I drew these pictures of the Syrian Revolution nearly seven years ago, for Brothers of the Gun, book I did with journalist Marwan Hisham. At the time, it seemed that Assad had slaughtered his way into a lifetime of power. As of today, he’s gone. Scram. Finished. Ran away in the direction of Dubai, without even putting up a fight.
In the thirteen years since Syrians first rose up to demand extremely modest democratic reforms, millions have been driven into exile, hundreds of thousands killed, tens of thousands tortured to death in state-run slaughterhouses like Sedenaya prison, and ancient cities bombed to dust, all so some chinless rich boy could stay on his throne.
As one Syrian friend told me, this is just the start of the fight for his country’s future. Israel is already invading Syria to annex more land for a “buffer zone”. Turkish-backed mercenaries are already attacking Kurdish areas at the behest of Erdoğan. But no matter what happens next, the joy on the faces of prisoners released from Assad’s gulags is a treasure beyond price.
No tyrant lasts forever.
I hope my Syrian friends can return home.
And I hope we find out how much Assad was paying his Western propagandists
Brothers of the Gun revealed the agonizing struggle to retain your sanity in the face of the hellish chaos of wars we played no small part in creating. The entire region suffers from over a hundred years of imperialist meddling, while its inhabitants are viewed as barbaric and unworthy of self rule.
Marwan’s book, along with your tremendous illustrations, serves to open Western eyes to the humanity of the people caught in this global power play.
Endless thanks to both you and Marwan. And I hope he’s well and safe.
The fall of Assad is a great example of how moral compasses are a poor guide to politics and history. His fall was a consequence—unintended or not—of Israel’s defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and one group who has overthrown him has close ties to Wahhabist extremism, which is bad news for Syrian women. There is a democratic opposition in Syria as you know, but it became a Turkish proxy militarily (not good for Kurds) and Erdogan has a (ahem) complex relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been eroding women’s rights in Turkey.