Posted by panch from pool0042.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.42) on Saturday, July 06, 2002 at 4:15PM :
My grandafther, Hakim Baba, whose brother died on that ship on Lake Urmia, who himself fought alongside the Assyrians against the Turks...who escaped with his family to Iraq in 1918...to the camps in Baquouba for two years then to Mosul where he was the only Assyrian doctor...who worked hard for fifteen years, often being paid in chickens and rice because no one had cash...often going without even that...so good at what he did that the Muslims preferred to come to him, as a result of which he thought he could realize his life's ambition, open a hospital for Assyrians staffed by his sons and daughters and others he could train...who was so well regarded that as a first step towards realizing that dream, obtained permission for his sons to attend the Royal Medical College, something Christian Assyrians could not then do,,,couldn't afford to do, busy as they were working for the Brits or breaking rocks or driving trucks...after fifteen years he was betrayed to the Moslem authorities equally jealous as the Assyrians who turned him in...who created a lie about him like Sarguis did about another Assyrian...the lie that my Grandafther was not really a doctor...that he'd never graduated, had no degree...or else where was his diploma?
And here I have to backtrack...I had the details wrong. For those fifteen years or so he worked at the government hospital in Mosul and was paid by the government, with the odd chicken here and there. There was a Brit doctor and an Armenian one there also. After fifteen years Hakim Baba opened his own clinic...one son was at Edinborough another at the University of Beirut studying medicine...they'd just built a house, had debts, schooling travel etc. He 'd become rather popular with the customers and thought to start his own practise.
Some Assyrians who now found they had to pay, became resentful and started grumbling that the doctor was TRYING TO GET RICH, had become a BIG SHOT. They complained here and there...were forced to go to the hospital where their complaints reached the Armenian doctor...a man supposedly miffed at the Assyrian doctor's success and popularity...who forced a confrontation with the hospital board who in turn demanded a diploma.
Here too my information was incorrect. Hakim Baba had studied with the medical missionaries in Urmia...I don't know how he was certified but back then you could legally study medicine with another doctor and when ready, pass an examination and be licensed. problem was they'd lost all their documents escaping and the school and clinic where he'd studied had been bombed to pieces and all records destroyed. He explained that for fifteen years they'd watched him work alongside of them, often supervising them, but it was no deal, you know how these things go... he was forced to go to Vienna, not Scotland, and study and exams and get a medical degree all over again.
Those poor and nasty Assyrians still couldn't avail themselves of his services for he was gone...BUT, they made sure no other Assyrians could either, and they had the satisfaction of getting back at him.
Geez...does my family NEVER learn? No wonder my father would not allow an Assyrian in his home. I think he overreacted, but what the hell...who wants to take a chance? How would I have ever imagined that the only obstacle I would face would be these same sorts of Assyrians?
I just wont accept the fact that these are Assyrians, not "real" ones. They are Swamp Christians of the worst sort. I know no Assyrian would ever behave like this.
I'm a lot smarter, I am...yes siree.
-- panch
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