurdistan, and was appointed Governor of the region by the British after the formation of the Kurdistan Protectorate after WW1. Barzanji, not universally popular in Southern Kurdistan was a leader of considerable energy and ambition, which far outstripped British plans for his 'control' of the region. The British and Barzanji came into direct conflict when he began arresting and imprisoning British officials who put up any opposition to his plans, and embarking upon a localised uprising. The British, predictably enough, put a stop to his ambitions by ambushing him on the Sulamaniah road, wounding him, and then graciously commuting his death sentence to one of imprisonment in the British stronghold of Lahore, in India, where Barzanji was kept prisoner until 1922.
The other possibility, and with a stronger resemblance, is that the poster depicts Simko Shakik, early 20th century warlord and revolutionary who, aside from massacring Armenians and Assyrians for the greater good of Kurdistan also led a rebellion against Iran. Although not conspicuously working from a Kurdish nationalist perspective, modern critical thought suggests that Shikak should be placed "within the confines of Kurdish ethno-nationalism" [Kamal Soleimani; "The Kurdish image in statist historiography: the case of Simko" 2017]. Shikak himself was mainly interested in plunder, and what he no doubt considered 'punitive justice against' basically anyone who sought to extert power over him, or as a secondary consideration, other Kurds; the results of his aggressive energy and willingness to fight anybody, however, are historically considered evidence of his benefit to Kurdish freedoms. No other examples of this poster can currently be traced in trade or institutional database.

Price: $750.00

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