Syrian-Australians celebrate, agonise and cry over toppling of Bashar al-Assad regime

Syrian-Australian community leader Mohammed Al-Hamwi says he will return to Syria for the first time in 40 years following the collapse of the Assad regime.

Syrian-Australian community leader Mohammed Al-Hamwi. Picture: Liam Mendes

Syrian-Australian community leader Mohammed Al-Hamwi says he will return to Syria for the first time in 40 years following the collapse of the Assad regime.

“I haven’t had this big of a smile since 1984,” the leader of the Syrian Australian Association said. “We are celebrating. Yesterday was our Independence Day.”

“We got freedom … The Syrian people, they are in jail and it was controlled by Assad’s family and not the people. Assad’s family controlled the government and was a puppet under the Iranian regime,” he said.

Mr Al-Hamwi wants to be “the bridge” between the Australian government and the new Syrian government, which he has faith will be democratic and peaceful. He will write to Anthony Albanese tomorrow, he said, to express his willingness to help.

“My hope is (for there) to be peace … It becomes one country, one nation, peace with the neighbours, and (they) build up what the Assad regime and Russia destroyed.”

Mr Al-Hamwi said he was not able to return to Syria when his father was killed by the Assad regime in 2003 or when his mother was killed by a Russian bomb in 2018. But he now hopes to return to his homeland as soon as January.

Australian Syrian League president George Alrahil, speaking in a personal capacity, said if the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s words and visions for Syria were genuine, then many people would solidly support their assumption to power, as long as the country’s citizens and the minorities were protected.

“What they (Tahrir al-Sham) are saying is good … we’re looking positively,” he said, stressing that people were hoping for a “Syria for all Syrians”.

Others were more sceptical.

Former Syrian refugee Simon Shahin in west Sydney’s Fairfield on Monday. Picture: Liam Mendes

“It’s ending five decades of government, corrupt (government). You can see thousands of people getting out of jail which is something that makes me feel like crying. I’m happy for many of those people,” the financial services worker and Sydney University MBA student said.

“I’m glad that the system is destroyed, but Syria can’t build new processes or a new government relying on the same rules, relying on sharia, relying on a different set of rules for Christians and Muslims. So it’s a bit blurry, it is a bit grey.”

Her father, a long-time advocate for secularism in Syria, is currently in hiding in Damascus, and she said she feels “disconnected” from her family being in Australia.

Ms Mousad, who moved to Australia with her now 11 year-old daughter, said she does not have hope that the new Syrian government will be democratic or secular, as she would hope. She said she would not feel comfortable going back to Syria any time soon.

“I have no faith it will happen. After the experience of Iraq, after what happened in Libya. It got worse in that area. I hope people stop dying and being (put) in jail and the human rights (offences) stop but until now I don’t feel that things will be getting better and better … maybe after 6 months, things will change,” she said.

In other parts of Sydney’s west, Assyrian and Christian-Syrian migrants and refugees were feeling fear over elation.

On Monday, Simon Shahin, a former Assyrian refugee from Syria living in Sydney, said he acknowledged the persecution faced under Al-Assad’s governance, but he also fears “for my Christian brethren because we are a minority; my ethnicity in particular has been persecuted over a century between Iraq and Syria.”

“Yes, some people are excited to see a new era but … it takes 10 to 15 years to start a new government and country.”

“When we are seeing this overnight toppling of a government, and you’re witnessing anarchy and looting everywhere, you can then tell it’s a huge political vacuum — who’s going to fill it? It’s going to be insurgents and rebels who are radical and of extremist mentalities and agendas (we’ve already seen their likes in 2003 Iraq and 2011 Libya); they are armed to the teeth and don’t hesitate a heartbeat in beheading innocents.”

Mr Shahin said he misses homeland but would hesitate to return to Syria given the instability.

Husband and wife Sakr Sadeek and Samaher Albshara, who are about to open a Syrian restaurant in Fairfield after arriving as refugees in 2017, said they had left the country behind and with it, their concerns about the country’s government or politics.

“I’m very happy here (in Australia) … There’s a future here for my children,” she said through broken English.

The couple said they didn’t think they would ever return to the country they called home for more than three decades.

Other Syrian Christians, who didn’t want to be named for fear of their safety speaking, said they were “upset” about the situation in Syria. “We’re not supporting Assad, we’re not supporting the rebels. We support the country,” he said.

“(We worry) they’re going to force people to convert to Islam.”