Latest / The Fourcast / Assad falls: should it be a moment of joy or fear for Syria?

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Assad falls: should it be a moment of joy or fear for Syria? · The Fourcast

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It's just so difficult, you know, to witness this moment
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where you should be so happy, then so much pain that you can't
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even handle. Need to be very careful about
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how to handle the next couple of years in order for our children
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for for the next generations to be able to live in democratic
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Syria. I'm so happy that he was not
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killed there, that he wasn't turned into a hero, that he left
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his entire people alone, even the people who believe that he's
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like God, you know, and he's someone who would fight for
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them. How do you think Syrians can
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stop this turning to more rage and more anger, you know, and
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for that to take over? Hello and welcome to the
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forecast. It has been a tumultuous weekend
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in Syria. The regime has fallen and people
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are trying to work out what happens next.
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And of course, the ramifications and the significance of what is
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happening there is constantly coming into view.
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And people are realizing that this rolls on into so many other
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parts of the Middle East of of this country.
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You know, it. It affects everywhere.
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Now joining me today to discuss what is happening and how people
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feel about it. The filmmaker Waddell Khatib,
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long associated with Channel 4 News, who reported from Aleppo
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during her years there with her husband living in the last
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hospital that were functioning in East Aleppo as the regime
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forces came down and and took over eventually in 2016.
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She now lives in Britain and also Mazen Ghariba, who is from
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the British Syrian Consortium, which is a sort of lobby group
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of British Syrians and is also a researcher at the LSE.
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Thank you both for joining us. Let's just try and work out how
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people feel first. I mean, while we spoke on Friday
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and you were, you were sort of in shock then, now the regime is
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gone. You know what?
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What's it been like for you watching this?
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You know, we've been living the last 13 years waiting for this
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moment. And when it did happen, I think,
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you know, maybe because of the trauma that we carry, maybe
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because of the pain, maybe because of the people we lost,
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maybe because we like nearly like, you know, had a, you know,
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kind of this thought that this life can't be fair.
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It can't like, justice is not a real word or, you know, like,
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hope is just something we hold on into, but it's not going to
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be real any day. However, all of this turned to
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reality. And we've witnessed as Syrian
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people this moment. We thought that or we feel this
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is a dream. And, you know, everything we've
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been through with what's going on.
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And I think what I just came to realise, which is no, this is
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not dream, this is the reality and what we've been through was
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a nightmare and this is how life should be.
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It shouldn't never be like how we were living before.
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I mean, I, I remember meeting you in Turkey just after you had
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come out of Aleppo and you said then that you will go back to
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Aleppo. But I, I didn't really think he
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believed it. Did you know did?
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You I, I don't know how to explain this like I'm living for
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that moment. Although I did thought in so
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many times this is what never happened.
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I did thought in so many times. I am holding on to fake hope
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just for me to survive this moment.
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And this moment wasn't just like, you know, getting out of
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Aleppo in that situation where we were forcedly displaced, but
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also every single day here in the UK.
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Life here is amazing. It's lovely.
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OK, I'm safe. I am with my kids and things
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seems, you know, for the outside it's good.
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But I have to drag myself every single day from bed believing
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that no, our life was not for nothing.
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Everyone we lost was not for nothing.
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Also like, you know, kind of there's this phrase which come
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out after for some of us, we dare to dream.
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We won't regret dignity. So many people told me like, I'm
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romantic. I am, you know, like just kind
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of my trauma is affecting my head and I'm just living into
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that fantasy world of how life should be because the reality is
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not like this. I believe that at some time.
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I'm never give up imagining or thinking, you know, that maybe
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not me, even my daughters would would go and be there and Assad
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would be fallen and he is fallen.
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Mazen, what's it been like for you the last couple of days?
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I mean, pretty much like wads of and like all Syrians I know
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absolute joy and and happiness, A disbelief that this actually
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happens, that we Syrians finally are free of the Assad's brutal
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regime after 454 years of the Assad's family.
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This is an absolute joy. That's something we never
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thought that's going to happen during our lifestyle.
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I gave up, to be honest. I gave up hope about the the
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fall of Assad five years ago. Basically, OK, Assad will stay.
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Everyone is normalizing Assad now.
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And so we have to deal with him and probably Assad junior will
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be, we'll rule, we'll rule over Syria afterwards.
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But now it's, it's, it happens. It's like a dream.
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I remember when when it happened there Shia called Wah.
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It's like, OK, is, is this really happening?
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It's like this guys, OK, so this is happening.
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But underneath that overwhelming feeling of joy and, and, and,
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and relief, of course, there is this range of mixed feelings
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about cautious optimism. But what's going to happen next?
