Opinion | In Syria, an Account of Life Under al-Assad

For 54 years, Syria existed in the shadow of a silence so profound, it swallowed entire lives.The Assad regime thrived on erasing memory.Forced disappearances, propaganda and violence weren’t just tools of control; they were weapons aimed at obliterating the past.

Anti-regime demonstrations were said to be fake news, and innocent civilians kidnapped or killed became “terrorists.” The regime’s vast network of informants, known as the Mukhabarat — its intelligence apparatus — turned neighbor against neighbor, making Syrians fear not just the regime but also one another.Phones were widely believed to be tapped, and a careless word could lead to a midnight abduction.

Conversations were often guarded and stilted.Without a way to speak of what was happening around us, Syrians lived in a constant state of historical amnesia.

Fear became a national language.Forgetting was a form of protection.I grew up in this Syria.

When I was a child, I remember, my father scolded my brother for telling his friends that Hafez al-Assad had imprisoned my uncles.When his son Bashar al-Assad took over his father’s vast empire of oppression, there was hope he could be different; he wasn’t.

But when the Syrian revolution ignited alongside my rebellious teenage years, some Syrians began telling their own stories, the ones the regime didn’t want us to speak.I joined the movement and helped spread the word about protests and demonstrations.

By the time I was 17, I fled Syria without my family, fearing the Mukhabarat.When I arrived in the United States, telling the story of Syria was no easier: My country became the subject of alternative facts and disinformation.

I felt the weight of the silence back home in every call with my family.They became experts in using coded words to hint at what they witnessed daily as the war tore our country apart.As long as the regime was in power, Syrians lived in a story the regime told and controlled.

But as anti-Assad forces entered Dama...