Moments of a civilization's rebirth with the book in Damascus

DAMASCUS

It is worth visiting this beautiful country, Syria, which on 8 December 2024 was delivered from the rule of an unparalleled criminal organization after its children's 60 years of patience and perseverance and 14 years of struggle for freedom, simply to see people's happiness and to witness a miracle of rebirth. It is another manifestation of God's power in how He turns His days about, turning nights into day, days into night, spring into winter, winter into spring.

I tried not to miss any opportunity to see this. This time we set out for Damascus as invited guests of the International Book Fair held there. At first the number of Europeans on the plane departing from Istanbul catches my attention. For now the road to Damascus passes through Istanbul, but there is serious interest from the world, from Europe, in a Damascus that is opening to the world these days. Naturally, it is seen as a new world of opportunities.

FROM A REGIME THAT BURNED EVEN TREES TO A BOOK FAIR

I chat all the way to the hotel with a young man from the Syrian Ministry of Culture who met me at the airport. He had spent some time in Türkiye, and later crossed to Idlib to do his part for the revolution. Right after leaving the airport he draws my attention to the newly planted saplings on both sides. "You know, the regime was ruthless and heartless not only toward people but toward trees. Both sides of this road used to be full of trees, almost like a forest. The regime cut them all down." How so, was it a security problem for them? Before I could finish asking, "There was no reason at all, they just had a slogan they constantly shouted, 'Either Assad or we burn the country.' This was its most striking expression. Truly, they stooped even to burning the trees of a country that did not want Assad."

This slogan was used especially in demonstrations after 2011 by pro-regime shabbiha, in graffiti, at rallies and on social media. For the opposition, this phrase was engraved in memory as a discourse symbolizing the regime's logic of "either us or chaos." To explain to me better what had been lived, on the way to the hotel he took a route passing through Eastern Ghouta and Jobar. Completely destroyed buildings, far more terrible than the images of destruction in the Hatay and Maraş earthquakes. Buildings riddled by artillery fire, aerial bombardment or volleys of fire, completely collapsed. But my guide pointed out something else: nothing that could fetch money was left in the buildings. Iron, steel, household goods, whatever there was, had been stripped and sold by the shabbiha.

THE REBUILDING OF LEGITIMACY IN SYRIA

These scenes show with one's own eyes the reason for the 12 million refugees who spread across the world from Syria over 14.5 years. Who could explain better what kind of calamity a regime that clung to power at the price of bringing people's homes down on their heads, massacring them and deporting them has been, not only for the Syrian people but for all humanity? There is no principle, virtue or philosophy on which the regime rested as a state. Everything was for Assad and his family. There are still those who imagine that it formed a line of resistance against Zionism and was overthrown for that reason. What really needs explaining is how a regime with such selfishness and excess has not been overthrown until now. The explanation is this: Assad was able to remain standing until now because he posed no serious problem or threat to Israel.

Of course, whoever is no problem for Israel is a problem for everyone else in the region. As Presidential Advisor Ahmad Muwaffaq Zaidan said in the panel we took part in together within the book fair events, "For this reason it is not only the Syrian people who have been rid of Assad. Because of the refugee problem he caused, and because he turned the country into a center of drug production and distribution, he was a serious source of trouble in all neighboring countries, particularly the Gulf countries. All of these countries, with Assad's fall, have been rid of a very fundamental source of trouble."

And of course now there is the return of those 12 million people to their country with great longing, as soon as the revolution took place. This is my fourth visit to Syria since the day it was liberated. Each time I see that Syria has visibly become livelier and more crowded. This liveliness and crowding is remarkable and, along with its undoubtedly good sides, is also a harbinger of many other future problems. The good side is that a change of this scope, for the first time, rather than sending people out, brings back those who had fled. Just as a refugee takes with him his hope for his country and the legitimacy of his state, returns on this scale confirm and reinforce the legitimacy of the new state and the new situation. They also bring with them hope and excitement about the country's future.

THE ECONOMICS OF RETURNS, THE POLITICS OF FREEDOM

However, this population flowing into a country whose development and growth had been entirely frozen seems to be overloading an infrastructure that had never been updated. This brings with it a sudden heavy burden on housing, transport and service infrastructure that had never been developed in the first place. Anyone with a little knowledge of economics can guess what this may lead to. There is no housing supply, but there is excessive demand for housing. The relief felt in the country is reviving consumption, new ventures and investments have advanced at great speed, but all of this is creating a serious inflation problem. Prices have risen almost 5-fold in every area since the revolution. Wages have also gone from 20 dollars to 100 dollars, but as the purchasing power of money has fallen, these seemingly parallel price and wage increases strain purchasing power even more. These are the great challenges awaiting the new administration. Of course, as the positive development that led to all this, the returns are not over; they continue.

Meanwhile, success is being added to the new administration's internal and external gains and achievements. The rapid progress made on the SDF issue has also created an atmosphere of great morale and optimism. That the Eastern Euphrates issue, which looked like a new and very important, long-lasting problem on the country's future horizon, has been resolved so quickly and at relatively little cost seems a new and very great success for the Ahmed al-Sharaa administration. This also creates an atmosphere of hope and optimism about the resolution of other important problems.

In such an atmosphere, it is of course very meaningful that an International Book Fair is being held in Damascus only 14 months after liberation. That Damascus begins its re-integration with the world with the book, rather than in other fields, is not a little meaningful but very, very meaningful.

Let us convey our impressions of the fair in our next article.