Now Syria can dream of a future again

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The writer is a research fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. He studied architecture in Homs, Syria, where he was born and raised

It is Sunday morning. I was only able to sleep for an hour and a half. I expect many Syrians, those inside the country and those in exile, have not slept at all this night. With the fall of Bashar al-Assad, a new dawn for Syria is coming. This is the point of no return.

I am listening to the songs of the revolution, and dreaming of my country, Syria. One popular song says, ‘‘Heaven, heaven, heaven. Our homeland is heaven.” People chanted these words when the revolution started in March 2011.

The first video I saw about the liberation of Homs, my hometown, was filmed from a balcony. It showed people in cars celebrating their arrival in the city, with the sounds of women’s zaghroutas, or ululations, overlapped with the words of that song; ‘‘Heaven, heaven, heaven. Our homeland is heaven”.

I wept, and my weeping merged with the sound of those women. The voice of Homs had been muted and silenced for so long — but not today.

I am thinking of the tears of the Syrian people, of their suffering, their pain and their sorrow. I am crying and thinking of my city, ruined and broken, besieged and starved, bombed and shelled. I am thinking of the people who remained in Homs, while we lived in exile. I am thinking of our story — a story of blood. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria over the past 13 years. How can we make sense of our grief?

“Heaven, heaven, heaven. Our homeland is heaven.” It is a heaven that we were forced out of. One should not over-romanticise the past, but every person yearns for the place they are familiar with. Our homeland, Syria, is beautiful. It is rich in art and culture, with a diverse people drawn from many different religions and sects.

But we were forced out of it. More than 6.5mn people have been displaced outside Syria since the civil war began in 2011, mostly to neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. But they have also gone further — to Germany, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Almost as many are displaced within the country, some several times over as the front lines of the conflict kept shifting.

From afar, I mourned my city and the beloved family that I left behind. Exile felt like a dagger in the heart. It is the pain of thinking of one’s home, without being able to return. It is pain that sleeps sometimes and is frozen; but at other times strikes with a wave of grief and sorrow. The separation from my place of birth and the city I grew up in has been damaging and traumatising.

But what a night to remember this has been. What a time to be alive. As an empire of horrors collapsed, memories flashed through my mind and filled my heart.

Videos have emerged of internally displaced people returning to meet their families. A man hugs his mother. He kneels to kiss her feet but she prevents him. It is a gesture of respect and love. The scene melts the heart.

Now I am thinking of those who died without seeing this. I am thinking of the beautiful Fadwa Souleimane and of May Skaf, two Syrian actresses and activists who died in exile in France, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. And I am thinking of my friend Taher Al-Seba’e, who was killed by the Syrian government in 2011. He was an architecture student marching in a peaceful protest in my street.

In one video Skaf is crying, and cursing Assad: “You have humiliated the people. Wherever we go, we are humiliated.” She dries her tears with her hands. I wish she could see what is happening today.

I dream of a future that is just and democratic. A future where we all live in dignity, and have the right to be whoever we are. The walls of fear have been destroyed, and suddenly before us there is a new landscape of hope, one that has been so hard to even dare to imagine over the past few years.

I dream that our cities and villages can be rebuilt. I dream of returning to Homs, and of touching the walls of my building, of being in my home with my family. I dream of a future without ruins and without war.

I am travelling to London with Syrian friends to celebrate in Trafalgar Square as history is being written in front of us. These friends are from Homs, from the occupied Golan Heights, Damascus, Aleppo, As-Suwayda and Deraa. We hug each other, laugh and congratulate each other. We are dreaming of our return and thinking of our journeys to Syria.

Last week exile felt endless. But now there is no more forever.

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