Damascus
On a Saturday night, I walk into a venue near Bab Touma Square in Damascus. It is a well-lit apartment of sorts, turned to an art gallery. The walls are lined with modern art pieces, and people are queueing up, paying ten dollars to take a seat in the room inside.
The audience has gathered to watch a show by Styria, a group of Syrian comedians attempting to spread standup culture. Before the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024, the job of comedians―spreading laughter―could, if done ‘wrong’, be one that ended in tears.
There are nearly 100 people in the room. As I enter it, I see that most chairs had either been reserved or taken, and I pull up a seat for myself in the front. Many people in the audience are members of Syria’s diaspora―one of the largest in the world.
Sharif Homsi, founder of Styria, kicks off the show, getting up onto the stage while loud, booming music resounds in your ears.
“I don’t understand Syria without Bashar,” he says, as part of a bit.
“I heard the regime fell, and I was happy, but I couldn’t understand it―how did the regime fall!”
He is greeted by laughter and claps, but his jokes mask a real sentiment that a lot of Syrians harbour. As I listen to him talk, and the ones who follow, I realise how novel this experience is, not just for me, but everyone else with me. Just a few weeks prior, the mere idea of putting those thoughts to words would have been inconceivable.
Homsi has held standup comedy close to his heart since about 2012, when he decided that he wanted to be an artist in the field. He moved to Dubai in 2016, participated in multiple comedy workshops, and returned to Syria in 2021. He founded Styria a year later.
Homsi tells me how he used to have a folder named “To Lebanon” in his laptop, to save all the jokes he wrote that he couldn’t say in Syria. He says that for every ten jokes he wrote, eight would go into that folder, out of fear.
“I mean, I wasn’t even doing anything. I didn’t have bullets, grenades or guns―I had jokes.”
When I ask him about performing in the new political environment, with the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in power, he struggles to put his feelings into words.
“I feel free―actually free. It feels like I’m screaming, not talking,” he says.
Homsi mentions that it is Styria’s first show with comedians from the diaspora joining them.
One of them is George Alain, a London-based Syrian comedian who was unable to return home for 13 years during the Assad regime.
Donning a pink cap and navy blue sweatshirt, he tells me how his last six months in Syria, back in 2011, had been shaped by the revolution. He had created a Facebook page for political commentary in his sarcastic style, which was his way of contributing to the uprisings around the country. When he left for the UK to pursue his studies, he realised he couldn’t return home.
“It was leaked that I was behind that page, and I was also expressing myself on my personal page, when I was outside [the country],” he explains.
Alain does most of his shows in Arabic, as he feels more comfortable communicating in his native tongue. He tells me that when he first started doing standup comedy in 2020, he used to have an urge to talk about Syria―an urge that he “lost very quickly.”
“People will never understand,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone. “You feel just like you are begging for attention.” As he says this, I notice another standup comedian, who mentioned on stage that he was based in Berlin, nod vehemently to himself.
Alain has performed in several countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and France, but it is only today that he is able to stand on a stage in his own country. During his time on stage, he talked about multiple topics, ranging from the sectarian spectrum in Syria to the fall of the regime to making fun of vocabulary in formal Arabic, or Fusha.
“It feels orgasmic, if I’m allowed to use this word,” he tells me, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s just more than anything ever.”
Alain lives in Damascus, but he is originally from the Golan Heights, an area recognised by the United Nations as part of Syria, but occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. Following the ouster of Assad, Israel has expanded its settlements in the region.
Alain says that he was hoping to visit his home village, but that it is now captured by Israel.
“I hope it comes back, so I can visit,” he says. “You can never get all the wins―at least we got Damascus.”
After over a decade abroad, Alain says that Syria still is very much where he feels “at home”.
“Once I start having fear anywhere, it won't be home anymore, so let’s hope that in the future I won't have any fears in this place,” he says.
Alain isn’t alone in his uncertainty about the future. Rami Jabr, a comedian with a background in theatre, has the audience captivated as he speaks, with people erupting in laughter that takes a while to die out.
Jabr takes digs at the inefficiency of Assad’s bureaucracy. At one point in his show, he describes an experience at a government office where he was led on a wild-goose chase by officers.
He is jovial, and speaks with the animated body language of a performer, which is why his answer to my question―“How do you feel, performing now?”―surprises me.
“I am very scared.”
“We are now free, flying without a limit, but surely there are red lines that we don’t know.”
In 2023, Jabr encountered problems with the authorities after someone from the ministry of education saw a video of him online where he made comparisons between government and private schools as part of a show. He was told that he would have to be investigated, and that his name would be handed to checkpoints.
“I made some calls, got a lawyer, paid a lot of money, and the issue was solved,” he says.
Jabr says he is now hesitant to even go out on the streets.
“My career is about people―I would see people in gardens, in cafes, and write about them. I love people. But now I am sceptical of them.”
He says he cannot wrap his mind around Syria without Bashar al-Assad.
“He was gone in a second. Why? How?” he questions, his voice rising in perplexity.
“I am a little bit disappointed. Why didn’t he hand over the government, and then leave?”
He references a part of his show, where he joked about a pornographic movie about Cristiano Ronaldo, directed by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the HTS leader, who is now the transitional president of Syria.
“I have to know what our limits are, that is why I said it,” he explains.
Homsi, like Jabr, is yet to move on from the Big-Brother-like presence of the Assad regime.
“I am 33 now, and I have been scared since I learnt that you cannot talk about the president,” he tells me.
“It is not something you lose, but the feeling we have now is stronger than fear.”
He believes that “delivering your thoughts in a funny, informal way” is a tactic to make people ask themselves important questions.
He quotes his idol, the American comedian Eddie Griffin.
“He once said, ‘Think―it’s not illegal yet, but they are working on it,’” he says. “Making people think is asking questions.