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It's also a sense of uncertainty what what's the future's going
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to bring? So far we've seen causative
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practices by the opposition forces all over the country,
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which is great, which is reassuring for many, many
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people. But at the same time, there are
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a lot of other people who are still kind of finding it
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difficult to be reassured by practices of positive practices.
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They're also traumatized by previous experiences during the
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armed conflict. So people are really hopeful
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hoping that a political negotiation will start
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immediately at civilian transitional governing body will
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be there a new a new constitution that guarantees the
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rights and and dignity of all Syrians from all religion,
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sects, ethnicities, men and women.
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But when we talk the the what what's different now is that
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when we used to say these things five years ago, people were
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dismissive. So yeah, this is just, you know,
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you're dreaming. This is just the civil society
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being civil society. But now it's it's people are now
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believing it's OK. So this could but.
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But the but the question is, you know, that political transition,
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it needs to happen very quickly, doesn't it?
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I mean, you know, because there is, if it doesn't, then comes
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the danger of what we've seen before in countries like Libya
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and Iraq where the fighting begins between the inheritors.
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So so how, how do you think this can this can actually be pushed
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forward? OK, so this is exactly what's
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what what needs to be done. So that's why all of us Syrians
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get up, activists and the civil society activists and putting
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pressure on all international actors, international players to
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start immediately to re restart the Geneva process.
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The UN backed Geneva process according to the UN Security
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Council 2254, which is kind of the entry point or the road map
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for the political transition in Syria.
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We have a a Security Council resolution.
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There is the, the Geneva process that needs to be activated
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immediately because as you said, interim military and government
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arrangements could impose certain stability and the short
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term, but they will, there's there are no guarantees that
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they will be as stable at, at, at, at a longer term unless a
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political process was sought immediately.
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And that's what the special envoy, the UN special envoy,
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Peterson has been saying. And this is what the UK, the US,
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the EU should also be saying and should be also be pressuring all
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other kind of parties, including Arab states, Russia to, to be
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really involved this time in a meaningful discussions, in a
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meaningful negotiations. Because now the, the Assad is
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gone. So, so now we have our country
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back. There are no absolutely no
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roadblocks to start the the political process again.
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But how, how realistic do you think this is?
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Because I mean, why do you know, if you think about what happened
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over the last few years, the outside world effectively
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abandoned Syria and just and, and you know, so, so if you now
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want the outside world to get involved in Syria's future, do
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you think it's going to? Whatever we think, you know, I
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think as Syrians, they will get involved and they will get
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involved based on their agendas, based on their benefits.
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What we really now really want to focus on, and this is I think
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exactly what Mazen is trying to say is like we need to to be
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able to immediately, you know, decide where and how as we are
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celebrating this like amazing news, you know, like Bashar
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Assad arrived in Russia and they get asylum there.
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Israel was marching into like southern of of Syria.
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So there's no really time. And what's really like sad, I
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think it's at this moment where we should just celebrate and
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grieve this pain and this amazing achievement.
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As Syrian people, we still, as we speak, there is people under
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the ground in Syria. There's people, prisoners,
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political prisoners, prisoners who we are desperately trying to
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get out to know where are they? There's thousands of families
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who are, you know, trying just to understand where are they?
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What's what's going on? I don't know.
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How can we handle all of this? I don't know how can we deal
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with all of this. You know, I think people are
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still getting to grips here with the scale of what has happened
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and, and what is still to be revealed about what happened
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under the regime and the lives that were ruined and the people
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who were in prison and the people who were killed and the
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people who disappeared. I mean, can you give me a sense
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of the conversations that are going on in amongst your friends
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and I? Mean the moment the regime
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falls, we just started calling each other handy.
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Amazon was one of the everyone I was jumping on the phone with
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people who I haven't spoke with like for years.
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You know, my my own family, my aunt is my uncle who are in a
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small town called Masyaf. It's very sensitive area toward
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the regime and what's going on around there.
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So I've never spoke to them. I've never managed to not say hi
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because I am rather sleep in their respective, which is very
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scary and very like risky to them.
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It was the first time and and so many people over these phones,
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you know, they were saying this like we've we've never spoke,
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you know, like like freely, we've never managed to just look
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into each other eyes and be happy and all of this.
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And that was so real. That was so I think painful as
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well. We until now like I jump into
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like I jump dance and sing out loud and get crazy and happy and
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then two seconds later like I have I can cry my eyes out.
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I can. It's just so many really
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difficult emotions. And even this, it's the first
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time I'm happy about it. You know, I need to let it out.
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I need just to be able to breathe.
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However, all of this is one thing.
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And maybe one hour after we, we, we, we got confirmation about
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the news. I called one of my friends, Wafa
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Mustafa. She's a Syrian activist in
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Berlin. Her father was disappeared like
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13 years ago and I can tell you, you know, she's coming from a
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different planet. It just so difficult, you know,
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to witness this moment where you should be so happy then so much
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pain that you can't even handle this.
