Ahmad Aljamal, a biology student at IU, was at a friend’s house Dec. 8 last year. He had just cooked a chicken and vegetable soup when suddenly his phone was buzzing with notifications.
The news? Rebels had toppled the Syrian government, ending the 50-plus-year rule of the Assad family.
Aljamal quickly called his father.
“Usually, my dad gives me really long phone calls,” Aljamal said. “He’s always got more and more to say. But this was one of the shortest calls.”
Aljamal speculated that his father had too many friends and relatives to call to spread the good news.
Ahmad Aljamal
Aljamal was born in the United States but lived in Barzeh, a town north of Damascus, for several years before the war broke out. Although he was a young child at the time, Aljamal said he still remembers some things well: his house, his grandpa’s farm, the restaurants he loved and how safe he felt walking to and from school as a first grader.
“We were one of the families that moved pretty early,” Aljamal said. “After a few months, a year, we were like, ‘Okay, this is just escalating more and more, we gotta get out of here.’”
When it was time to leave, they could only take what would fit in suitcases. Aljamal vividly remembered packing his small, blue corvette matchbox car.
Haya Allababidi
Around 2010, Haya Allababidi, now a junior studying neuroscience at IU, moved with her family to Syria. Like Aljamal, Allababidi was young, but remembers her years in Syria fondly.
At the same time, she grew up hearing the stories of her parents’ and grandparents’ friends disappearing after expressing dissatisfaction with the government.
“You didn’t feel like a free citizen.” Allababidi said. “You always had to make sure you never said anything bad about the government.”
For years, many Syrians including Allababidi’s family were disillusioned with their leaders. Under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his late father in 2000, many complained about high rates of unemployment, corruption and lack of political freedom.
Given the political climate, Allababidi’s parents knew their time in Syria was only temporary. Still, the parents hoped that by living in Syria, they could instill their native language and culture in their Syrian American children.
In March 2011, pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in the southern city of Daraa, after 15 schoolboys were arrested and tortured for spray painting an anti-regime sentiment on a school wall. Despite violent pushback from the government, such protests spread across the country amid the wider Arab Spring, igniting the war.
Allababidi remembered around this time the regime would blacklist doctors caught helping the opposition. She remembered overhearing her father, an endocrinologist, tell her mother he wanted to leave the country.
“Then we planned to come back to the U.S. We were planning on coming back for three months,” she said. “We’ve been here for like 15 years.”
Back in Damascus, the Allababidi home remains, a life frozen in time. Her grandmother has sent her pictures of her first-grade bedroom, still fully decorated, the walls still bright pink.
Judy Ulayyet
Judy Ulayyet, a journalism student at IU, said her family also owns a home in Syria that is now “just collecting dust.”
Though Ulayyet grew up in Indiana, she takes pride in her Syrian roots; she learned Arabic alongside English and spent summers with her Syrian family until the war began. During those childhood summers, she recalls learning to swim in the basement of a mall, celebrating her little brother’s birthday with watermelon cakes, seeing corn sold on the streets, going to cafes late at night, stocking up on CDs and DVDs before returning to America and of course, the trees.
“The trees specifically, like the smell. I haven’t smelled anything like it in so long.” Ulayyet said, grinning. “I’m literally smiling thinking about it.”
When she heard that the Assad regime had collapsed, she was initially shocked.
“And then, I was very much like, ‘when are we going back?”’ She said. "Like, 'when’s the next flight? Are we going this summer?’”
She said she hopes she will have the chance to visit in the near future. However, she doesn’t know anyone planning to permanently return to Syria. Like millions of other Syrians, many of her family members have established new lives across Europe, the Middle East and the United States.
A new government
Although Ulayyet said she was happy because of the end of Bashar al-Assad's regime, she said it’s important to keep in mind that not everything is automatically resolved.
“He is gone, that’s great. But that’s only the first step – that's like step zero.” Ulayett said. “I think it’s very important for people to know that Syria still needs to rebuild its government, its economy, society, everything.”
That task of rebuilding is at least in part the responsibility of de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who Rebel faction leaders declared president for a transitional period. As the leader of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — originally an offshoot of the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda — the president has raised eyebrows across the international stage.
Still, Sharaa — previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — has spoken of unifying the country’s numerous ethnic groups in interviews after the revolution.
“Honestly, in my opinion, I’m not really concerned about it turning into an ultra Islamist group as a lot of people are saying,” Allababidi said. “They’ve completely broken away from that.”
In one of his first interviews after assuming office, al-Sharaa told The Economist that Syria would move “in the direction of” democracy. Nevertheless, the president has much to prove before Western actors believe his rhetoric.
The United States is maintaining sanctions on Syria which have been in place for over a decade. Yet they have eased some restrictions to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, demonstrating potential U.S. support for the transitional government.
Though Syria has a long road ahead, all three Syrian American students are celebrating for at least a moment.
“Now Syrians have the right to free speech. They don't have to be worried for their lives, for leaving their houses,” Ulayyet said. “They don't have to be worried about Assad.”
