Afrinpost – Special
After forcibly displacing them from occupied Afrin, conditions and obstacles were not allowed to become a hindrance in front of his hobby in drawing plastic arts, to carve slogans on the walls of the places where the resistance resides, slogans about the resilience of the Kurdish people, and Yazidi and Islamic religious symbols.
Following the Turkish military occupation to the Kurdish region of Afrin in northern Syria, alongside the militants of the Islamic militias affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the majority of the indigenous population of Afrin had to leave the region for fear of violations and practices of the Turkish invasion, Ismat Rashid, known as Abu George, was one of the displaced.
Ismat descends from the village of Kafar Safra in the district of Jenderes in Afrin, and is almost six years old, as he has resisted in the village of Al-Wahshiya in the Shahba areas for more than two years, along with thousands of displaced people from Afrin.
Ismat says that he discovered his talent in plastic arts and sculpture at a young age, and that was with a simple experiment on a “sweet potato”, when his mother was preparing food, where he engraved using a sharp tool, and it appeared that he could sculpt faces in a distinct and different way.
After he engraved his first products on the “potato”, he became eager to show more and show his talent in a wider way, and over the years he was carving on clay, carving on the walls, and forming statues of stones, where he has in this area 45 years.
Ismat notes that one of his most prominent activities was carving the paintings of the Nawruz roundabout in the city of Afrin, and various other statues and drawings.
After his forced displacement to the Shahba, about 6 months, he began sculpting and painting in the house where he lives with simple tools, such as the clay that he was making himself, so he engraved some of his various plastic drawings on the walls as “a drawing of Kawa Haddad holding the torch of victory and next to him Nowruz that was helping him to reach Freedom against injustice, the Zarathustra statue, and carving paintings of the Kurdish, Greek, Hittite, Roman, Sumerian, Medi, and mythical paintings, and imaginary portraits of the Prophet “Ibrahim, peace be upon him”.
Ismat confirms that sculpting is a hobby that requires patience and creativity, especially because of the skill and experience he acquired in carving it on the walls of Al-Shahba, which were harsh during the sculpture, and he states that he opened several exhibitions in Afrin, Aleppo and Beirut.
Ismat says that the forced displacement was not an impediment to his skill, and that they, like Afrin, are resistant and will not be defeated in the face of the genocidal policies, sedition and distinction between the components in the region by the Turkish occupation after the occupation of Afrin.
