Thread by @jihadyazigi

I have just spent a week in Damascus, my second trip since the fall of the regime, and I thought I would share a few comments which may be useful to understand the situation there, particularly in the wake of the killings in the coastal area. I was there from March 12 to 19.

I will start with a comment not related to the crisis in the coastal area.
One thing I wanted to monitor during my trip was how strict fasting rules would be implemented. The result is that it is not implemented in a stricter way than it was before 2011. I was a bit surprised to be honest. Many cafes, including in non-Christian areas, remained open, something I did not expect. During fasting hours, we could order cafes, at a coffee shop facing the Cham Hotel down-town, for example. After fasting hours, at the terrace of cafes on main streets, such as in Aleppo Street, which is in a Christian area but not the Christian district of the old town, we could order vodkas without any problem.

I was in the week that followed the beginning of the massacres in the coastal region. As I left on the 19th, some incidents were still reported. While nobody disputes how things started, namely the attacks by Assad remnants, how to react to the killings of Alawite civilians by HTS-affiliated groups, is a source of strong division.

While the moral and political position to have is obvious from where I stand, I understood, after discussing with various people, that conveying it is more difficult.
A major problem is that the fall of the regime has generated only limited material gains for regime victims. An overwhelming number of those counted as “disappeared” ended up being dead, no regime official has been put on trial, no transitional justice has been put in place, no compensation mechanism has been announced, very few refugees and IDPs have returned. At the same time, thousands of regime officers remain free and are staying at home unharmed, very few of their families have been displaced. So, among the core constituency of the new Syrian authorities, making them sensitive to the fate of 1,000 or 1,500 civilian victims (as compared to their theirs 500,000 or 1 million) is very difficult. Many people simply don’t understand what all this fuss is about when there was so much killing for so long. People are even surprised that Al-Sharaa has set-up a committee to investigate the killings in the coastal area while no such committee has yet been established for the killings of the past 14 years.

A friend of mine attended the sit-in that was held in Marjeh Square in Central Damascus ten days ago (to mourn the victims of the coastal area). During the sit-in, even long-time and well-known supporters of the Syrian revolution, such as the sister of Mazen Hamada or Dr Jalal Nawfal, were attacked and asked, “where have you been these past 14 years,” despite them having been largely committed to the uprising since its beginnings. Interestingly, members of a Daraya armed group (I cannot recall its name) also attend the sit-in, something I did not expect (what I mean is that the sit-in was not only a grouping of progressives and liberals). But clearly liberals, seculars, and members of minority groups are shaken by the events, although for different reasons.

For liberal supporters of the revolution, one of the things that shook most was the use of helicopters to drop what looked like bombs or some sorts of explosives. In a way, barrels bombs were what defined the Syrian regime. So, to see a helicopter of the new Syrian government bomb Alawite villages was traumatic.

Minorities are afraid for their safety. One of my cousins, for example, is telling me that he is considering emigrating to Portugal where his sister lives despite remaining in Syria throughout the conflict. Others are saying that the Druze will never accept giving up their arms now that they have seen what happened to the Alawites. I would still caution generalisation. I spent a day in my home village (Christian) in the Wadi Al-Nassara region (midway between Homs and Tartous) and I did not feel much fear (I only talked to a handful of people and can certainly not argue that this is very representative).

Across the country we hear of small incidents involving radical groups. A few days ago, I went to Sednaya (a mostly Christian town near the infamous prison) to present my condolences to friends of mine who lost their mother. When I entered the church hall, I realised that men were separated from women, which is unusual. My friends told me that this was upon the request from the church’s priest following an incident whereby a few days prior at a checkpoint, guards asked that in a bus men be separated from women. Similar incidents happened near our village (the story was told to me when I was there but in our case our people forced that they remain mixed). It seems that across the country new balances of power are being created and imposed locally.

Young people coming from Idlib since December 8 are seeing for the first time in their life women not wearing scarves on their head (for real, not on TV). Many are shocked but there are also funny stories. In our home village for example there are armed men from HTS guarding checkpoints from which they can see women walking around every evening or sitting at bars and cafes. “They thought they could see such women only in Germany” one guy said. Apparently within HTS ranks in the region, many men are seeking to be deployed in our village so they can get to see the women.

I will end with an unrelated note:
One is the impact of desertification. Damascus seemed to me much more arid than when I lived there before 2012. I realised that when I saw the difference after travelling to my home village near the coastal area and when I returned to Beirut. The Syrian capital, besides being extremely crowded and polluted, is also very dusty, its trees look grey, not green. Actually, you barely see the green colour in the city, and we are still in the month of March. I can’t imagine how things will look like in September. This is clearly the impact of many things but amidst the terrible impact of the war, it is concerning that we may not be realising enough the terrible consequences of climate change on the Middle East region.