"We have suffered at the hands of this regime, its fall unites us"

Nasser Alzayed still finds it hard to believe that Bashar al-Assad has finally been overthrown, more than 13 years after the start of Syria’s Arab Spring uprising. "I did not sleep that night, my feelings were a mixture of joy, pain and disappointment," he says. 

On Sunday, 8 December, hundreds of Syrians took to the streets of Berlin and other cities across Germany to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime. Alzayed took the train from Hamburg to the capital to celebrate with his friends and document the historic moment on his camera. 

"Everything happened so suddenly and unexpectedly," he says. The Syrian Army’s defences collapsed as rebels, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its Turkish-backed allies, seized Aleppo and quickly advanced from city to city. When they reached the capital, Damascus, Assad was forced to flee to Moscow, ending his family’s five decades of rule.

Since he was 19, Alzayed has been documenting the Syrian revolution with his camera. He worked as a photographer for the Syrian Revolution Coordination Union in the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra until he sustained an injury in late 2013. While filming a battle between the Free Syrian Army and government forces for the opposition Syrian Media Organisation, a grenade exploded next to him. 

Reporters Without Borders helped him travel to Europe for treatment. He underwent multiple surgeries to his ear, but still suffers from hearing and speech impairment. In Europe, he took up residence in Germany and studied software engineering at the University of Stralsund, later becoming a German citizen.

Alzayed also leads the Free Syrian German Association in Hamburg, an organisation that supports displaced people in rebel-controlled areas. In recent years, he has documented demonstrations against the Assad government in Germany. “Like most Syrians, I was forced to leave the country,” he says. 

"I am no longer a refugee"

"We Syrians have all suffered the same pain at the hands of this regime, so its fall unites us," says Sidan Seyda, a 33-year-old Kurdish-Syrian woman who was interviewed in central Berlin celebrating the fall of Assad with her sister and friends. "Statues of the dictator Bashar and his father Hafez were destroyed in all Kurdish and Arab cities. We never even dreamed we would see this day. It was like a new Syrian revolution that only lasted 11 days, after 13 years of despair and frustration."

Seyda fled Damascus in 2013, joining her family who had left earlier for Turkey. "Back then, we believed that the revolution would triumph and we would return to our homeland, but unfortunately the days, months and years passed, so we came to Europe." Seyda’s first thought after the fall of the regime was "visiting Syria, and maybe even returning there (permanently) in the future," she says. 

Yamen Molhem, another Syrian living in Germany, is already planning to return to his hometown of Aleppo. "Now I am no longer a refugee, it is time to return to my homeland," says Melhem, who lived in Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey before arriving in Germany in 2016. Melhem managed to integrate into German society and now runs his own business, a popular shawarma restaurant on Sonnenallee in Berlin. 

"Germany has never failed us. It’s opened its heart to us," says Molhem, expressing his gratitude for the welcome he and many other Syrians received. Germany took in around one million Syrians, most of whom arrived as refugees after former Chancellor Angela Merkel decided in 2015 to allow them into the country. Since then, most of them have integrated into German society and many have been granted citizenship—75,000 last year alone, the largest number of people of any foreign nationality to be naturalised according to the Federal Statistical Office. 

Many are now considering returning to Syria, especially those with a conservative background who do not want to raise their children surrounded by Western culture. Hundreds of Syrian refugees who settled in neighbouring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey have already returned to Syria since Assad fell. 

Cautious optimism

Despite general optimism about the future of Syria after Assad, many Syrians also live with a creeping anxiety. Minorities are particularly concerned about the sudden rise of HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, who is designated a terrorist by the United States and many European countries. During clashes with government troops, al-Jolani pledged not to harm the ethnic and religious minorities. He was previously an Al-Qaeda fighter in US-occupied Iraq. He moved to Syria at the start of the uprising and founded the HTS predecessor Al-Nusra Front in 2016, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. 

Under al-Jolani's leadership, opposition groups have announced the formation of a transitional government. The new prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, previously oversaw the civil authority in Idlib in coordination with HTS, who controlled the city’s security and military affairs. 

Seyda is optimistic about the future of minorities under the new government: "I am confident that they will respect and protect the minorities. Like all of us, they have suffered under the regime. Change and hope will motivate them. We all share the same pain and dreams."

But Seyda is also worried about Turkey, which considers Kurds a threat to national security. "I am afraid of Turkey's aim to occupy Syrian cities with a Kurdish majority, as happened in Afrin." In 2018, the Turkish military, together with allied Syrian groups, launched a military offensive on the Kurdish-majority state in northern Syria, killing dozens of civilians and displacing thousands.

The West and al-Jolani

Alzayed was surprised by the West’s openness to dealing with HTS and its leader. He draws comparisons to the West’s approach to the Taliban in Afghanistan, though al-Jolani appears to be more moderate. 

As a member of the Syrian National Democratic Alliance, a union of Syrian opposition activists in Europe, Alzayed is cautious. "We are afraid of al-Jolani. His positions differed radically from our demands at the beginning of the revolution, although he recently adapted his political rhetoric to be more compatible with the revolution's goals."

"However, if the armed groups actually keep their promises, we can build a new Syria that welcomes everyone." To achieve this, Alzayed urges opposition groups across the world to unite and return to Syria. "We cannot leave the arena to only al-Jolani and his followers," he says. 

This text is an edited translation of the Arabic original. Translated from Arabic by Sara Arafa.