The week before President Bashar al-Assad fell, Leen Ghebeh was working on a scholarship application she hoped would let her restart her life and career abroad. Now, the 25-year-old Damascus resident and architect feels she may have a future in Syria after all, and she has been busy cleaning the streets of her city.
On 11 December, days after rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) claimed control of Damascus after quickly advancing through Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, and Homs, Ghebeh posted a video of herself on social media sweeping streets and picking up trash – part of a trend that has seen Syrians filling in for public services since al-Assad’s ouster.
“Today, I had so much desire and energy to do something useful,” she wrote in an Arabic post. “I realised I didn’t have the will to do anything in this country in the past few years. Bashar al-Assad killed every sense of belonging, he monopolised the country, and turned it into al-Assad’s Syria,” she continued. “Today, I’m reclaiming the streets. I’m not afraid of the security services anymore, and I’m taking whatever photos I want.”
“Today, I had so much desire and energy to do something useful. I realised I didn’t have the will to do anything in this country in the past few years.”
At 25, Ghebeh is part of a generation that had never known a Syria not ruled by the dictatorship of al-Assad or his father Hafez, who took power in 1971. The majority of their adult lives has also been dominated by the devastating 13-year war that followed al-Assad’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011.
As the reality that al-Assad has finally gone begins to hit home, they are trying to come to terms with many things all at once: what happened in the past; and what’s next, both for themselves as individuals, and for their country. Syrians are voicing hope and trepidation at the same time, but all with a newfound confidence about expressing themselves and simply being out in public – a massive change from the repression that was part of daily life in Damascus for so long.
“I live next to the presidential palace, and it used to be a closed-off area because of the security forces,” Ghebeh wrote in a message to The New Humanitarian. “Now we can wander the streets.”
Celebration, but also reflection
Ghebeh’s feelings are echoed by many young people around Damascus. Some 6.5 million people left the country over the course of the war, and 7.2 million were displaced inside Syria; forced to flee their homes by violence or because they had opposed the government.
There hasn’t been active conflict for years in Damascus, and it’s relatively well-off compared to rebel-held areas like the northwest, where millions of displaced people have been living in camps. But it wasn’t immune from the effects of al-Assad’s brutal rule either and, as the economy collapsed and the government continued to enforce mandatory military service for young men, more and more young people had been trying to leave the country once again.
People like Ghebeh spent much of their time trying to find a pathway out, via scholarships, jobs abroad, family reunification programmes, or, in some cases, dangerous attempted trips to Europe. But now the mood has changed.
In Damascus, people have been out in the streets celebrating, cleaning up, painting murals on the walls they are claiming as theirs. For decades, the al-Assad regime crushed most of civil society. Now, there is busy chatter of forming groups that can help Syria in its path forward. People are asking and discussing if – and how – they can participate in Syria’s political scene: an impossibility until last weekend.
Some of the vast human costs of al-Assad’s dictatorship are evident too. Thousands of people have been released from Damascus’ infamous Sednaya prison, which Amnesty International called a “human slaughterhouse”. They are now facing an even more drastic difference between the terror of captivity and life outside in a complex and bewildering post-al-Assad world.
“I see a bright spot in the middle of the darkness. Before, everything was completely black.”
As rebels took the city and entered the prison, people queued up to search for their missing family members. Several thousand prisoners emerged from the torture centre, but many more – by one estimate 30,000, other numbers are higher – never came out. An estimated 150,000 people are missing because of the conflict and the dictatorship; many were forcibly disappeared by the government.
Others are leaving a different kind of captivity. Tammam al-Ahmad went into hiding four years ago to escape conscription into al-Assad’s army. The 29-year-old freelance graphic designer didn’t go far from home or anywhere where he might cross a military checkpoint, out of fear of being caught, until a few days ago.
Sitting at a coffee shop in central Damascus, he said his entire outlook on life has changed. “Now that I’m free, I can start to think about the future. At least I have options now. If I want to travel, I will, because it’s my choice, not something forced on me. I see a bright spot in the middle of the darkness. Before, everything was completely black.”
Baraa al-Trn, a 29-year-old writer from Hama who lives in Damascus, was also at the coffee shop, celebrating a massive change in her life. She published her first book of essays two years ago, but it was banned in Syria because of government censorship.
A few days ago, she posted a photo of herself holding up her book in Damascus’ central Umayyad Square, a focal point where crowds of people have been gathering since the rebels took control. Al-Trn said it was a way of marking a new era in Syria.
“I’m happy now, because our fear, especially of the security forces, has vanished,” she said. “But this happiness is also mixed with knowledge of what severe oppression we lived under – seeing the photos of people who were killed in regime prisons, especially Sednaya – and the images of their families searching for them. It’s a reminder of the fear we have felt for the past few decades.”
An unknown future
The celebratory mood in Damascus is tempered by grief for what people have endured as well as concerns about the future.
This mixture of emotions was evident at the 12 December funeral for Mazen al-Hamada, one of the few Syrian activists whose arrest and torture for protesting against the regime gained international prominence. He was granted asylum in the Netherlands, where he was outspoken about the horrors of al-Assad’s rule, but returned to Syria in 2020.
As others were released to joyous scenes, al-Hamada’s body was found in Sednaya, showing signs of recent torture. Hundreds of people gathered in central Damascus as his coffin, draped in the flag of the Syrian opposition, was taken for burial. His funeral procession was a way to honour not just his life but all those who were killed. It was also an opportunity for people to demonstrate out in the open; for many, their first experience of free expression.
Many people gathered at his funeral said they felt like they were living in a movie, or in some sort of parallel universe. They shared their concerns and fears: How will a transitional political process work? Will the rights of all Syrians – not just those who subscribe to the same ideals as HTS – be preserved? What about justice for past wrongs? The economy?
“I don’t know if we are really liberated, it’s too early to know. I don’t want to feel blind hope. We have a difficult time ahead of us, and we need to be careful.”
Kais Mazkour, a 21-year-old medical student who lives in Damascus but is originally from the southwestern city of Sweida, was at al-Hamada’s funeral, chanting with his friends: “We want civilian rule!”. Mazkour was worried about who would take power now. “We are tired of totalitarianism,” he told The New Humanitarian. “We don’t want to glorify any one person or group. We want to support each other.”
He found hope in small details, like the fact he could now look people in the eyes. In al-Assad’s Syria, you never knew who was an informer. Despite the new sense of belonging reverberating through Damascus, Mazkour cautioned: “I don’t know if we are really liberated, it’s too early to know. I don’t want to feel blind hope. We have a difficult time ahead of us, and we need to be careful.”
For her part, al-Trn said she is also afraid of what’s next, but she won’t let that control what she feels right now: “We deserve to be happy with this historic moment, after almost 14 years of war, after 54 years of this tyranny.”
Ghebeh had a list of concerns about the future too, and she was upfront about voicing them. “Most of all, I have worries about the new government,” she said. “What will it look like? Will HTS remain in power? Will they preserve our freedoms?”
Although she didn’t feel completely safe yet, or reassured about what was coming next, she said she was setting her scholarship application aside and was happy to pitch in however she could: “I want to stay here, and do everything I can for the country. I didn’t have any desire to work for al-Assad’s Syria, but now everything has changed.”
Edited by Annie Slemrod.
