As a Palestinian-Syrian, I’m not exaggerating when I say that last Sunday [Dec 15, 2024] was one of the happiest days of my life.

It marked the fall of the Assad family regime — a system rooted in corruption, systematic torture, human rights violations, sectarian rule, and clientelism.

As a Palestinian who spent a quarter-century of my life in the Yarmouk refugee camp and Damascus, I grew up immersed in a dual struggle: against the colonial Israeli occupation and the brutal authoritarianism in Syria.

The era of Assadist tyranny has ended, and I eagerly await the day Palestine is freed from the genocidal, settler colonial, and apartheid Israeli regime.

Congratulations to the Syrian people! Long live this great people, who embodied their slogan: “One, one, one… the Syrian people are one.” A salute to the souls of the million martyrs, those who paid with their lives in a revolution against this time of tyranny and not colonialism. Many loved ones and friends were lost in the pursuit of freedom: my nephews Malik and Ridwan, my cousin Asem, Abdul-Basit Al-Sarout, Samira Al-Khalil, Father Paolo, and countless others. May they all have God blessings!

Here, I will address why some Arab and Western Leftists fail to grasp the significance of this event. And rather than delving into theories, I will recount my personal experiences growing up in Syria, haunted by fear: fear of arrest, fear of being slapped by a security officer while walking down the street.

I recall being interrogated at the age of 14 for a wall poster criticising the political system, and again at 18 when I was arrested with Palestinian friends for participating in a Land Day demonstration in the Yarmouk camp.

I was raised in a politically conscious, religious family. I remember how my elder brother Muhammad would eavesdrop on my phone conversations to ensure I didn’t say anything against the regime.

He believed, rightly so, that we lived in a panoptic prison where everyone seemed to be under constant surveillance. Indeed, everything was monitored under Kafkaesque conditions.

The terror of the early 1980s was overwhelming. Every knock at the door could signal a potential raid. Many friends disappeared into the depths of prisons, subjected to systematic torture. Evening conversations often revolved around tales of prison torment and daily oppression. This led to a journey of exile for my brother and two uncles.

I painfully remember losing my dear school friend, Talal Martinos, who joined the League of Communist Action in late 1979. He was arrested months later from his medical college and endured a decade in various prisons, including the infamous red prison in Saydayna. 

When I visited Syria one summer after returning from France, a mutual friend joyfully informed me that Talal had just been released. I called him immediately and visited him that evening. However, the visit left me deeply saddened; I saw a broken, internally shattered man. His sentences were brief; he didn’t want to talk or remember. That night, I couldn’t sleep, consumed by the realisation that we were all silent victims of a bloody dictatorship.

This reminded me of Ettore Scola’s Italian film Una Giornata Particulate (A Special Day), which depicted life in Mussolini’s Italy. It showcased how ordinary families lived under the culture of fear, internalising and normalising it. The characters weren’t in concentration camps, yet their lives were melancholic and broken under fascist repression. I still remember Sophia Loren, this wonderful actress, and how she lived a culture of horror, miserable and exhausted in setting up her family. She was the model of the ideal woman in fascist society: maternal, a housekeeper, completely self-sacrificing, and a slave to her husband, and thus to the state.

As for the character of the anti-fascist, Marcello Mastroianni, he is also gloomy, contemplating suicide since he was dismissed from his job. Horror was everywhere: Mussolini’s voice echoed inside and outside the apartments, reinforcing the feeling of no privacy. Talal’s brokenness mirrored this tragedy—we lived without a sense of self, too afraid to speak.

Fear was not confined to Syria but followed exiles abroad. My Syrian dissident friend Dr. Nawar Atfeh noticed that I still lowered my voice when discussing the regime, even while in France. He often reminded me to let go of fear, yet it lingered within me despite my political activism.

The Syrian exception

And yet many Arab and other leftists fail to distinguish between different types of authoritarianism.

The tyranny of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, or other Arab regimes pales compared to the extreme brutality of Saddam Hussein’s and the Assad family’s regimes.

I hold no grudge against a leftist Tunisian, Moroccan, or Algerian unaware of the extent of Syria’s violence. However, I do reproach those who know but remain silent. My dear friend the social psychologist Azzam Amin, famously referred to this group as the “barrel bomb left”— those who support Assad’s use of barrel bombs on Syrian civilians.

I am particularly disheartened by friends who support Hezbollah, blinded by the ideology of resistance and failing to see the Syrian people’s suffering. They justify their alliance with Assad as necessary to confront Israeli occupation, even at the cost of millions of lives.

This obsession with fighting colonialism while ignoring tyranny persists to this day. Didn’t we hear Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, declare on November 28 that they would send forces to support the Syrian regime?

On the other hand, some believe that political Islam movements never evolve. Moroccan journalist Toufiq Bouachrine, for instance, entitled his article “Beware, do not leave Assad’s prison for Al-Jolani’s prison.” While I hope for Syria to be as Bouachrine envisions, his judgment on Al-Jolani/Ahmed Al-Sharaa seems premature.

The transformation of the Syrian armed factions shows signs of flexibility, including new policies affirming personal freedoms. This doesn’t dismiss the risks of extreme social conservatism, but such issues must be addressed without resorting to simplistic binaries.

Finally, the question remains: Is Syria’s liberation from tyranny the start of the third wave of the Arab Spring? This can only be confirmed when Syrians succeed in building a civil state, grounded in the rule of law, institutions, and democracy. I hope so, for the entire Arab world needs revolutions to rid itself of despotism, corruption, and the pervasive culture of fear and terror that gnaws at the lives of its people.

What gave me hope amidst the despair over Gaza’s genocide, Lebanon’s destruction, and the failure of past Arab Spring waves were the words of my 16-year-old daughter, Yara: “Today, for the first time, I feel genuine pride in my Arab identity.”

Sari Hanafi is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of the Islamic Studies program at the American University of Beirut. He was the President of the International Sociological Association (2018-23). He was also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic) (2017-2022), and author of Studying Islam in the Arab World (2023).

---

---