To stay, to leave, to return

In Al-Kamal café, in business in the heart of Damascus since 1936, 42-year-old Ahmed Khanji sits and reflects on the country he left in 2013. First, he went to the UK, then Canada, where he lived for 12 years. But Syria never released its grip on him.

In 2011, after taking part in protests in Damascus, he was arrested by members of the Political Security Directorate, one of Syria's intelligence agencies.

Today, he talks about the months he spent in prison as if recalling someone else's experience. What happened to him, he says, didn't leave him traumatised, and he bears no hatred. "My dignity was trampled on, but I trained myself to forget. That's why now, I can speak about that experience without the pain coming back."

While in Canada, Ahmed followed news from Syria closely. "I listened to Syrian radio stations and scheduled my appointments by Damascus time. I would imagine myself walking from the White Bridge to Abbasid Square. That’s how I kept Damascus alive—street by street."

Still, exile transformed him. "I arrived in Canada as Ahmed Khanji, an electrical engineer, and became a community organiser," he explains. In 2022, he gained Canadian citizenship. He took the name Gibran and began to integrate into a society that was completely new to him. "Now I've returned to my country as Ahmed Khanji, a Syrian Canadian citizen. Ahmed is the name that comes closest to who I am."

After the fall of Assad, Ahmed returned, driven by an urgent need to help build what he calls a "new Syria." He's optimistic about the country's future.

During his studies in the UK from 2013, he focused on post-war societies. "I visited former conflict regions such as Kosovo and Northern Ireland," he says. "I realised how the executioner becomes the hanged as soon as the context changes, and how walls and sectarian divisions persist for decades."

"The scale of the internal Syrian conflict is not as great as many people think," he adds. "Syria is moving rapidly towards stability. The future can still be shaped and we all have a role to play."

In Canada, Ahmed founded an organisation called Al-Saha (the place), which helped Syrians to integrate into Canadian society. He worked to help build a Syrian diaspora community there. "Everything I built abroad were bad copies," he says, "Syria is the original."

Ahmed now wants to continue his work in Syria to secure peace and promote the development and social cohesion of the country. He works with NGOs, as well as the newly restructured government institutions.

Maria al-Shami: to stay or to leave?

Maria al-Shami, a 27-year-old Christian from Damascus, is torn between a deep sense of belonging to her country and a desire for a life in which she enjoys full civil rights. Perhaps now is the time to leave, she feels, even though by now she has learned to live through the most difficult political conditions and under constant threat. Inwardly, she clings to the life she is familiar with.

The fact that Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of an Islamist militia, has become president of the transitional government has only intensified Maria's worries. She has obtained a new passport but has not yet decided when and where she will use it.

Maria is very afraid that freedoms will be restricted, and believes that Syria "will take a long time to become a safe and stable country." It is also possible, she feels, that war will break out again.

Maria worked in a company that was linked to the Assad regime, and lost her job as a result of the regime change. Now, she is no longer financially secure and regularly feels unsafe in her everyday life. "The freedom to decide what I wear feels like a luxury from another time," she says.

She lives in a climate of "exclusion and marginalisation", she says. She fears that people like her could be sidelined in the reconstruction of society, and that returnees will be given more opportunities than she will.

On 8 December 2024, Maria was one of those celebrating the fall of the Assad regime in Umayyad Square in Damascus. However, even then, she feared for the country's future. A few days later, she joined a demonstration calling for a secular state. "We want a state that respects everyone, without discrimination," she says.

For her, the decision to stay would not be purely rational, but an emotional one. "I'm trying to come to terms with the new reality," she explains. "I can’t leave my family. I also love Damascus. I love the confessional, religious and ethnic diversity of our country, and I continue to believe that we are capable of change." Maria has not yet made up her mind.

Mohammed Malas: returning from exile

"A journey into lost times" is how 42-year-old theatre-maker Mohammed Malas describes his first visit to Damascus since his return to Syria from France. He describes a temporal barrier that stands between him and the city: "Damascus looks tired, as if the city has just been released from prison. People are smiling, but you can see the exhaustion on their faces."

Mohammed left Syria when he was 28. But today, he moves through the streets of his city as if he had never been away: "I can close my eyes and I won't get lost. I remember every door."

In 2011, he was placed on the wanted list by the Syrian security forces and had to flee the country with his twin brother, Ahmed. Their escape took them via Beirut and Cairo to France.

Mohammed emphasises that they had no choice but to leave, and that the years in exile were far from easy. "I wouldn’t have survived without art," he says. Initially, he and his brother performed plays in Arabic, and then wrote one together in French: "Les deux réfugiés" (The Two Refugees). "We reinvented ourselves and dealt with our homesickness on stage," he says.

The two brothers describe how hard life in Europe was at the beginning: "Either you make it and survive, or you fall into a depression that destroys you. Survival was not guaranteed."

But during the fourteen years that they spent abroad, a diverse and open scene developed around them. "France had become the place to be: cultural wealth, cafes, theatres, cinemas, civil rights. And we haven't withered away, we haven't lost our identity," Mohammed says confidently.

He still carries the key to his old house in Adawi, a neighbourhood in Damascus, everywhere he goes. "I always wanted to go back there, I felt like I had something to sort out, I was living in my memories. Now, I have two pasts," he says, reflecting on fragmentation and his belonging to two homelands.

Before the fall of the regime, his relationship with Syria oscillated "between holding on and letting go." In the first years of exile, he followed the developments in Syria closely, but then withdrew. "The revolution was over, I felt, it had become an orphan."

Even now that Mohammed has temporarily returned to Syria, he doesn’t know exactly how he feels about the country. One thing is clear: the last decade has been a long series of goodbyes: "to friends, to Damascus—and perhaps now even to France."

Nura Mohammed: dreaming of Brazil

Since Brazil announced in March that the embassy in Damascus would be granting humanitarian visas, a growing number of Syrians want to emigrate to Latin America. This includes Nura Mohammed, a 37-year-old teacher living in the countryside in Homs province. There, the security situation and living conditions have deteriorated drastically.

"Before the fall of the regime, it was economic concerns. Now it's simply fear," she says. Nura is aware of the potential language and integration difficulties in Brazil, but is convinced that with her professional experience in education and social work, she has a good chance of finding her feet in a new society. Despite its relative poverty, Brazil is a friendly and neutral country when compared to European nations. There is less racism and no risk of deportation.

Nura has had all her travel documents translated and is now waiting for her family's decision. It is possible that the cost of emigration would force the family to sell their house, with no guarantee of accommodation or employment in Brazil.

Nura has had all her travel documents translated and is now waiting for the rest of her family to make a decision. It is possible that the cost of emigration would force the family to sell their house, with no guarantee of accommodation or employment in Brazil.

She is a member of the Alawite community to which Bashar al-Assad also belongs. Many Alawites are feeling desperate. They have been subject to brutal violence in recent months. But emigration also poses many dangers and uncertainties.

Nura still believes that positive development is possible in Syria, but only if a new constitution guarantees true equality for all. "We want to contribute, but nobody listens to us. There is no law, no civil rights and no security."