It’s unexpected and yet it was predictable. No dictator stays in power indefinitely, but it is always difficult to imagine how he will leave it. This is the case of Bashar al-Assad. After fourteen years of suffering and nightmare, Syria is finally free of him. It was for this purpose that we shouted “Freedom” in the streets of Damascus in 2011. At the time, we did not envisage that we would have to wait all these years, and that, in just ten days, Syria would completely free itself from the “butcher of Damascus”.
In 1986, student Ali Hassan Ali was arrested without reason by the militias of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father. For the next ten years, his family did everything to get news of him, to no avail. They then mourned their son, convinced that he had disappeared. On December 5, 2024, Ali was found in the prison of Hama, a city in central Syria that had fallen into the hands of rebels opposed to Bashar al-Assad. He is now 67 years old. His story is just one of tens of thousands, reflecting the horror of living in Syria, a country transformed into a great prison since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. We grew up in this slaughterhouse of humanity and justice. We have been fed photos of Hafez el-Assad displayed everywhere: in the streets, in cultural centers, and in our school notebooks. It was Hafez, the father, the brother, the faithful, the hero, as we had to call him in the 1990s. It is in these terms that the new generation also calls their son Bachar. Our memory is steeped in a legacy of horror and oppression.
This memory needs to be liberated, just like the Syrian territory. Syria exceeds Orwell’s imagination in 1984. It was not only a prison for its inhabitants, but also for exiles. Since I escaped there in 2012, after demonstrating against the regime, I have only been able to contact my family by text or via secure applications. The phones were monitored, the walls had ears. This is why the Syrians revolted in 2011. The regime responded to this revolution with an unprecedented massacre. Between 2011 and 2022, more than 500,000 Syrians were killed according to the UN, while 6.9 million were displaced and 5.5 million fled to neighboring countries and Europe. The war also destroyed 40% of the country’s infrastructure.
Can we really rejoice?
Today we are back in 2013, when more than 60% of Syria was liberated from Assad’s grip. He was on the verge of falling before Iranian and Russian interventions do not save his skin. Today, history is repeating itself, but on an even greater scale. We contact people we haven’t contacted since that time, to hear from them, to know what to do, to congratulate each other and shed tears of joy, all the while asking ourselves: can we really rejoice at the departure? of the tyrant, or will this be the start of a new episode of violence?
After Gaddafi’s death in 2011, we were hopeful that change could lead this country onto the path of economic and democratic development. Rich in gas and oil, Libya could hope for a better future after 42 years under the regime of a psychopathic dictator. This was not the case. The country quickly plunged into chaos, with Islamist militias and bandits taking advantage of the lack of security. The example of Tunisia, the first country to experience the Arab Spring, inspired other countries in the region to revolt, driven by an awakened population. After the revolution, it was the only Arab country where women had the same inheritance rights as men and where a Muslim woman could marry a man of another religion. But very quickly, this country experienced a worrying decline in freedom of the press and expression, with public television having become a propaganda tool in the service of the Kaïs Saïed regime. A real step backwards compared to the democratic advances observed after 2011.
The situation in Syria seems more complicated: it is the last country of the Arab Spring to have had to wait almost fourteen years to overthrow the regime. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main rebel group fighting Assad, takes a jihadist approach and seeks to establish Islamic law. Since 2015, HTS has controlled Idlib, an opposition stronghold in northern Syria, where civilians face repression and persecution. After the capture of Aleppo on November 27, its leaders affirmed that “Syria is for all Syrians.” Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, a former Al-Qaeda fighter, said he wanted to make this region a model of institutions and diversity. On the other hand, on such subjects, one should never trust the statements of an Islamist. Indeed, hearing an Islamist talk about diversity is as credible as seeing an imam declare himself an atheist. Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, Tudeh Party communists supported Khomeini only because he overthrew the Shah’s regime and presented himself as anti-capitalist. These same communists were Khomeini’s first victims. Today’s democratic and secular Syrians must never repeat the mistake of the Tudeh members.
In January 2011, “Ben Ali Harab” (Ben Ali fled) was on everyone’s lips as they celebrated the historic victory of the Tunisians against their dictator. She inspired the Syrians two months later. At the start of the revolution in 2011, we often chanted: “Get out!”, in the direction of Bashar al-Assad. Then: “We want to choose a new president!” Today, we can only rejoice to see Assad pushed out. After 54 years of tyranny, Syria is finally breathing. We can now call our mothers without fear that they will be bothered by an agent of this mafia. For the first time since 2011, we can sleep without wondering when the regime will fall. But this joy is tempered, because Syria falls at the same time into the hands of the jihadists. Here we are, turning the page on decades of nightmare, to begin a new chapter of resistance which must lead us to choose our own destiny. And not to be led by a new totalitarian system.
* Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleimane participated in demonstrations against the regime of Bashar el-Assad, but, hunted by the secret services, had to flee Syria in 2012. Refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian, A room in exile, and recently Being French.
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