Nizam Abazid is excitedly organizing his first visit to Syria, his childhood home, in decades. The idea of introducing her three children to relatives they have never met in person excites Rama Alhoussaini, who was just six years old when her family relocated to the United States.
They join thousands of Syrian Americans in the Detroit area who are celebrating the unexpected fall of the Syrian regime, which under the more than 50-year rule of former President Bashar Assad and his father before him stifled criticism and imprisoned political opponents without consequence.
Alhoussaini, 31, sobbed as she spoke Tuesday at one of the daycare and school centers her family runs in the Detroit area. “As of Saturday night, the Assad regime is no longer in power,” she added. “And it’s such a surreal moment to even say that out loud, because I never thought that I would see this day.”
Neither may travel to Syria for a while. Many Western nations are waiting for the dust to settle before deciding on a Syria strategy, including whether it is safe for the millions of people who left the country’s civil conflict to return, even though they are glad to see Assad leave.
The leader of the rebellion that overthrew Assad after a stunning victory in less than two weeks, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has denied his group’s previous affiliation with al-Qaida and positioned himself as an advocate for tolerance and pluralism. However, the United States continues to call him a terrorist and advises against visiting Syria, where it hasn’t maintained an embassy since 2012, the year following the start of the conflict.
The fall of the Assad regime, however, has offered Syrians in the United States who have been unable to travel there optimism that they would be able to return safely, either permanently or temporarily.
Days after Assad and his family fled to Russia, Abazid declared last week that “the end of the regime is the hope for all the Syrian people.”
Having dual U.S. and Syrian citizenship, Abazid said he could visit Syria at any time, but he would wait a few months for the situation to calm down.
Abazid said he and his brother are not worried, despite European officials saying it is not yet safe enough to permit war-displaced refugees to return to Syria.
“When Assad’s forces were in power, my fate would’ve been in jail or beheaded,” Abazid stated. “But now, I will not be worried about that anymore.”
The Detroit region became home to many Syrian immigrants to the United States. Dearborn, the largest Arab-majority city in the US, is located in Michigan, which has the highest population of Arab Americans of any state. Additionally, around 310,000 people of Middle Eastern or North African heritage call it home.
Syrians in and around Detroit, like their counterparts worldwide, watched in shock as reports of one city after another falling from Assad’s control poured in as rebel forces took control of Syria, capping a lightning-fast advance that few believed possible even a month ago. There were wild celebrations when it was announced that Assad’s administration had collapsed.
Abazid was born in Daraa, approximately 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Damascus, the capital of Syria, and now runs a cellular company in Dearborn. He came to the United States in 1984 when he was eighteen years old, and while he has returned a few times, he hasn’t been there since 1998 due to what he called “harassment” by Syrian intelligence. He claimed that on a 1990 visit, Syrian authorities arrested him and held him for more than six months, so that trip had to be closely organized with U.S. authorities.
He told The Associated Press on Tuesday, “My family didn’t even know… what it was about when I was kidnapped from the airport.” “I’m still unsure about the cause. I don’t know why I was taken hostage.
According to 59-year-old Abazid, his five sisters are still in Syria, but his parents have passed away since that journey in 1998. In the 1970s and 1980s, all four of his brothers fled Syria, one of whom hasn’t returned since leaving 53 years ago, just after Bashar Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, became the country’s ruler.
Originally from Damascus, Alhoussaini, a resident of West Bloomfield Township, said she relocated to the Detroit region when she was a little child “mainly because there was nothing left for us in Syria.”
She said that her grandfather’s farm was taken under the Assad family’s control. He was held by the authorities for about a month. Before the family left, her father was also taken into custody.
Alhoussaini asserted, “There never needed to be a reason,” “On one occasion, in 2010, my dad was able to come back. Since then, he has been unable to return home, primarily as a result of our opposition to the Assad government during the 2011 revolution. We also went to a lot of protests here. We conducted numerous interviews and were outspoken about it on social media.
However, she added, “We don’t have to be afraid anymore to visit our country,” now that Bashar Assad is no longer in power and the rebels control Syria.
Her 61-year-old father is thinking about traveling to Syria to visit his siblings and pay respects at the graves of his parents. Alhoussaini stated that she and her spouse, who hails from Aleppo in the north, would like to bring their children to visit with relatives and friends.
The three sisters of Alhoussaini, who are 29, 34, and 40 years old, were also born in Syria. However, none of them have returned.
“People in Syria can now celebrate in the streets with a sense of wonder and hope,” she remarked.
People who were born and raised in the United States, according to Alhoussaini, won’t be able to relate completely since Americans have a freedom of expression that Syrians have never experienced.
“You are free to say whatever you like. “You can protest whoever you want in the street,” she remarked. “You won’t be held accountable for it. You won’t die as a result.”
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