After Assad, these 3 women are working to build a just and peaceful Syria

As Alma Salem crossed the border from Lebanon into Syria she requested the driving force to tug over.

She fled the nation 13 years in the past when Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian authorities opposed pro-democracy protests with navy drive, plunging the nation into civil warfare. The collapse of Assad’s regime in December made it potential for her to return dwelling from Montreal the place she had been residing, for the primary time because the warfare started. 

Getting out of the automobile, she knelt and kissed the earth, inhaling its acquainted scent.

“I believed I [would] solely come again to Syria buried, you already know, proper to that earth. However I got here alive and I may maintain it in my hand,” Salem, govt director of the Syrian Girls’s Political Motion, advised The Present‘s host Matt Galloway.

“I felt that I owned the nation. I felt … that every one Syria is mine.”

For Syrians like Salem, the top of warfare introduced pleasure and renewed goals of what the long run could appear like. The Present spoke with Salem and two different Syrian activists about their visions for the nation’s future and the obstacles that stay in getting there.

Alma Salem

Since returning, Salem says the celebratory feeling in Syria is like an “infinite occasion.” It is typically noisy, stuffed with the sounds of drums and voices, she mentioned. Folks can communicate freely for the primary time with out worry that their views may land them in hassle with Assad’s secret police.

“I consider that we took over the general public area once more,” Salem mentioned.

Salem says now’s the time for Syrians overseas to return dwelling. Some six million Syrian refugees resettled around the globe since 2011, and the transitional authorities called on the 1.5 million or so in Lebanon to return earlier this month. 

Those that return would be capable to participate in constructing the brand new Syria from the bottom up — one thing all residents fought so onerous for and share victory in, Salem says.

“It is a nation that’s ours now, and we deserve the chance,” Salem mentioned.

Salem says it’s vital that girls have a job in Syria’s political construction as its inhabitants builds a brand new, post-Assad society. However it’s additionally one thing she worries about.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the insurgent group that overthrew the federal government and became the country’s de facto leadership in December, have a poor file in relation to ladies’s rights, together with studies of blocking women’s access to education and requiring women to be accompanied by a male guardian in public previously.

Aisha al-Dibs, the brand new head of Syria’s ladies’s affairs workplace, told Al Jazeera that her authorities was dedicated to partaking ladies inside social, political and cultural establishments — however sparked outcry when she mentioned that girls ought to “not transcend the priorities of their God-given nature” and keep in mind the tutorial position they’ve inside a household.

These phrases sparked a wave of anger amongst Syrian feminists, in keeping with Salem. Regardless of this, she stays optimistic that these with energy are listening to ladies in her nation.

Salem organized a conference this month, attended by about 300 politicians, political representatives, journalists and members of civil society teams, that shared the concepts of girls concerned in Syrian politics.

“This was, you already know, a very good signal for us that they acknowledged our … statements and calls for of girls’s political participation,” Salem mentioned.

Noura Aljizawi

Noura Aljizawi, a Syrian human rights activist who performed a key role in the 2011 uprising, additionally fled to Canada from Syria throughout the warfare. She hasn’t left Toronto to go to dwelling but, however she’s planning a visit there quickly. 

Will probably be the primary time her daughter ever sees the nation and meets Aljizawi’s father — a dream their household thought may by no means come true.

Earlier than energy modified fingers in December, Aljizawi was dropping hope that she’d ever get to return dwelling or see her household in individual once more.

“However now all the things is feasible. And the dream is simply true now,” she advised Galloway.

She says step one towards rebuilding Syria must be accountability.

WATCH | Freedom from Assad is ‘value all the things,’ says former prisoner who escaped torture in Syria: 

Freedom from Assad is ‘value all the things,’ says former prisoner who escaped torture in Syria

WARNING: This video features a description of torture. Omar Alshogre, a former Syrian political prisoner who escaped hunger and torture in Bashar al-Assad’s jail system, says the enjoyment he felt watching the regime crumble is value ‘all of the ache, all of the struggling, all of the worry, all the frustration, all of the betrayal.’

Amnesty Worldwide estimates that tens of thousands of civilians had been disappeared following political protests in 2011. Many had been thrown into jail to be tortured, starved or executed. As many as 13,000 people were executed within the infamous Saydnaya Jail between 2011 and 2016 in keeping with Amnesty Worldwide.

With the previous regime gone, jails stuffed with prisoners have been liberated. However Aljizawi says many individuals are nonetheless lacking — together with some from her circle of relatives. Folks deserve solutions as to the place their lacking family members are, she says.

“Reality should be advised, and victims should be heard,” Aljizawi mentioned.

“The choice of justice is revenge. And we do not need … victims looking for revenge towards perpetrators.”

Nonetheless, Aljizawi says the toughest job is completed — uprooting the authoritarian regime. “There’s nothing inconceivable after that.”

Azza Kondakji

Azza Kondakji was persecuted by the Assad regime for her activist work. However she by no means left the nation, opting as an alternative to remain and assist different Syrians via the civil warfare.

She additionally needed to be there to witness the second her nation was liberated — which she says she all the time believed would come. “It was hope that saved me within the nation,” she advised Galloway.

With that second lastly within the rear-view mirror, Kondakji says cleanup and rebuilding efforts will likely be an enormous process — as a lot of the nation’s infrastructure and important companies have been decimated by years of combating.

A 2022 analysis by the World Bank estimated the full harm throughout the nation to be $8.7-11.4 billion US ($12.48-16.35 billion Cdn). Kondakji says rebuilding Syria would require different international locations to offer financial help and carry their Assad-era sanctions.

Kondakji hopes that with some help, the subsequent era of Syrians will carry the torch in constructing a peaceable future.

An estimated 2.4 million children are nonetheless out of faculty in Syria — both as a result of their households have been displaced, they’ll not afford to be within the classroom, or their school rooms had been destroyed within the combating, in keeping with Kondakji. Many undergo with the emotional weight of witnessing warfare, too, and can want psychosocial help.

Kondakji envisions a future the place Syrian kids can develop up in colleges that foster creativity versus worry, and the place goals of changing into a scientist or an artist or a world chief could be made a actuality.

“Syria’s subsequent era has the potential to redefine what it means to be a Syrian — not via ache, however via delight and hope,” Kondakji mentioned.

“They embody the dream of a nation that may stand tall as soon as once more, like a phoenix is reborn.”