This post was written in February 2025.
In late January 2025, just under two months after the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, I returned to Damascus where I had lived before the uprising started in 2011. Since 2014, I have researched political navigation among Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Denmark and Germany and through this work consistently engaged with Syria from a distance. Going back after almost 14 years during which Syria has experienced an uprising, a brutal war, crippling Western sanctions and finally the ousting of Assad, I was curious to see what transformations the country had undergone. I was equally keen to understand how Syrians with various backgrounds, differing relations to the overthrown regime and divergent experiences during the war years related to such transformations and how they navigated the new political situation they find themselves in.
During my visit, I was struck by two profound changes, one of which appeared to open up while the other threatened to close down roads towards reconfiguring Syria. The first was the incredible level and quality of political debate, the second was the dismal economic conditions. For the Syrians I talked to, most of whom had stayed in Syria throughout the war just as most were happy that Assad had been overthrown, these two issues were also at the forefront of their concerns. Several of them suggested that it was crucial to ensure a speedy economic recovery which would allow the transitional government to implement measures to secure order and development. They also believed that the establishment of fundamental order should run alongside an inclusive political transition process. Of course, there was disagreement on the details of what the order should entail and on what inclusivity involved. However, among the Syrians I met, who had divergent religious and political profiles, there was a thirst to engage in free debate which had been impossible during Assad’s reign and a profound wish to secure stability and avoid more bloodshed. These two goals ran as a red thread through most of my encounters with Syrians in early 2025 and demonstrated how people’s reflections on the past, present and future informed their approaches to transition already at this early stage (see Burawoy and Verdery 1999; Højer and Pedersen 2019; Jansen 2015). Below, I unfold how concerns about economy, order and pluralism impacted the lives of the Syrians I encountered during my visit to Damascus. Although I cannot claim that the perspectives I present here represent all Syrians, I hope they provide a sense of some of the possibilities and challenges Syrians were occupied by at a specific time during the very early stages of transition.
Image 1: Signs declare that the bridge previously known as “President’s bridge” has been renamed “Freedom bridge” or “Sarout’s bridge”, Damascus, 3. February 2025. © the author.
Open and nuanced political debate
When I lived in Syria between 2008 and 2011 it was very rare to hear or participate in political discussions. Although it was safe to express political opinions that reiterated the official policy of the regime, any disagreement with these policies or with the President was repressed (see Wedeen 1999, 2019). Silencing was achieved through the fear instilled in Syrians by the omnipresence of secret police and the harsh punishments (involving torture, prolonged imprisonments and sometimes death) of those who dared to transgress (see Ismail 2018). Before 2011, this meant that most Syrians deemed it too dangerous to voice any opinion on the President or the government per se. When this did happen it was in small, closed circles of trusted friends or the critique was expressed publicly by one of the few Syrian intellectuals who dared to insist on open debate.
With this background in mind, it was incredible to experience how Syrians with various socio-economic backgrounds and experiences during authoritarianism and war engaged freely in open debate in early 2025. Most notably, Syrians shared their views on the new Syrian President, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, and decisions made by the new administration even with strangers. Sitting in a taxi in Damascus, I was surprised to hear the driver who was supportive of the new government also explain his dissatisfaction with the decision to suspend all traffic police. The driver argued that although traffic police are notoriously corrupt (which is the reason the transitional government has suspended them all), corruption was better than the chaos that now reigned on the streets of Damascus. While the driver engaged in this discussion mainly with my husband Odai, who is himself Syrian, the fact that he openly debated politics with a stranger was an indication that something had changed profoundly in Syria. A similar incident unfolded when I attended a small celebration that brought together women of various socio-economic and religious backgrounds. All the women knew the host, but they did not all know each other. At one point, one of the women expressed her dissatisfaction with the decision to name Ahmad Al-Sharaa President. Several of the other women said that they disagreed with her. They believed the appointment was the right move as it would allow the transitional government to work more effectively for a successful reconstruction of the country. The first woman however believed that this could be achieved in other ways as well. What was remarkable about this exchange was that such a discussion of the President himself would have been unthinkable before.
Damascus was moreover buzzing with a lively scene for debate as civil society organisations arranged political and cultural events. At such events various views were expressed and divergent experiences brought to bear on conversations. At a panel debate organised by Ettijahat, a Syrian cultural organisation based in Beirut, three female artists who had all stayed in Syria throughout the war discussed the conditions for creating art under Assad and during the transition. The audience was a mix of people who had stayed and people who had left during the war and these different experiences were brought to bear on both the Q&A and casual conversations afterwards. The three female panellists moreover expressed disagreement on how to interpret both the Assad reign and the present political situation.
