Youth in Damascus celebrate at a Halloween rave on Friday.Hasan Belal/The Globe and Mail
It’s Friday night and Maria Suleiman is trying to unwind. She’s seen and lived through too much in her 19 years, and just wants to dance.
Along with a few dozen other Syrian teens and young adults, she and her boyfriend put their heads down and moved their bodies to the thumping beats, trying to forget their country’s troubles as house music pounded and strobe lights swirled around them.
“Things are very complicated. We always feel up and down. Mostly we’re sad, I’m not going to lie, so we need to take our mind off of things,” said Ms. Suleiman, who was dressed as a vampire for the Halloween-themed event.
The nail technician was just five years old when Syria descended into a civil war that would kill more than 600,000 people and leave much of the country in ruins. The large-scale fighting is over, but Ms. Suleiman says she’s even more scared – conscious of how she dresses, and careful not to go outside alone after dark – now that the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has been replaced by a government of former Islamist fighters.
Though Friday’s semi-underground party was billed as a rave – one of the few such parties to get approval since the change of power in Damascus – the nervous mood made it feel more like a high-school dance. Only about half of the expected 150 attendees showed up, leaving awkward gaps on the dance floor, a rented space atop a three-floor shopping complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Whisky, vodka and beer were served in plastic cups from a small bar.
Amer Touma, 40, one of the DJs performing at the rave.Hasan Belal/The Globe and Mail
Adding to the high-school feel was a curfew imposed by Syria’s new rulers, who gave the event approval to go ahead as long as it was over by midnight. Though the partiers vowed to, and did, break curfew, dancers turned their eyes toward the door every time someone new arrived, worried it could be the feared General Security forces of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.
The power also went out twice during the course of the rave, making it impossible for the partiers to completely forget that they were in Syria.
The rave was emblematic of Damascus’s half-alive nightlife scene 11 months after Mr. al-Sharaa and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement – which once had links to al-Qaeda – toppled Mr. al-Assad’s regime.
While most Syrians were delighted to see the end of Mr. al-Assad’s reign of fear, many in relatively liberal Damascus were nonetheless worried to see a nominally secular government overthrown by militant Islamists from the countryside. (The capital was also spared the worst of the war, allowing nightlife to carry on almost as normal until shortly before the collapse of the regime.)
Though the semi-underground party was billed as a rave, the nervous mood made it feel more like a high-school dance.Hasan Belal/The Globe and Mail
Though it hasn’t been as bad as some had feared – the bars in the Christian Quarter of the Old City are still open, and allowed to serve alcohol provided they pay for a permit – fears that the government might suddenly order a crackdown have put a citywide damper on the mood.
“Of course we were happy to see the regime fall, but we also have concerns about the nature of the people in charge now. We’re still in a transitional phase,” said Tariq Abbas, the 27-year-old operations manager of Siin Experience, a group famed locally for organizing days-long music festivals that were attended by upward of 1,500 people even at the height of the civil war.
Mr. Abbas said he couldn’t get a permit now to organize the type of events Siin Experience used to hold. “The mood is not the same as it used to be. Now the party ends when the party ends. Before there would be an after-party, and a party before the party.”
One of the organizers of the Friday night rave told The Globe and Mail that the event had been allowed to go ahead only after it prepaid a fine to the local General Security office to ensure it wouldn’t be shut down for violating the curfew.
Only about half of the expected 150 attendees showed up to the party.Hasan belal/The Globe and Mail
The process was eerily similar to the previous era, when Mr. Abbas said Siin Experience had to pay massive bribes to ensure they wouldn’t be raided by Mr. al-Assad’s forces. (The Globe agreed not to name the rave organizer out of concern they could face repercussions for discussing the arrangement.)
Those bribes, Mr. Abbas said, ensured that LGBTQ Syrians would be left alone to act as they wished at Siin Experience events, providing a safe space that has since disappeared.
The nightlife scene may soon shrink further still. Bar owners say that while the feared government edict to stop selling alcohol hasn’t come, rising prices and a disappearing customer base may force them to shut down anyway.
Muhannad Dahma, the owner of Jar Alward, a long-time staple of the bar scene in the Old City, said his revenues had fallen roughly 80 per cent over the past year. Some of his clientele stayed away out of fear they’d be stopped and questioned by General Security, while others simply couldn’t afford a night out while the country was mired in economic crisis.
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Mr. Dahma said the new government had made life even harder for bar owners by banning the import of alcohol and handing out fines to enforce a decades-old law that prohibits the sale of alcohol within 150 metres of a church or mosque.
“It’s impossible to follow this law. There’s a mosque right outside and a church around the corner,” Mr. Dahma said, pointing to the narrow street outside his bar, which first opened in 2007. “How the government will deal with alcohol sales in the future is a major question.”
But the partiers at the Halloween rave hope the fact their event was allowed to go ahead – prepaid fines and all – is a sign Mr. al-Sharaa’s new government may slowly be opening itself up to Damascus and its mix of residents.
“The new authorities, who are very conservative and come from the rural areas, are seeing women like me for the first time,” said Foutoun Issa, a 30-year-old makeup artist who attended the rave dressed as a Viking, with bare shoulders and war paint on her face. “At first we were scared, but we’re getting used to them – and they are getting used to us.”