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From Our Own Correspondent
Syria: a year after the fall of Assad
00:28:34
Syrians took to the streets to celebrate but serious challenges lurk in the background
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- [00:00]
Amol Rajan
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- [01:39]
BBC Correspondent
Hello. Today we head out for a night at the opera in war torn Ukraine. All is quiet on the Texan border, where the flow of migrants has slowed to a trickle after Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. We're on the banks of the Yangtze river in China as scientists fight to save the rare finless porpoise. And we're exploring East German car culture, where the garages that once sheltered iconic Trabants became a hive of community spirit away from the scrutiny of the Stasi, but first to Syria, where just over a year ago a rebel force stormed towards Damascus from the northwestern province of Idlib. In less than two weeks, the regime of former President Bashar Al Assad fell and the rebel leader Ahmad Al Sharar was installed as interim president. Despite scepticism about his jihadist past and his handling of recent attacks against religious minorities. Mr. Al Sharra has won international backing, in particular from the US and Saudi Arabia. There were celebrations across Syria this week to mark a year since the fall of Assad. With the new leadership promising the beginning of a new chapter, Lena Sinjab reflects on the challenges ahead.
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Lena Sinjab
On the morning of December 8, 2024, I was at the Syrian border crossing with Lebanon, waiting eagerly to cross the border back into my home country, not able to understand that it was real that Syria was without Assad. A year has passed and it still feels unreal. Back then, an elderly man at a vegetable market told me, there is oxygen in the air now. Now everyone you talk to here says we can now breathe freely. I spent most of my time over the past year traveling to and from Damascus. After years of not being allowed to go in, and despite all the challenges facing the country, I'm no longer worried about what I say, who I see, and who I talk to. Everywhere, Syrians are finally letting themselves go and celebrating a feeling that that's been missing for decades. Hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of the capital Damascus this week waving the green flag of the revolution, now the national flag. Old and young, men and women. Everywhere you look, people are cherishing the fact President Assad has gone and isn't coming back. But there were also other flags in the square, like the white flag of Hay e Tahrir Al Sham or hts. With its Quranic verses, it resembles that of Islamic State, except that one was black. It is a reminder to many Syrians of the atrocities conducted by IS and by members of this new Islamist led government, forged by former members of hts, which only a year ago was still listed as a terrorist organization by the likes of the US and uk. Amid this week's celebrations, there was chanting by some calling for the rule of Islam and the leadership of Prophet Muhammad, a wish not shared by all Syrians. As ever, Syria continues to be divided along political lines. During the revolution, the split was between opponents and supporters of the Assad regime. Today, there are the supporters and opponents of the new president, Ahmed Al Shara. But almost everyone is united in celebrating the end of the old dictatorship. The new government has made effort to clean up the capital Damascus and make it safer. But on the outskirts, towns like Jobar and Douma have been destroyed by Assad's bombardment during the civil war. Their residents can't yet return. There is no money yet for reconstruction. Drive north and there are many similar stories. This country has a great history and heritage, but it also suffers from poverty, neglect and war. Aleppo's streets are again bustling, but they lie in darkness at night because of power cuts. The buildings and streets are in dire need of maintenance, but people are trying their best. An hour's drive further north, you reach Idlib, the opposition stronghold where President Al Shara and his fellow fighters were once based. There, businesses are thriving, and you can buy goods that you can't find elsewhere in Syria. Cars, spare parts, even weapons are on display. This place isn't short of money, but unlike the capital, it feels disorganized and chaotic. Looking around me, I couldn't see any woman without a hijab. Most women wear the niqab that covers their face too. As I stood in the town square, a man approached me and asked me to cover my hair. His accent was clearly not Syrian. He sounded Moroccan or Tunisian, possibly one of the thousands foreign fighters who came here wanting to build an Islamic rule. This is not Latakia, he said, referring to the more progressive port city. This is Idlib, and here no woman goes out without hijab. I was stunned and rejected his request and then left. Elsewhere in Syria, there are others propagating a more hardline version of Islam, which is creating fear among religious minorities as well as secular and more modern Muslims. Over the past year, the religious divide has widened in Syria with rising hate speech and sectarianism and even revenge killing against the Alawites. President Assad's sect, the Druze, also got their share of the violence. Now they want to split completely from this new Syria. While people celebrated in the streets this week, there were also the mothers of those who went missing during Assad's time. Mothers who still can't find any traces of their sons or bodies to bury them. They were there with their tears and and holding photos of their missing children. But elsewhere there are mothers grieving for children killed more recently simply because they are Alawite. Just this week, a 25 year old delivery man in Latakia was killed after he was asked about his religion. I'm Alawite, he said before being shot dead. At his funeral, his mother cried and said to the mourners, close the door of death, my son. Enough shedding blood in this country.
