He sacrificed whatever he can sacrifice in order to help finish my higher education. Now I was a helpless doctor with a big family in a real crisis. When I got my first job we breathed a relief but it was not a long one. In 1997 as I tried to construct my private life by renting an apartment in Baghdad, crises popped up again. This time my father was silent. He was in agony that he tolerated bravely so that I will not feel it. He felt that he did not offer enough although he offered more than enough. The family problems were also escalating. On 14th March 1997 he came to the hospital where I work to check his blood pressure and his heart. He left my young brother Yousif and my mother in the car and went to look for me. He stretched his body on the table and the nurse was connecting the ECG leads to his body...when he died silently...sever myocardial infarction...the most painful moment in my whole life...

Oh, my father, I will not be able to thank you whatever I did, let alone that I did nothing yet. But I am glad that I have made one of your dreams come true, I am well educated now, just have a look her...but education did not bring happiness, it did not bring the peaceful life, it did not bring justice, it did not bring back the days that I lost, when I was studying away from you and the family instead of chatting with you and listening to your nice stories...Education, however, gave the insight to see your sacrifice...

 

He is one of the ten sons of Sayed Hmood Sayed Hassan El-Hussuna for more details see the pedigree.My father believed and dedicated his life to the great principles that swept Iraq in those days (actually Iraq is always under such effect, it seems that we are easily cheated by big words for which we shed our blood generously while the others build empires), principles like Justice, Socialism, PanArabism, Communism, Islamic Unity..etc that were all well designed to mock us and , enslave us. Nobody cared about the happiness of each individual, nobody cared about equality, nobody cared about Iraq itself. Ironically, no party in Iraq ever had a program or plan. They usually have a punch of slogans and big words. My father like many Iraqis, struggled to finish his secondary education. All odds stacked against him. He found himself away from his family, his father is no longer the rich land owner thanks to the 1958 coup d'etat. He had to work to support himself. He used to remember this time with deep sighs. How rich is this country and how poor its people!. Soon a hope was in the horizon when a new coup d'etat (well, they call it revolution) toppled Abdul-Kareem Qasim and brought a sectarian idiot who knows nothing about anything. The country was again in turmoil and blood bath. The Baathist against the Communists and the Baathist against each others. He lost his job. Now life is becoming more difficult and he can by no means tackle the issue of education. The basic needs should first be satisfied, a fact!. Since it was too dangerous to let Iraq in turmoil for more than few years, the events escalated leading to the new coup d'etat, the disaster that will bring the extreme agony to millions and millions of innocents whose sole dream was just a tranquil decent dignified life.

As with each beginning in Iraq, things went smooth, the government was playing the role of the progress-leading government, although it was very clear from the beginning how brutal this gang was. Nevertheless, life was smiling at my father now. He got a simple yet good job, got married and he had a lovely child, who is the writer of these lines, now he could make plans for education. He was enrolled in the high school and was preparing to the exams happily. A trivial problem with his boss exposed him to punishment which was to send him to the district service so we left Al-Nassria and spent few years in Al-Shattra, a district of Thi-Qar. Those were my childhood years. I remember them with sorrow and pain. So it was for my father who is now preparing to the final exam. The year is 1979 and Iraq is again in turmoil. My father had a new appointment in Baghdad this time, they said it will take few months to one year, however it took ten years. In 1982 we followed him to Baghdad. He was convinced now that it will take longer time so he brought us.

His job gave him little or no time to think about education again, now he is thinking about education in a new outlook. He will dedicate his life to his children so that he will offer them what was not offered to him. He will see his wishes come true when I graduated from the secondary school. I had excellent record and entered the highest and the best known college in Iraq at that time (1990) which is Saddam College of Medicine. My father's health was deteriorating, the hypertension destroyed his kidneys and he had to have a kidney transplantation. Those years of agony and high degree of stress paved the way for illnesses and more agonies. It is really strange that with each forward move in my life something bad happened to me or to one of my family. My father's illness was just the beginning. Upon graduation from the collage in 1996, we had an extreme economical problems as all Iraqis had. Now my father is under sever pressure. He did not let me at any stage quit the education.

Feedback and comments to :alaa@itu.dk
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