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Source: https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/an-exile-returns-to-find-syria-changed-forever/
An Exile Returns to Syria
(New Lines) Nizar Kinaan - My trip home to Syria to see friends and family showed me that the country I knew has gone forever. As we entered the city of Latakia, the darkness in the city was shocking. On a good day, Latakia has only four hours of electricity. There was almost no traffic. There is so little fuel that people don't go anywhere unless they really have to. Due to electricity shortages, noisy generators are always filling the air with the smell of diesel. At night, you cannot walk around without a light. The streets are incredibly dirty and damaged. Cholera is a growing worry for everyone. Everything is aggressively rationed; not just electricity and water, but fuel, cooking gas, diesel, rice, sugar and even bread. Strangely, most men carried handbags. Due to the currency collapse, it is necessary to carry large amounts of cash, which can't be done with pockets alone. Syria was never a rich country, but neither was it in poverty as dire as this. Now, the streets are full of malnourished children digging in garbage containers. According to the UN, more than 90% of people live under the poverty line, and at least 60% are food insecure. The destitution contrasts painfully with the SUVs complete with tinted windows which roam the streets, filled with pro-Assad thugs. I don't remember female waitresses in Latakia, yet now most of the people working in restaurants, cafes and shops are women, even in the most conservative areas. I did not meet one woman who did not work. "Where are the young men?" I asked my friends. "They are dead, in the army or they left like I should have done," one replied. The Alawites - the religious minority community from which the Assad family hails - are among the angriest at the Syrian government. A friend explained, "If you go to their villages, there are no men. They all died fighting for him [Assad] and what did they get in return? They live in extreme poverty." The majority of Alawites who did not benefit directly from the regime had no option but to fight for Assad. Otherwise, they had to face the Islamists who committed massacres, slaughtering everyone in the Alawite areas they managed to reach.