Syrians, experts in Pioneer Valley reflect on Assad regime’s fall, look to future

A woman waves a Syrian opposition flag in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus.

A woman waves a Syrian opposition flag in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus. AP

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus.

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus. AP

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus.

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus. AP

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus.

Syrians gather in celebration days after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government at the Umayyad Square in Damascus. AP

By EMILEE KLEIN

Staff Writer

Published: 12-16-2024 6:15 PM

HOLYOKE — Youssef Ahmed Sabbagh remembers little about growing up under Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, but the details he can recall are memories he’d rather forget.

“I used to hear and see missiles, bullets and explosives,” said Sabbagh, a 19-year-old Syrian who moved to Hampshire County about a year ago. Speaking by text, he said, “I used to wake up to the sound of gunfire, and every time this happened I used to cry and scream. I used to tell my relatives not to be afraid that anything will happen to us because I hoped that we would be fine and feel safe. I did not know if I would die or live.”

Sabbagh lived in the Aleppo Governorate of Syria, the most populous of the 14 governorates in the country, until he was 7 years old, surviving under what many academics and Middle East experts call an incredibly brutal and oppressive authoritarian rule. He and his family fled to Alexandria, Egypt, and remained in that country for about 11 years before arriving in Holyoke in January 2024.

Sabbagh is safe, but his security came with a price: isolation from his relatives and home, neither of which he has seen since he left Syria.

So when Sabbagh and his family heard that rebel forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled the Assad regime on Dec. 9, the stunning development didn’t just liberate the people within Syria’s boarders, but signaled hope to more than 14 million Syrian refugees around the world, including many throughout the Pioneer Valley.

“[The end of the Assad family’s rule] is very important to me because it was killing many innocent people, imprisoning them, torturing them and assaulting them all the time,” Sabbagh said. “I am very happy with this news, and I hope that my country will return one day so that I can see it and remember the memories and meet my relatives.”

Following the fall of the Assad regime, Syrian refugees are flooding home, detainment camps and prisons are being liberated, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian Salvation Government are beginning to assemble interim and permanent governing bodies.

Closer to home in the Pioneer Valley, Syrians, Middle East experts at the Five Colleges and concerned residents are watching the fractured country begin rebuilding with bated breath, anxious but hopeful that some semblance of political and socioeconomic stability may return to Syria and its people.

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“It’s a mixture of joy, disbelief and a bit of fear on what might happen next,” said Omar Dahi, founding director of Security in Context, an organization of scholars that reframe national security around human well-being rather than military defense. “It’s important to hold all those emotions together, because they have material and objective base in reality.”

Bittersweet celebrations an ocean away

No one, possibly not even the rebel forces themselves, could have predicted such a swift end to the 54-year dictatorship, said Steven Heydemann, chair of Middle East Studies at Smith College.

“As [rebel forces] saw how quickly regime forces melted away, they responded somewhat opportunistically and just kept moving forward and gained momentum as they continued,” he said.

Debbie Shriver, a member of the Valley Syrian Relief Committee, a regional group that provides education on the humanitarian crisis in Syria and donates aid though the Syria Emergency Task Force, also expressed astonishment at the rebel force’s success. When Shriver learned of the liberation of the Rukban refugee camp, which the Valley Syrian Relief Committee sent aid to during the civil war, she burst into tears.

“This was an encampment with 8,000 people who were essentially trapped in the desert,” Shriver said. “Really, that’s emblematic of what has happened for the Syrian people as a whole. They’ve endured so much suffering and hardship.”

In 2017, the Valley Syrian Relief Committee brought Syrian activist Mazen al-Hamada to partake in public programming and speak to Amherst-Pelham Regional High School students about the torture he endured under the Assad regime. Shriver greatly admired al-Hamada’s bravery and kindness, and she was deeply heartbroken to learn that he was murdered by Assad forces three days before rebel forces arrived in Damascus.

“All of them are just living now with this memory of family members, friends, colleagues who were lost to the regime who never made it to see this moment, and it makes this a moment of tremendous joy and tremendous sadness,” Heydemann said.

Building a new society

During the Assad family’s rule, Syria’s sovereignty was lost as the land fractured along political, religious and ethnic lines. Even now, Turkey remains pitted against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in the north, eastern Syria still has an Iran- and Russian-supported ISIS presence, and Israel pushes into Mount Hermon to destroy what was left of the Syrian army in the days following the Assad government’s fall.

“Turkey is the main winner of this conflict because HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) is supported by them. They will have a lot of influence of what comes next,” said Andy Reiter, professor of politics and international relations at Mount Holyoke College. “The U.S. and Turkey are both nominal allies and NATO partners, so I would expect that they would be working together to ensure there isn’t a civil war breaking out between them.”

Dahi added that the United States and European Union have an even bigger role in rebuilding Syria’s economic stability by lifting the sanctions placed on the country 10 years ago, which Dahi believes the United States could use to incentivize a compromise between Kurds and Turkey.

“I think what we need to think about is what is the national interests now, and the national interest is a sovereign country that controls the territorial and political boundaries,” Dahi said. “It’s in an inclusive, political transition process that doesn’t exclude people, but includes people on the basis of equal citizenship rather than on the base of religion or sect or ethnicity.”

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Reiter noted, ruled the northern Syrian providence of Idlib with a “pretty conservative hard-line Islamic ideology” and has connections to al-Qaeda. However, Reiter also said the Sunni militia group understands that Syrians do not want to exchange one dictator for another, and has taken steps to frame themselves as a more moderate and inclusive government.

Heydemann elaborated on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s new position, pointing out that the group has already assured Syrian women that the new government would not put restrictions on public appearances, promised ethnic and religious minorities freedom from discrimination, pardoned low-level members of police and military from the Assad regime, and began pursuing high-level Assad members for torture and other crimes.

“These are really important signs. They indicate the HTS and its political wing ... recognize they’re no longer in Kansas,” Heydemann said. “That governing Syria is a very different order of magnitude than governing Idlib. They’re governing a society that is diverse, that doesn’t want to see an Islamist government take power.”

Only time will tell whether Hayat Tahrir al-Sham upholds these promises, and includes ethnic and religious minorities in the government rebuilding process.

“I have a Syrian friend whose family is from southern Syria and she said, ‘Finally, we can go back to the family home,’” Heydemann said. “She sent me a picture of the house and said it’s tattered but still standing, I think that’s a pretty good metaphor for Syrians as a whole: They’re tattered, but still standing.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettnet.com.