Leila Molana-Allen:
Empty shoes and fallen pedestals, as Syria reels and rebuilds from the rapid fall of the family who ruled this country with an iron fist for half-a-century.
In Latakia, the homeland of the Assad’s Alawi sect, the enormous statue of former President Hafez al-Assad that sternly watched over this central junction for decades has been cut off at the ankles. Children shriek in delight at the heady, unfamiliar feeling of freedom on the streets, while their cautious elders wait nervously for what comes next.
As Bashar al-Assad’s tightly controlled empire unravels, we’re visiting the very heart of it, Qardaha, the Assads’ family village. Thrown open, the heavy iron gates of the family home. Like their properties across the country, there are signs it was hastily abandoned, but the house isn’t empty.
This is the once palatial garden of the house where Bashar al-Assad was born, and now people have realized he’s not coming back, but they’re making use of what the house has to give in terms of firewood.
A bitter winter is already under way. In every room, locals have come to strip away whatever can be burned, the window frames, shutters, kitchen cupboards ripped to pieces and piled into a waiting taxi. A young boy watches as his father and uncle hack branches off the leafy trees in the ruins of the garden.
This place has the air of martial law about it. neighbors watch on curiously from the street as the now useless web of security cameras sits idle. Down the road, the once illustrious tomb of Bashar’s father is now a symbol of the rebel advance.
As they took Latakia, cheering rebel fighters set the tomb ablaze, graffitiing the names of their brigades across the walls and by the entrance a message damning Hafez al-Assad (Speaking in Foreign Language) to the trash pile of history.
A stronghold of a regime that once seemed undefeatable lies in ruins, but the legacy of their decades of misrule marks every aspect of daily life here. As we drive along the coastal highway, the hollow boom of airstrikes. The Israeli army is taking the opportunity to take out Syria’s naval bases and coastal ports while no one’s really in charge.
But while the world plays politics, residents here are more concerned with making it through the winter. Samar Ahmed watched for years as a select few close to the Assads reveled in wealth and status, while the rest of her sect starved.
