"On the morning of December 5, 2025, a taxi drove me across the Lebanon-Syria border. This time was different from my first trip across, in the early hours of December 9, 2024, just a day after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria for Moscow. On that day, Syrian Army military vehicles were abandoned on the side of the highway to Damascus. Also abandoned, scattered along the highway's shoulders, were the uniforms of the men who had once driven them."
"Immediately after the fall, Syrians had a five-decade weight removed from their chests. It had pressed down on their ribs and organs and robbed them of feelings of agency. For years, many Syrians even in the diaspora avoided giving their real names or having their photos taken out of fear of repercussions for themselves or loved ones back in Syria. After al-Assad's fall, many Syrians were eager to express the suppressed thoughts they'd long burrowed away."
On December 9, 2024, Syrian Army vehicles and uniforms were abandoned on the highway to Damascus after Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow. A year later those remains and defaced portraits of Assad and Hafez had disappeared, replaced by new security vehicles bearing a national emblem adopted by Ahmed al-Sharaa's government. Public gatherings in Umayyad Square transformed from celebratory gunfire to organised crowds managed by armed men. The fall of the regime removed a five-decade oppression that had silenced Syrians, who had feared using real names or photos. After the fall, many Syrians openly expressed long-suppressed thoughts and returned to public life.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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