Syrians, in a triumph of hope, turn the page on the horrors of Assad

Millions of Syrians are feeling hope for the first time in years.

The authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad fell on December 8, 2024, after a 12-day rebel offensive.

Most commentaries on this stunning reversal of a conflict seemingly frozen since 2020 emphasise shifts in geopolitics and balance of power. Some analysts trace how Assad’s main backers – Iran, Hezbollah and Russia – became too weakened or preoccupied to come to his aid as in the past. Other commentators consider how rebels prepared and professionalised, while the regime decayed, leading to the latter’s collapse.

These factors help explain the speed and timing of the collapse of one of the Middle East’s longest and most brutal dictatorships. But these factors should not overshadow the human significance of Assad’s overthrow.

Assad’s fall in its revolutionary context

During the past two weeks, Syrians have rejoiced as symbols of Assad domination came down and the revolutionary flag went up. They held their breath as rebels freed captives from the regime’s notorious prisons. They shed tears as displaced people returned and families reunited after years of separation.

And then, finally, Syrians around the world poured into the streets to celebrate the end of 54 years of tyranny.

To appreciate the magnitude of this achievement requires historical context, one that I have documented in two books based on interviews with more than 500 Syrian refugees over the past 12 years.

My first book begins with stories of the suffocating repression, surveillance and indignities that characterised everyday life in the single-party security state that Hafez al-Assad established in 1970, and his son Bashar inherited in the year 2000.

It conveys tentative optimism as uprisings spread across the Arab world in 2011, blooming into exhilaration when millions of Syrians broke the barrier of fear and risked their lives to demand political change.

Syrians described participating in protest as the first time they breathed or felt like a citizen. One man told me that it was better than his wedding day. A woman referred to it as the first time she ever heard her own voice. “And I told myself that I would never let anyone steal my voice again,” she added.

It was not only the feeling of freedom that was unprecedented but also the feelings of solidarity as strangers worked together, of pride as people cultivated the talents and capacities necessary to sustain revolution, and, most of all, of hope that Syrians could reclaim their country and determine their own fate.

“We started to get to know each other,” an activist recalled of those heady days. “People discovered that they were photographers or journalists or filmmakers. We were changing something not just in Syria but also within ourselves.”

Hope eclipsed by despair

From their start in March 2011, nonviolent demonstrations met with merciless repression. That July, oppositionists and military defectors announced the formation of a “Free Syrian Army” to defend protesters and fight the regime. As this and other armed groups pushed the regime from large swaths of territory, new forms of grassroots organisation and local governance emerged, indicating what society could accomplish if permitted the chance.

Still, as years passed, hope became eclipsed by despair.

The people I met described their despair witnessing the regime escalate bombardment, starvation sieges and other war crimes to reconquer areas from opposition control.

Despair when Assad killed 1,400 people in a 2013 chemical attack, violating the United States’ purported “red line” but escaping accountability. …