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You don't know what will her father get out or not.
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And I'm talking about so far because she's my best friend.
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But like all of us, we know maybe every Syrian house there's
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someone like this. My aunt, my auntie, she lost her
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my my cousin was was also arrested and he was killed like
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6-7 years ago. And she she didn't see the body.
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She just had, you know, there his paper work and that he's
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dead and they give her certificate.
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It was also under torture and we are still looking for him now.
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There's a chance there is hope and just so many people like
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this. We're so yes, over the moon, but
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in a very painful way. Mazen, I know you've got to go
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in a minute. So do you want to do you want to
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have a last word and and on, on this and then I'll let you go.
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And I just want to say that's as well.
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I said that we don't dream and and our dream came the reality
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now the, the, the moment that that's actually stayed will stay
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forever with me. Is that when my father still
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lives in Homs? He called me crying after they
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removed the Hazel Assad statue which was at the corner of that
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house. For him, that was the moment of
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the regime fall. Because he told me for for for
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for 54 years. I have to to walk bad pass
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through that Hazel Assad statue, knowing that Assad's family are
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are are are are suffocating us. And now that's gone.
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And I, I, he said, I thought, I'm going to die without, under
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Assad's rule and now I'm not. So for me, that's, that's worth
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fighting for. That's the moment that's worth
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fighting for. And I'm hoping that we will stay
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together as, as, as Assyrians in order to steer Syria into a
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better future now, because the situation is great, but it's
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also very, very, very sensitive. So we need to be very careful
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about how to handle the next couple of years in order for our
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children for, for the next generations to be able to live
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in democratic Syria. But thank you.
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Thank you for having me. Mazen, I'll let you go because I
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know you've got to run. But Ward, let me continue with
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you. Thank you.
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Mazen, you know, when you describe the emotions that
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you're going through, and I'm sure everyone is going through
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the same, how do you think Syrians can stop this turning to
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more rage and more anger, you know, and for that to take over?
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I think there's really, really weird situation where to be
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honest, like even my own revenge, my own rage, my own
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kind of hate, you know, toward everything we've been through,
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toward individuals who I know they helped, like the regime,
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you know, to point us, to talk about us, to spread
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misinformation about us. And this was at the time when we
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were getting out of Aleppo. Like, it's just all for me gone.
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I don't really care about any of this.
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Even my own revenge to Assad today, I do feel like I don't
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really care. I'm so happy that he was not
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killed there. How that that he wasn't turned
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into a hero, that he left his entire people alone, even the
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people who believe that he's like God, you know, and he's
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someone who would to fight for them.
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I think what, where we are now, it's the best scenario ever.
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And whether we intentionally, you know, led to this or
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whatever, I do believe that what these 313 days or like 11 days,
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12 days have showed us that we do love each other.
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That as Syrian people, we are able to live with each other
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without fear. We are able to respect each
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other and you know, people all talk talking, we're talking
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about HTS and these fighters, which we don't know who they
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are. We don't know who we're parts
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from what they just showed on the ground today.
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Like it's so like unbelievable even for us.
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We've we've, I lived in Aleppo, where part of these groups were
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there before HTS was, was even established.
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Part of the reasons why I didn't come back to Syria to Adlib to
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live there was was them. But yet, you know, so many
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things changed and what we're seeing in places where there's
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like Alawi or Christian or any kind of minority of people, it's
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just so impressive. And I don't know why it's still
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trying to understand how did this change and how this, but
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Can you imagine that 13 years of all this war crimes that we've
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witnessed with people fighting each other, with people like,
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and again, I think it turns back to the same point, which I'm
17:57
always trying to make. This was not civil war.
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It's not Syrian killing each other.
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It's Syrian fighting for the rights.
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It's, it's a government who was like criminal and evil.
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And when you see people now, like with with everything's
18:13
going on on the ground today, like people just desperately
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want to live, want to live peacefully.
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And we are taking this opportunity.
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I think, yes, the focus now should be on the transitional
18:26
power and government. We need to take it step by step.
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This country was drawn into like whole war for years.
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So many agendas, so many different countries get
18:40
involved. Like it's just, you know, it's,
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it's with very big corruption over years.
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People used to that in their own, you know, work and life and
18:51
families. So there's a lot to be done.
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But we just read. It's kind of part of the
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healing, you know, I don't know how to explain this.
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I think people are also trying to understand, you know, that
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HTS ran Idlib and they had institutions in Idlib.
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But for many people, I mean, including yourself, you know,
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they were quite a fearsome organization.
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But that was that. That was during the conflict.
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And I suppose, you know, the the hope is that that now changes
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and they are saying things that are very conciliatory and
19:23
moderates and they're talking about, you know, political
19:25
process and building institutions.