Several Syrians I engaged with during my visit saw such debate as crucial for the identification of various perspectives in society and in extension of this for the establishment of a pluralistic system. Although they rejoiced in what was taking place now, some were also worried that the transitional government might want to shut down such debate later on. Others were optimistic that this would not happen or that restrictions of debate would be very limited. This latter group pointed for instance to the ways in which the transitional government hosts roundtable talks with representatives of various professions (like journalists) and organisations. The fact that the government is taking the advice of these groups into account promises well for the future, some argued. It also aligns with the consistent statements by the new administration that they want to include all Syrians in the transitional process.
Image 2: Panel debate on the past and future of art in Syria, hosted by Ettijahat in Beit Farhi, old Damascus, 6. February 2025. © the author.
Abject poverty and fear of renewed violence
Although free debate was deemed significant, the greatest fear among the Syrians I encountered was that the country will fall back into violence and chaos. For now, security is maintained by the limited forces of the new administration. However, as my friend Najla said, various non-government groups were still heavily armed. Her fear was that they would use these weapons if they lost or did not gain in the government. Najla and several others believed that to engender and maintain the trust of all Syrians, the government would have to provide economic improvements within a short time. Interestingly, this concern for the economy and the ability of the new government to secure order was shared by Syrians across various perspectives on whether or not the overthrow of the Assad regime was a positive development. They were reacting to their shared sense that a continuation of the dire economic conditions would only bring problems.
While liberalisation of the economy caused increased poverty among Syrians also before 2011 (Hinnebusch 2012), years of war followed by extensive Western sanctions have brought the Syrian economy to a virtual standstill. For anyone who knows what Syria was like before 2011, this decline is immediately visible by the presence in the streets of scores of bread sellers who attempt to make a little money by reselling bread from government subsidised bread outlets at slightly increased prices. One physically senses poverty when entering people’s houses, as everyone freezes because the host cannot afford heating. In most houses the light is also only on for the two daily hours that the government provides electricity, and refrigerators stand by empty and purposeless because the owner cannot afford a generator.
The fear that continued economic decline and poverty will erode many people’s trust in the government and rekindle hostilities was widespread among the Syrians I engaged with. Therefore, high on the agenda of the Syrians, young and old, female and male, richer and poorer, more religious and more secular that I encountered was the lifting of sanctions and the inflow of not only aid but also foreign investments to Syria. This concern reverberates with ongoing discussions among Western politicians and in the media about the degree to which the economic and political sanctions that were imposed on Syria during Assad’s rule can be lifted. Although both the US and the EU have decided to ease sanctions, they withhold a full normalisation of relations with Syria as a form of leverage. They say that they want to use this leverage to ensure an inclusive transitional process. More specifically, the jihadist history of Syria’s new President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and his organisation Hay’a Tahrir Al-Sham ostensibly raises concerns for the country’s minorities and for women. Simultaneously, the worry among Western and Middle Eastern leaders as well as economists is that the dire economic situation in Syria will undermine Syria’s chances of avoiding renewed bloodshed and of building a pluralistic system marked by accountable governance. As such, world leaders claim to want the same as the Syrians I encountered: an inclusive transitional process, economic development and stability. However, a complete lifting of sanctions on Syria (but not on the Assads) with the possibility of instating other sanctions if this is deemed necessary later would probably fall more in line with what the Syrians I encountered wanted. Although inclusion of all Syrians is key to the transition, there can be no success without economic security and order.
Image 3: Cars have been robbed in the aftermath of 8. December. These two were parked close to the Suq al-Hamadiyya in old Damascus, 4. February 2025. © the author.
References
Burawoy, Michael and Katherine Verdery. Eds. 1999. Uncertain transition: Ethnographies of change in the postsocialist world. Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield.
Hinnebusch, Raymond. 2012. “Syria: from ‘authoritarian upgrading’ to revolution?” International Affairs 88 (1): 95-113.
Højer, Lars and Morten Axel Pedersen. 2019. Urban hunters: Dealing and dreaming in times of transition. New haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Ismail, Salwa. 2018. The rule of violence: Subjectivity, memory and government in Syria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139424721
Jansen, Stef. 2015. Yearnings in the meantime: “Normal lives” and the state in a Sarajevo apartment complex. New York: Berghahn.
Wedeen, Lisa. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Wedeen, Lisa. 2019. Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment and Mourning in Syria. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Featured image: Bab Sharqi (The Eastern Gate), one of seven gates to the old city of Damascus, stands tall and seemingly untouched by years of war in Syria, old Damascus, 3. February 2025. © the author.
