Into Syria’s Day After

Much has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and much has not.

Celebrating in Umayyad Square in Damascus after the first Friday prayers following the fall of the Assad regime, December 13, 2024. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Alex Simon is a researcher, writer, and co-founder of Synaps, a Beirut-based research and training center that conducts intensive fieldwork on socioeconomic trends in the Middle East. From 2017 to 2024, he coordinated Synaps’ team of Syrian researchers working across Syria and neighboring countries. He is the editor of Syrians in the Shadow of War: Everyday Struggles and Survival, recently published by AUC Press and from which this essay is adapted.