‘We want Syria to be a peaceful country, just like Canada’

Article content

Nedal Badreddin says the first thing he will do when he goes back to Damascus is kneel on the ground and pray.

Article content

Article content

“I want to smell the soul of my country again,” says the 23-year-old Syrian, who now lives in Saskatoon and works as a rail operator.

“Then I want to go see our house, or whatever is left there. I want to see my city. I want to drive around. I want to discover it all, again and again. I have my heart in that country.”

Article content

Badreddin was a teenager in 2011 when Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria began. He remembers the protests in the streets and the violent, seemingly-unstoppable crackdown that followed.

“The people didn’t want this government anymore, and they tried to defend themselves while they were doing the protests, but the government called it terrorism,” he recalls. “They started throwing bombs on them and arresting a lot of them.”

The Syrian Armed Forces tried to arrest Badreddin’s father. His family’s house was destroyed by a bomb.

“It was a dangerous environment to live there at that time, so we had to leave and move from town to town to town,” Badreddin says. “We had to be all over the place, and I couldn’t attend school.

“We didn’t know if we would go to school today, if we would make it back home.”

Badreddin’s aunt, Nada Mahrus, had to put aside her dream of becoming an obstetrician/gynecologist when the need for a battlefield medic to serve her friends and neighbours east of Damascus became inescapable.

“That dream got stolen in the war,” says Mahrus, with Badreddin translating.

Article content

“I was the only doctor there at that time, so I was the only person who could do the emergency response all the time. I was there when they would throw the chemical gas in that area. And in 2016, a piece of one of the bombs did actually hit me.”

Badreddin was admitted to Canada as a refugee in 2016. Mahrus joined him here two years ago with her two young children. As they put down roots in Saskatoon, the family never gave up hope: For a Syria without Bashar al-Assad; for a homeland they could maybe, someday, come home to.

“I have wanted to go back to Syria since I left it. It was my dream,” Badreddin says. “But I left because it was too dangerous. There was no future life there, at that time.”

Now, he is starting to believe in a new future for Syria.

On Nov. 27, 2024, Syrian opposition fighters launched attacks against Assad-allied Syrian army forces in Idlib, Aleppo and Hama. They captured Aleppo. They captured Hama, then Deir ez-Zor, then Homs.

They were at the outskirts of Damascus, Badreddin’s home and Syria’s capital.

Badreddin says all of his Syrian friends and family members spent those weeks glued to their TVs, social media feeds and text chains, waiting for every scrap of news.

Article content

Article content

“We just didn’t know how successful (the opposition) would be or how far they would get,” he says. “We were scared of what would happen now that they’ve started this, if they don’t finish it. So we were following the news non-stop — Telegram, YouTube, on TV, all over social media, everywhere — and praying for their success. 

“If they win, we get our country back. We get our freedom.”

As the Syrian opposition forces marched into Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled the country on Dec. 8 — a day Badreddin says “no Syrian will ever forget” — Badreddin himself was at an end-of-year work dinner in Saskatoon.

Then his phone buzzed, and he saw the news.

“I stood up at the table, and I was just shouting ‘It happened! It happened!’ ” Badreddin laughs. “I was yelling like an idiot, and everyone was looking at me, and all I could tell them was ‘Sorry, everyone. I’ve got to go. Syria is free now.’ I cannot explain how happy I was.”

Badreddin called his parents, who were “so excited they were crying.” That night, he says, no one could contain their emotions. 

“Everyone started gathering and driving around the city with our flags on,” he says. “Even though it was late at night, we were not going to delay this moment at all. We just went everywhere in the city and raised our flag.”

Article content

Weeks later, Syrian-Saskatonian musician Ali Kharsa said he is “still celebrating.”

“Ever since the war started, it was the dream of every free Syrian to see the green flag — the revolution flag — being raised in Damascus,” he said. “And when we saw it, we had a big celebration. We started dancing and singing and raising our flags, giving out sweets and playing music and talking about what happened.

“But to me, a celebration is not just dancing and singing. I can be celebrating within myself. I am celebrating in my head while I’m driving, while I’m working, while I’m in my house. I am a happier person, now, whenever I think about what has happened.”

Kharsa and his family fled Syria when he was 13, and he came to Canada as a refugee.

“I do love Saskatchewan, and I love Canada,” he says. “Canada did lots of good things for Syrians; we are safe here. We’ve lived here for years, my family bought our home here, and we feel like this is our home now. 

