Syria: A Year After Assad’s Fall – Hope & Uncertainty

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  Daisy Mohr

  Middle East Correspondent

For days, cars have been driving through the streets of the Syrian capital, Damascus, honking their horns. Children hang out of windows or sit on rooftops waving the new Syrian flag. Music fills the air, and large green posters depict the day of liberation. For many Syrians, the first year since the fall of Assad has passed quickly.

“Looking back on this year evokes mixed feelings. After years of being numb under the dictatorship, I suddenly felt incredibly happy, deeply worried, and so confused. It’s all difficult to grasp,” says Dana, who came to Damascus with her children from Aleppo for a long weekend to celebrate Liberation Day.

“I’m not just happy, I’m tremendously, incredibly happy,” says Razan, walking through the market with her family, holding a large flag. “It’s a dream come true, that donkey is gone for good.” Razan comes from a heavily affected neighborhood of Damascus. She lost her home, and part of her family disappeared into Assad’s torture prisons.

She is still, like so many other Syrians, searching for answers. But justice is slow to come, and perpetrators often remain free. The trauma and fear run deep, and professional help to process all of this is unavailable. But today, Razan wants to celebrate, although it feels bittersweet for many.

Souvenirs featuring the new Syrian flag are selling well in the market. The sock collection depicting Bashar al-Assad with a long neck, large ears, and the text “what a donkey” or “drug lord” still brings a smile to the faces of many passersby. Here, they know all too well that a year ago, this would have been incredibly dangerous.

Syria’s minority groups have particularly suffered over the past year. Kidnappings and massacres have claimed thousands of lives, seemingly learning nothing from the bloody past. Overall, not everyone views today as a day of celebration.

“You have weapons with you?” a guard asks as we approach the Syrian television building. A completely different kind of news broadcast is now being produced here. “I call it a journalistic revolution,” says Yaman Zeidan, head of communications. “They didn’t do journalism here. They simply broadcast Assad’s ideas to the world.”

“There are thousands of profiles on social media spreading fake news and rumors with the aim of destabilizing the country. Our primary goal now is to restore public trust in Syrian media. We will earn that trust through the content and the news we report,” says Jamil Srour, head of news.

He came from Idlib to Damascus a year ago, and they have been broadcasting from the old studio since May. Srour: “We are a bridge between the people and the government.” They are very pleased with the critical questions they can now ask ministers.

Freedom of expression feels liberating, but at the same time, a large part of the Syrian population lives below the poverty line, and unemployment is enormous. Electricity is sporadic, and running water is considered a luxury by many. Reconstruction has barely begun in many places. Large parts of the country are uninhabitable and lie in ruins.

“You can’t start here yet, unfortunately, there are mines and unexploded ordnance everywhere,” says Mohammad Alaaty, whom we met last December in Jobar, a devastated suburb of Damascus. Walking through the rubble of his neighborhood, he does his best to emphasize the positive things.

“Look, we’ve at least swept the roads, and look: we’ve arranged an electricity cable so there’s some street lighting in the evening.” No one can live in Jobar, but over the past year, he has drawn strength from the hope that he will one day be able to return to his beloved neighborhood.

Watch the video from a year ago with Alaaty: