After years of forced exile, NOW's managing deputy editor finally returns to Syria
Nineteen years after her forced exile, Alia Mansour, the deputy managing editor of NOW, returned to her hometown of Tartus with her husband and two sons. It was a moment of profound personal and political significance. She revisited the very spot where, as a student, she had been dragged to pay homage to the statue of the late Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad—a symbol of oppression and authoritarianism that once loomed over the city and her life.
Now, standing with her son amidst the ruins of that same statue, the scene was transformed. No longer a site of forced reverence, it had become a testament to resistance and hope. Instead of bowing to tyranny, she stood tall, paying tribute to those who had sacrificed their lives in pursuit of freedom for Syria. It was a powerful reminder that even in the face of destruction, the human spirit could reclaim spaces, rewriting their meaning and history in the name of justice and liberation.