“But I definitely want to go back to Syria and see it again. We have a home there; I have friends and family there. And Syria is a beautiful country — our weather and our nature and the country itself is really, really beautiful.”

Article content

Now 27 years old, Kharsa has spent more of his life outside of Syria than within it. He wonders how his memories of his home city of Aleppo have held up.

“The first thing I want to do when I go back to Aleppo is just spend time there, driving around and getting to see the city where I was born and spent the first 13 years of my life,” he says.

“I also want to rebuild my family’s house, and see if I can support some of my friends and family who are there — to be with them, and to show them that we have always been thinking about them.”

Because Kharsa has been a critic of Assad, he says many of his friends and loved ones still in Syria hadn’t spoken to him for years — for their own safety, fearing very real consequences. 

“Because I’ve been in the news a few times, and I’m a little bit known as an activist who talks about the Syrian government, people back home were scared to talk to me in case somebody was observing them,” Kharsa says.

“They could be imprisoned or killed because they’re contacting an activist. But when the regime fell, all those people started contacting me on that day: ‘Ali, come back. We miss you. We’re really sorry it’s been a long time that we haven’t talked, but you know how it is here. You have to come and visit us.’ “

Article content

Every day since Dec. 8, Kharsa says his friends in Syria have had good news to share.

“Of course, the new government is not fully established yet; it’s not easy for a government to get overthrown, and then for another government to come in and take over the country,” he says. “It takes time. But the new government is actually taking control now.

“There are police officers in the streets. Services, like electricity and water, are coming back to the people. Just an hour ago, I was talking to my best friend back home, and he was telling me how things are getting cheaper now — food, supplies.

In return, Kharsa has been sharing his excitement and optimism and good wishes for his old friends — and some of his ideas for what Syria could become, inspired by his second home in the Canadian Prairies. 

“All we are hoping for now is peace,” says Kharsa. “All the Syrian people are tired of being refugees. We are all tired of immigrating to different places. We are all tired of seeing our people die. We just want peace.

“We want Syria to be a peaceful country, just like Canada.”

For Badreddin and Mahrus, the weeks since Dec. 8 have been bittersweet. 

Article content

Badreddin is very glad Bashar al-Assad is no longer in power in Syria, but says he fears the former dictator will never be truly held accountable for his actions.

“We are happy that he did run away, but at the same time, we wanted him to face charges for what he did in the past 14 years,” Badreddin said. “He killed people. His soldiers killed people. He threw chemicals on people. He destroyed everything.”

One of Badreddin’s cousins has now been released from the infamous Sednaya prison after years behind bars, but his freedom today doesn’t erase the trauma or the memories of what he endured.

“Whenever his mom used to go visit him, they would beat him afterwards, to the point that he told his mom to her face, ‘Please, if you want me to be alive, don’t come back and see me,’ ” Badreddin says. 

When Mahrus hears the stories and sees the records of the newly-released prisoners, she says it makes her “want to scream” out of guilt that she couldn’t do more — even if there was nothing more she could have done.

“I did know what the situation was in those prisons,” she says. “We did know what was happening to them. We did know they were being treated badly. And in my heart, to this day, I am scared to face the people that have come out of prison and see them as they are now — and I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t help at all. If I ever saw them, how would I be able to explain to them that I couldn’t help?”

Article content

These past few weeks, she has been holding her children especially close, grateful to be able to watch them growing up in Canada, where they don’t yet have to worry about anything bigger than homework and playground friendships.

“Before we came to Canada, we did not have safety,” she says. “So I say ‘thank you’ to Canada for our safety here.

“To the end of my life, I will always want to thank Canada, because the moment we stepped inside this country we were safe.”

Someday, Mahrus thinks she would like to take her children to visit Syria — to show them vibrant green fields and comforting cityscapes and kind neighbours, not war or death or fear.

“I always talk to them about Syria and how nice it is, but I never talk about the bad treatment or the darkness or the unsafe environment, because I want them to love their home. I don’t want them to see what I witnessed. I want them to think about Syria as a place that is beautiful and good.”

After so many years of civil war and human rights abuses, the vision of a Syria that Mahrus could be proud to show her children someday is still far in the future.

Article content

“There is a lot to do and a lot that needs to be fixed,” Badreddin says. 

“But we love Syria,” he adds. “And we are going to start building Syria again, hand by hand.”

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Article content