Syrians want peace and justice, says author of new history of its civil war

Rime Allaf had planned her “ideal first evening” when she returned to Syria in October for the first time in more than a decade: she would go for dinner at a small restaurant near her grandmother’s house known for its fatteh and other “homey” Syrian dishes.

The Vienna-based author of a new history of the Syrian civil war, It Started In Damascus, had not expected to be able to return to her home country after the former regime of Bashar Al Assad erased her identity from its records in 2011.

But when she finally did, she wanted to experience the everyday things she had missed, and spend time with her cousins. “I wanted to be back home, to walk in the souqs, to buy food there … not being in a hotel in that little bubble of expats,” she said.

Overcome with emotions when she arrived, she instead spent her first evening walking around the neighbourhood near her family home in Abou Rummaneh.

There was relief at feeling safe and free in Damascus for the first time and to see the new Syrian flag, adopted after the ousting of Mr Al Assad on December 8, 2024.

“To be there and to know that it was perfectly safe. To see that flag. It makes you extremely emotional,” Allaf said. But she was also struck by the degraded living standards. “Sidewalks had become crowded, messy, louder than ever,” she added.

The coming period in Syria will not necessarily be calm Rime Allaf

Around her, people were hopeful that things would get better very soon as western sanctions are lifted, but also “suffocating” from the years of economic isolation and war. “What was very difficult was seeing with your own eyes just how neglected and distressed the country had become,” she said.

The electricity came on for up to five hours a day, which her family described as an improvement. There could be no running water for days, and when it did come it was only for a couple of hours. “If the water did not come at the same time as the electricity, then your pump would never manage to bring up the stuff.”

“Damascus is suffocating right now,” she said as she discussed the lack of new services and development over the last year.

“If they were to see some rebuilding beginning, some social housing, some infrastructure, some lighting in the streets, I think that would give you a collective sense of hope, that [the international community] kept its word.”

Rime Allaf, author of It Started in Damascus. Photo: Rime Allaf

How Syrians got there

The collapse of the Assad regime has been likened to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when a population living for decades under an oppressive, isolationist government with a sprawling security apparatus was finally able to speak freely and decide on its future.

Allaf was working on the two final chapters of her book when Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, backed by other opposition forces, began its advance