Assad’s fall brings ‘overwhelming happiness’ to Syrian-Americans

As a Syrian-born child of two Palestinian refugees, Bassam Mahmoud’s early life was dictated by a lack of true citizenship.

When his parents were forcibly relocated to Syria in 1948, they weren’t granted Syrian citizen status, even though their eight children were all born and raised there. To carve out his own sense of belonging, Mahmoud moved to the United States in 1986, where he opened Sultan’s Mediterranean Cuisine & Bakery in 1995.

Nearly four decades later, Mahmoud waited anxiously as he followed reports about rebel militia groups pushing into Damascus two weekends ago. By Dec. 8, Bashar Assad had fled to Russia.

Mahmoud, 66, said he was keeping up with the action “on an hourly basis.” He still has family members living there.

“When they reached Damascus, I started to feel the excitement. It was overwhelming happiness, actually,” he said.

East Lansing-based hand surgeon Abdalmajid Katranji, the son of Syrian parents who moved to the United States before he was born, said he felt a “tearful joy” when the news broke.

“My eyes welled up and my wife was crying with me. It was like this disease had finally been ripped out of your body,” he said.

From about 2010 to the present, Katranji, 50, has taken more than a dozen trips to Syria to provide humanitarian aid and relief in partnership with the Syrian American Medical Society and Atlantic Humanitarian Relief. His domestic advocacy includes being a Syrian American Council board member.

Overseas, he said he’s performed hundreds of surgeries in Syria, adding that a “disproportionate” number were the direct result of violence by the Assad regime. At one point, he said he was even added to Assad’s watch list.

“In terms of just the sheer numbers, the brutality and atrocities that the Assad regime was willing to commit were mammoth. I think a lot of that imagery is finally coming to light as these prisons are being opened up,” Katranji said.

Both Mahmoud and Katranji couldn’t hide the elation they felt knowing that the Syrian people can now experience a life without fear of dictatorial retribution.

However, they also expressed uncertainty over what Syria will look like under a new government.

Katranji

“While everything looks promising, I fear that there’s a plot. I don’t think these rebels came and conquered these cities in two or three days without planning with somebody,” Mahmoud said. “Who is that somebody? Could it be Israel? America? I don’t know. But they would not do what they did without backing from people who have power and some sort of plan.”

For that reason, Katranji said the country’s new leaders need to prioritize incremental changes. He cited botched governmental transitions in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which the West played a key role, as examples of why he thinks a gradual transition is a better path.

“It would be naive not to have some sort of trepidation about the next steps. But we have to remember that it takes time. Democracy is an evolution, it’s not an instant product,” he said.

For Mahmoud and Katranji, those questions are softened somewhat by having witnessed some of Assad’s atrocities

“Wherever you went, you saw his picture. You had to talk in whispers. There were no human rights and no clean drinking water,” Mahmoud said. “The oppression they faced, I don’t think that’s ever going to be wiped from their memories.”

He’s still haunted by stories of political prisoners, including one involving a woman whom prison guards raped.

“They kept the baby in the jail, and he grew up that way. He was interviewed when he was just 7 and said he didn’t even know what birds, the sun or trees were. Imagine what that does to a child,” Mahmoud said.

Mahmoud added that, as a young man, he was “unnecessarily” jailed for two days after Hafez al-Assad, Bashar Assad’s father, sent men to Mahmoud’s father’s restaurant to search for a worker. Mahmoud told them he’d quit and didn’t know where he lived.

“They took me from my restaurant and put me in jail,” he said. “Still, it was insignificant compared to what happened to others. I was lucky.”

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Now that al-Assad has fled Damascus, Mahmoud said, “Syrians are extremely happy, because they finally feel free.”

“I’m 10,000 miles away, but I still see how excited they are. Until now, you couldn’t have your own voice,” he said.

Katranji was unable to visit his family members in Syria during his trips, largely because of Assad’s influence. After Assad fled, he said he was finally able to communicate with them “without having to be selective in what you say.”

“It’s such a change from having to speak in code. We were freely saying congratulations. It was so cathartic. It’s impossible to explain,” he said.

Mahmoud hopes his relatives in Syria can gain full citizenship under a new government. Still, he said he’s closely watching how that process unfolds.

“Right now, I am the happiest man on Earth. But because I am Syrian, I also don’t know what’s going to happen next. So, that happiness is mixed with fear,” he said.

Katranji’s view was more optimistic. He took a moment to recognize the collective efforts that made the moment possible.

“This outcome in Syria is not on the back of one person, group or organization, but a myriad of people who started crying for freedom. Each one of them added their own little piece of the one-million-piece puzzle to finally get to the picture that we get to enjoy today,” he said.

Many never lived to see their dream come to fruition, he added.

“It’s so bittersweet, in that sense, to know that all their sacrifices led to this moment of joy. I only pray that, when they look down from heaven, they’re celebrating with us,” he said.