Hope and uncertainty among northern Syrians: ‘We are exhausted, but happy’

“There will be a coup, a transitional government with representation for all groups, and everything will happen without a bloodbath,” said Shivan, a Syrian resident in the north of the country who withheld his real name for security reasons, just a few days ago. If he had been anyone else, his words could have been taken with a grain of salt, but coming from an individual who has lived through the revolution, the atrocious repression of the Bashar al-Assad regime, and the ruthless civil war that was fueled by both Assad and international interference, there was a good chance that his predictions would come true.

Entering Syria has been much easier this time than in 2011, when one had to clandestinely cross rivers, barbed-wire borders and roads in the middle of the night. When Aleppo fell two days ago, Syrians shared their excitement at being able to return to their city after years of exile, or to reunite with their relatives after having been imprisoned for several months: “I am crying to see my city again,” writes Yasser, a doctor from Aleppo who has lived in exile in a town on the border with Turkey for almost a decade, in a WhatsApp message.

This doctor, who spent several years in prison for opposing the Assad regime and then suffered an assassination attempt by members of the Islamic State, had to leave his city in 2016, when the government army retook it from the insurgency. But he has returned home. His is one of the tens of thousands of stories that are playing out today throughout Syria: families separated by repression and war who can finally meet and embrace each other after rebel militias led by the fundamentalist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew the Syrian dictator on Sunday after 13 years of conflict. “I cannot hold back my tears of emotion after so many years away from Aleppo,” writes Yasser.

In the north of the country, the situation is no different. The outlook for the war in northern Syria is very different from that in Aleppo and other southern cities, because while in Al-Hasakah and Qamishli there was a shared authority — until now they have been managed partly by the government and partly by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — the latter have spent years very subservient to the Assad regime.

But joy now reigns among thousands of people who feel freed from repression. In the cities, the official flags are being replaced by the four-coloured flag with three stars of the revolution, and people can be seen crying and hugging each other. Syrians are thrilled to know that they have been freed from a family dictatorship that has lasted more than half a century, and from a regime that responded to the protests of the Syrian Arab Spring with massacres and bombings by the Russian air force. “We are very happy, we are free,” answers anyone who is asked.

The roads of northern Syria are teeming with trucks and cars filled with fleeing families, but also with others who are returning to their hometowns, where they will find soldiers firing salutes in the air to celebrate the fall of the dictator. In the town of Qamishli, on the border with Turkey, traffic is heavy; drivers honk their horns and wave flags out of their windows. Among the pedestrians, gathered in crowds, some have burned tires and shots can be heard in the air, but the atmosphere is festive. Even children take part in the demonstrations. “We are exhausted, but happy,” says one passerby.

At one of the city’s hotels, an employee named Ahmed is also happy about the sudden turn of events in his country. “We’re finally rid of Assad,” he says, celebrating. He exemplifies the huge difference he sees in small details that were previously forbidden to him and which he believes are now possible: “I couldn’t even say the word ‘bastard,’ but now I feel free to do so,” he boasts, alluding to the Syrian dictator.

Syrians are aware of the interweaving web of interests and ideologies among the groups and countries that brought down the dictatorship, and of the difficulty of maintaining a peaceful balance between them, but now is the time to celebrate liberation, regardless of their ideological or religious differences.

Between fear and hope

Although there is a sense of happiness similar to that felt by Libyans when Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in October 2011, there is also a certain fear of a repeat, as happened in the African country, of the disappointment and frustration that came when the country began to fall apart due to fighting between different factions that tried to seize power. “It is likely that we will enter a civil war before long,” muses another citizen named Farek, a pragmatist.

He is not the only one concerned that the violence may not stop here; many Syrians share the uncertainty that a new war could be brewing between the various groups currently present in the country and supported by various international actors. Groups that are dividing up the territory after years of involvement in the conflict and that will now demand a share of the land, either taking it by force or consolidating their control.

But what is on display in northern Syria the day after the fall of the dictator Assad is relief, celebration and emotion for their newly won freedom and for the memory of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed and repressed during these decades and who will no longer see a Syria that has been liberated, if only temporarily.

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