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I was lucky enough to have visited Syria in 2009. I spent 3 weeks in Damascus. My impressions at the time: * The pepole were surprisingly westernised *

I was lucky enough to have visited Syria in 2009. I spent 3 weeks in Damascus. My impressions at the time: * The pepole were surprisingly westernised * Most younger people spoke great English * Alcohol was available, but limited because *most* people didn't drink (instead people socialised in tea halls) * Cheap oil meant that the taxi to the burger joint cost less than the burger did * The people were extremely friendly * I never felt unsafe * The city was extremely clean * ...however, the air was polluted * Bakdash pistachio ice-cream was AMAZINGLY good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakdash_(ice_cream_parlor) * The old city was beautiful and packed with history... * One day we rented a van to see some surrounding areas. The driver was extremely friendly. He showed us around and told us about the history of the places. I still have very fond memories of that desert trip I had never considered visiting there before that, but left thinking I'd love to come back. I guess that's no longer possible and I shudder to think that everything I saw might be destroyed and wonder if the people I met are ok. It really was an incredible place. The signs of the Assad regime were everywhere: posters of Bashar al-Assad were everywhere and armed police on most street corners. Beyond that, it felt very normal (from a westerners perspective) and I never felt like I was in (what the US calls) a "rogue state".

temp_12345 9y ago
Yeah, this mirrors my impression. It was unequivocally a controlled society : one simply didn't speak about the regime in anything less than absolutely glowing terms. The threat of the secret police was persistent. As far as the people go, your odds of being hustled in Syria were pretty high (but not any worse than, say, Thailand) - other than that I totally agree wrt the westernization and general pleasantness. I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. I don't want to trivialize the experience of living in a police state, but there are worse things in this world.
- ido 9y ago
  I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. The question is then, what would have been a better solution? Surely as long as Assad was ruling they were stuck (at best) at a local maximum and would have never transitioned to a free democracy without overthrowing the current government.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    But aren't they stuck in abyss now? If that's the choice, maybe it wasn't a good plan after all.
    - ido 9y ago
      The current situation is not a stable state, at some point one of the combating sides will win or the country will split into several independent states.
      - thriftwy 9y ago
        I don't think it will ever recover to pre-war levels. Not in our time.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        The combating sides include outside parties, so the war could continue until every Syrian is dead and then beyond even that.
  - mafribe 9y ago
    as long as Assad was ruling Assad's secular dictatorship is massively preferable to ISIS rule, especially to the 25% of the Syrian population that are non-Sunni.
    - jansho 9y ago
      Sigh, it seems so surreal now that the Arab Spring was once cheered on by the whole world. Edit: word
      - varjag 9y ago
        The less Arab revolutions were stomped on, the more favorable was the outcome. The progression from Tunisa through Egypt and Lybia to Syria is quite evident. What's really surreal is so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings in the Middle East.
- mgbmtl 9y ago
  I was in Syria in 2010 (backpacked around Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, also hitchhiked across the border from Baalbek/Lebanon to Homs). At the time, I found it rather similar to experiences in South-Eastern European countries around 2000 [1]: friendly, curious, cynical, indifferent, defiant, ambitious. You could feel something was about to change, but I never expected this :( [1] I lived in Bulgaria 2003-2006. Sorry to generalize so broadly.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

temp_12345 9y ago

Yeah, this mirrors my impression. It was unequivocally a controlled society : one simply didn't speak about the regime in anything less than absolutely glowing terms. The threat of the secret police was persistent. As far as the people go, your odds of being hustled in Syria were pretty high (but not any worse than, say, Thailand) - other than that I totally agree wrt the westernization and general pleasantness. I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. I don't want to trivialize the experience of living in a police state, but there are worse things in this world.

ido 9y ago
I don't think it's really possible to argue the country is in any way better off than it was before the insurrection. The question is then, what would have been a better solution? Surely as long as Assad was ruling they were stuck (at best) at a local maximum and would have never transitioned to a free democracy without overthrowing the current government.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  But aren't they stuck in abyss now? If that's the choice, maybe it wasn't a good plan after all.
  - ido 9y ago
    The current situation is not a stable state, at some point one of the combating sides will win or the country will split into several independent states.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      I don't think it will ever recover to pre-war levels. Not in our time.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      The combating sides include outside parties, so the war could continue until every Syrian is dead and then beyond even that.
- mafribe 9y ago
  as long as Assad was ruling Assad's secular dictatorship is massively preferable to ISIS rule, especially to the 25% of the Syrian population that are non-Sunni.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Sigh, it seems so surreal now that the Arab Spring was once cheered on by the whole world. Edit: word
    - varjag 9y ago
      The less Arab revolutions were stomped on, the more favorable was the outcome. The progression from Tunisa through Egypt and Lybia to Syria is quite evident. What's really surreal is so many people in the (still relatively free) West denying basic agency to their fellow human beings in the Middle East.
mgbmtl 9y ago
I was in Syria in 2010 (backpacked around Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, also hitchhiked across the border from Baalbek/Lebanon to Homs). At the time, I found it rather similar to experiences in South-Eastern European countries around 2000 [1]: friendly, curious, cynical, indifferent, defiant, ambitious. You could feel something was about to change, but I never expected this :( [1] I lived in Bulgaria 2003-2006. Sorry to generalize so broadly.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]