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From what, from your understanding of what, of how
19:30
they ran Idlib? I mean, can you give us any
19:32
sense of, you know, how competent it was or how?
19:36
Yeah, I think like what we heard from people in Idlib until
19:40
today, because when we were displaced out of Aleppo, this is
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where everyone like kind of settled at the end.
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It was like, definitely not this free Syria that we want for
19:53
sure. And there's no, you know,
19:56
question about that. But at the same time, there was
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space for people to protest against that.
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And we've witnessed so many activists who were leading
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protest against Al Jolani Ahmed Sharar, who's now like the head
20:09
of HTS and. At the same time, like we lived
20:15
under bombing our entire city were under bombing by our own
20:19
president. Why do you think I should fear
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someone who are extreme in their thinking when I'm fighting
20:26
someone like Bashar al-Assad, who's very liberal, very modern,
20:30
But like, there's no even convert like comparing for us,
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you know, like, yes, they are listed as a tourist group, but
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how did that also could happen? And Assad, Bashar Assad is not
20:44
listed under terrorist group. Like this can't make any sense.
20:48
You're the yes, they are not the Syria that we are fighting for,
20:53
but we still can fight against them if they are not, you know,
20:58
like, right. And today more than ever, I
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think we should learn from everything we've we've we've
21:05
been through. We should look forward.
21:08
So what's really for me assuring or I feel like more, I don't
21:13
know hope for in that, that the attitude on the ground, people
21:18
in Aleppo and Hama in in in Damascus today, they are telling
21:24
us that these statements are true on the ground.
21:28
And this is what we hope. And at the end of the day, you
21:32
know, this is one opportunity we have today.
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We have to take it. We have to fight for it.
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We have to protect it. And this is I think what
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everyone believe when the whole international community let us
21:44
down, you know, like this is where we are today.
21:48
And this is because of them as well.
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So let's hope and let's try. We have so much work to do, so
21:54
much work to do. When you talk about the past
21:56
crimes of the Assad regime, what do you think needs to happen to
22:03
cement that in history? You know, do you need some sort
22:06
of truth and reconciliation process Commission with it?
22:11
Should it be Syrian? Should it be international?
22:14
You know, how, how do you make sure that the truth is written
22:18
down and captured and recognized and, and doesn't sort of fester
22:24
and turn into, you know, something terrible?
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I think it was faster and was turning into something terrible
22:32
before Assad was gone because we've witnessing, we were
22:35
witnessing normalization with countries where they were just
22:40
saying, yeah, it doesn't matter what happened.
22:42
We have like he's the only option we have.
22:45
However, I think for all of us today, first thing we did
22:50
document so many things happening.
22:52
It was me in Aleppo in one hospital, but there was
22:56
thousands of activists and people who've been who dedicated
22:59
their life for this kind of documentation.
23:05
And because we were thinking and we were feeling that the end
23:09
would not be as we wanted the documentation, the documentation
23:13
became more urgent and more important work.
23:15
So we really hope to rely on that a lot.
23:18
But also I think in the next one to 10 years, I don't know how
23:22
long this would take, like justice should take us like a
23:26
shape. And I don't know exactly how
23:29
does this shape would be. But I think the most revenge and
23:34
the most, you know, like just as we can all get is to get the
23:38
country into a better place today.
23:41
That's I think, you know, when we really will be won over Assad
23:45
over everything he believe in, over everything his system, you
23:49
know, built in Syria. I'm sure that so many people
23:53
would maybe disagree with me on this.
23:56
I don't know if I would feel like this tomorrow.
23:58
But you know, today I'm just, I don't know, there's a whole like
24:04
I, I, I don't know how to expand this really.
24:06
It's still so raw and so new and so painful at the same time, but
24:12
we're so happy. It's just the beginning, isn't
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it? And it's extraordinary to see
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it. Excuse me?
24:16
It's extraordinary to see it on your face.
24:19
So thank you so much for talking to us today.
24:22
I'm sure you've probably had no sleep for days, but we will.
24:27
We'll, we'll come back, I'm sure, and, and, and speak again
24:29
before we go. Obviously, people can catch up
24:32
with your coverage of Aleppo on the Channel 4 News website.
24:36
How can people see Forsama, the documentary that you made?
24:40
So, so many of the reports I've worked with with on Channel 4
24:45
News on a website called Inside Aleppo, it's on Channel 4 News
24:50
website and we have on all four. They can watch for summer.
24:55
It's free in the UK, available for all.
24:58
Also they can follow the action, the Impact campaign that we've
25:02
established since for summer was out.
25:04
It's called Action for Summer. Well.
25:06
Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
25:08
Thank you SO. Much.
25:09
And that was the forecast. We'll be back very soon.
25:11
Bye bye.