T o be Syrian, it seems, is to live in disbelief. Even as I watched the news unfold overnight on Saturday and into Sunday morning that rebels had entered Damascus, Syria’s capital, and that long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad had fled the country, even as I learned Sunday morning that he’d officially resigned, and even as family members sent congratulatory messages, I didn’t know how to accept that the regime had finally fallen.
It was a familiar sort of disbelief. Fourteen years ago, as the Arab Spring uprisings tore through North Africa and the Middle East, toppling governments in Tunisia and Egypt, I couldn’t imagine that protests would erupt in Syria. I remember my shock the moment I learned that demonstrators had taken to the streets there. I was living in Ottawa at the time, and a few weeks after the protests began, in March 2011, I flew to Damascus for my older brother’s engagement party. But the festivities were muted and held at home. It wouldn’t have looked good to be seen celebrating any occasion when Assad’s power was being so publicly challenged.
On March 30 that year, Assad gave a speech to parliament—his first since protests had broken out—in which he invoked conspiracy theories, blaming outside agitators for stirring up unrest; he also promised that reforms would be introduced in time. I remember my older brother saying that, after listening to the speech, he felt as though a giant bubble had burst. I realized then that there had been an infinitesimal moment in which we’d dared to hope that things might actually change for the better—and it was over. Assad’s military forces went on to crush the protests with stunning brutality, killing and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people and bringing the country to ruin, with help from Russia, Iran, and the militant group Hezbollah.
But Syria had been suffering well before 2011. For the half century that Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, before him were in power, they did everything to cement their hold on what they seemed to view as a country that belonged solely to them. This includes a massacre, under Hafez’s rule, of an estimated tens of thousands of civilians, in the city of Hama in 1982, to quell an uprising from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group.
The Assads’ hold on power had a psychological dimension. Across the country, it was nearly impossible to avoid seeing giant posters and statues of the now-former president (it feels surreal to use the word “former”), his late father, and Bashar’s elder brother, who’d been groomed as Hafez’s successor before he died in a car crash in 1994. Whether displayed in schools, offices, restaurants, or public squares, the effigies sent a clear message: the Assads’ power was permanent, their influence inescapable, their status mythical. I remember once looking at a giant poster showing Bashar’s family, including his children, and thinking cynically that this was to be our introduction to his likely heirs.
So to say that the Assad regime’s defeat is stunning is an understatement. I’ve had a difficult time processing the news, as much as I want to be able to rejoice. I’ve watched videos of Syrians celebrating in the streets and footage of detainees being freed from the regime’s notorious prisons, and I’ve read reports of refugees crossing the border from Lebanon to return home. On Instagram, Syrians are posting stories about waiting for Damascus airport to open again so they can fly back. On various platforms, I’m seeing posts that chastise those who express fear of what’s coming next, since to do so would imply that there was ever any benefit from having Assad in power.
And yet, for me, the fear endures. The Arab Spring proved a disappointment in so many ways. In Libya, long-time dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi was overthrown and then killed after months of uprisings, but the country remains unstable. Egypt toppled then president Hosni Mubarak, but that regime was soon replaced by a government led by the Muslim Brotherhood; following a coup, there’s now a military dictatorship in place. The rebels who took down the Assad regime in Syria belong to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a movement with previous links to al-Qaeda, both of which Canada and other countries consider terrorist organizations. HTS’s Islamist roots have some worried, including those in the minority Christian community in Syria.
I, too, worry that HTS might put in place a government that imposes Islamist rule, and I can picture countless other terrifying scenarios. I worry Syrian society won’t have a chance to properly grieve and commemorate all those murdered by the regime. One of my most persistent fears, though, is that we’ll all start to hope again—only for that hope to be torn apart once more.
Some of my relatives are urging me to be optimistic. That, after years of pain, after a lifetime under Assad rule, we should take the opportunity to feel joy. And that, having seen the atrocities Assad committed, Syrians won’t let anything so extreme or horrific happen again.
I called my father, who is in Montreal, on Sunday morning as we both registered the news that Assad had indeed fled Syria. I began to voice things I’d only dreamed of before: Going back to Damascus to visit family and show my little daughter the place I grew up. Visiting my late grandfather’s home and sitting in his library again. Later that day, over tea with a friend in Toronto, we pictured going back to rebuild the country that could be one of the most beautiful in the world if only its people were given a chance.
While talking to my dad that morning, I asked him if I could finally write about Syria again. I’ve been under a self-imposed moratorium for years; my father occasionally travelled to Damascus to visit his mother, and I didn’t want to publish anything critical of the Assad regime that might get him into trouble while he was there. He laughed at the question. Now, he said, you can write whatever you want.
My grandmother still lives in Damascus. She used to ask me when I was coming to visit her. But now, at over 100 years old, she can barely recognize me when I video-call her on WhatsApp. I wonder if she’d be able to remember me if she saw me again in person, something I didn’t think I’d get to do before she died. Despite everything, that possibility alone has sparked the tiniest glimmer of hope. One that’s so far managed to defy all of my fears.
