The end of fear in Syria

Al Jazeera’s Justin Salhani recounts his experiences in the first days after al-Assad.

Damascus and Aleppo, Syria – Until the fall of the al-Assad regime, the word “dollar” was forbidden in public. Instead, people used anything green – my favourite substitute was “molokhiyeh”, the green leaf eaten in a stew in Arab countries.

This was a story I heard many times from Syrians when reporting from Aleppo and Damascus in the days following the regime’s overthrow. Under the former regime, the walls had ears and anyone could be listening on a street corner or the other end of the phone line.

The wrong phrase or word – “dollar”, for example – could land you in one of al-Assad’s notorious prisons.

Now, with the House of al-Assad in exile, a sudden freedom burst through that had not been possible in the last five and a half decades of dynastic family rule.

Syrians I met understood how fragile and fleeting such freedom of expression could be – many telling me a few days of experiencing it were enough to never want to go back.