Chicago Syrian-Americans celebrate an end to Assad regime
By Carolina Garibay
December 8, 2024, 12:03 pm
(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Syrian-Americans in Chicago are celebrating what they say is a day they never thought would come.
"It's a good day for Syria that this chapter has closed."
Dr. Zaher Sahloul says the end to the "brutal" 50-year rule of the Assad family is a day he never thought he'd see.
"It's like a dream. This is a Berlin Wall moment to us in Syria. It's a very joyous situation where we feel that dark chapter has been closed, and we're looking for a better future."
The fall of the Assad regime means, for the first time in nearly 14 years, Dr. Sahloul will get to visit his family in Syria. He says that reality comes with mixed feelings.
"I'm afraid that I'm gonna be disappointed, because half of my city has been destroyed because of the war… Of course, it will be a day of happiness for my parents and my sisters and my cousins and for me to see them. There's a lot of anxiety and happiness," Sahloul says.
In the wake of an end to what Sahloul calls a "brutal regime," he says it's important now that Americans stay engaged and support Syria in its rebuilding process to ensure it transitions to a democracy.
"It is the right thing to support people when they are yearning for freedom, for democracy," he tells WBBM. "This is what this country is built on. And people in Syria would like to live the same way that we live here, and it's important for us to support them."
Dr. Sahloul, who runs humanitarian non-profit MedGlobal, says he is going to focus his efforts on the rebuild in the coming weeks and months.
"It's important for us to stay engaged and to make sure that it transitions to democracy… Now we have the whole country that we need to support healthcare and food and shelter and rebuilding, and we need to work with other organizations and our government and other governments to make sure that this happens," Sahloul says.
Maya Atassi says she didn't think she'd ever be able to visit Syria again.
"I was there for the last time in 2009, so I had sort of moved on from the idea of my children ever being able to see Syria or for myself to ever be able to go back," Attasi says.
But now, she says, that narrative has changed, following what she says is the shocking fall of the Assad regime.
"I find myself still kind of in a state of disbelief and shock, just surprised that it happened in this way, surprised that it happened so quickly.," says Attasi.
Atassi is a first generation Syrian-American. She says the demise of the dictator paves the way for a brighter future for Syria.
"Obviously the road ahead will not be easy, and, there's uncertainty about that, but, right now, I think people just really want to live in this moment and really just be in this moment of joy and of hope," Attasi says.
In Syria, joyful crowds gathered in squares in Damascus, waving the Syrian revolutionary flag in scenes that recalled the early days of the Arab Spring uprising, before a brutal crackdown and the rise of an insurgency plunged the country into a nearly 14-year civil war.
Others gleefully ransacked the presidential palace and residence after President Bashar Assad and other top officials vanished, their whereabouts unknown. Russia, a close ally, said Assad left the country after negotiations with rebel groups and had given instructions to transfer power peacefully.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaida commander who cut ties with the group years ago and says he embraces pluralism and religious tolerance, leads the biggest rebel faction and is poised to chart the country's future.
In his first public appearance since fighters entered the Damascus suburbs Saturday, al-Golani visited the sprawling Umayyad Mosque and called Assad's fall “a victory to the Islamic nation.” Calling himself by his given name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and not his nom de guerre, he told hundreds of people that Assad had made Syria “a farm for Iran’s greed.”
The rebels face the daunting task of healing bitter divisions in a country ravaged by war and still split among armed factions. Turkey-backed opposition fighters are battling U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in the north, and the Islamic State group is still active in some remote areas.
The Associate Press contributed to this report.