The article details a photographer's poignant return to Syria, where he encounters a past marked by his father's imprisonment during the Assad regime. Witnessing the remnants of suffering and oppression, including a poem written by his father on a prison wall, evokes a mix of emotions. The narrative reflects on the scars left by the civil war that began in 2011, revealing how towns have transformed in the wake of revolution. The author vividly describes the landscape as he journeys through devastated areas, depicting the resilience of the Syrian people and the remnants of oppression they have experienced.
As my father watched the news, his breath caught. A video of the inside of a prison cell was on the television. Tears streamed down his face. On one of the walls he could make out a poem, one he had written with his own hands.
Crossing into Syria from Turkey, I felt disoriented. As I drove through the scorched countryside toward Aleppo - the first major city to fall in the final days of Bashar al-Assad's regime - we passed through towns that looked suspended in ruin.
I never imagined I'd return to Syria - especially not after my family and I left in 2004, and certainly not after the civil war.
The scars of its aftermath were everywhere. New revolutionary flags fluttered above the crumbling walls. Posters of Assad and his father, Hafez, had been torn down by those they had oppressed.
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