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BBC Correspondent
Lina Sinjab Next to Ukraine, nearly four years after Russia's full scale invasion, European leaders this week said intensive work is ongoing on the US led plan to bring an end to the war. Meanwhile, no part of the country is safe from drone or air attack. And yet, despite the dangers, civilians continue to go about their lives. And this includes the country's art musicians and orchestras where rehearsing and performing new works has continued throughout the conflict. Marcel Theroux reports from Chinivtsi in western Ukraine on the premiere of an unexpected musical.
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Marcel Theroux
I finally make it to Teatralnaya square 15 minutes before curtain up. It's taken me 24 hours to get here. I spent the last five of those driving across the border from Romania, defying Foreign Office warnings and entering a country at war. As I join the queue, it's not my foolhardiness that I'm regretting. It's my decision not to wear a suit. In spite of the war and the ongoing threat of Russian bombs and drones. Everyone else is dressed to the nines, but after all, this is a special occasion. It's the world premiere of Crayant, an opera by the Ukrainian composer Dmitry Bordnyansky. In fact, technically, it's the second world premiere. The first was in 1776 in Venice. The score was thought to be lost, but two years ago a Ukrainian researcher discovered a copy of the manuscript in a library in Portugal. The conductor tonight is Herman Makarenko. He has a vertical shock of white hair and an immaculate tailcoat. Maestro Makarenko has made it a personal mission to see this opera fully staged. Once again, he raises his baton and the overture begins. Bordnyansky was a contemporary of Mozart and the music is irresistibly tuneful. The opera is a retelling of the Greek tragedy Antigone, in which the tyrant Creon, corrupted by power, refuses the heroine's request to bury her dead brother. Antigone resists the tyrant and finds herself facing certain death. 250 years have elapsed between its two premieres, but the relevance of Bortnansky's opera to events in his homeland has only deepened. It's clear to tonight's audience that Crayant represents Putin and Antigone. Ukraine resisting a tyrant fighting for justice and freedom. Just to underline the parallels, five minutes into the second act, with Antigone walled up alive in a tomb, singing defiantly, an air raid warning goes off, the music stops, the curtain descends and the theatre is evacuated. Everyone seems rather unfazed. In July this year, three people died in Chernivtsi after a Russian attack. But on the whole, it's escaped the worst of the war. The all clear sounds and we head back for the remainder of the second act. Artworks like Portnansky's have an outsize importance in this conflict. Part of Vladimir Putin's rationale for subjugating Ukraine is that it's not really a country at all. Staging this operatic masterpiece is a form of counterargument, a way of reminding the world of Ukraine's own traditions and culture. Even the choice of venue is significant. Chernivtsi, sometimes nicknamed Little Vienna, was part of the Austro Hungarian Empire for much longer than it belonged to the Soviet Union. This is reflected in its coffee shops and its dilapidated but beautiful Art Nouveau buildings. The opera house we're in was designed by Viennese architects and is a riot of elaborate gold mouldings and plush red velvet. As the second act unfolds, it becomes clear that Bortniansky has adjusted the story's ending. Spoiler alert. In Sophocles original Antigone dies In Bordjansky's the citizens rise up and overthrow the tyrant. A frisson goes through the theatre as the members of the chorus approach the stage through the audience and liberates Antigone, who magnanimously pardons the tyrant who tried to kill her. The opera concludes and the curtain falls to tumultuous applause. It rises again for the curtain calls and a standing ovation. So many bouquets are given to the musicians and performers that the stage starts to resemble the interior of a florist's. Energized and uplifted, we spill out into the rain, wet, cobbled streets. Over the coming days, Russia will step up its air attacks on energy infrastructure and cities in western Ukraine, but the production itself has been a triumph. The mere fact that a 250-year-old masterpiece has been resurrected in the independent homeland of its creator is a victory. Tonight, at least, the audience goes home believing that a happy ending might still be possible.
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BBC Correspondent
Marcel Theroux Just a few years ago, the city of El Paso in Texas declared a state of emergency as local shelters struggled to cope with the influx of migrants crossing the border from Mexico. Today, detentions at the border have dropped dramatically as US Immigration enforcement has ramped up arrests across the country. The Trump administration says its tough stance has proved a successful deterrent to those seeking to enter the country illegally, though human rights organizations continue to raise concerns over due process for people being deported. Bent de Busman travelled to El Paso, where he spoke to locals about the impact of the immigration crackdown.
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Bent de Westman
When I think of the Texan border city of El Paso, I think of the chaos and human suffering I've seen there on my previous visits. At the height of what some have termed the migrant crisis back during the Biden presidency, more than two and a half thousand migrants from Central and South America were camped outside near the city's historic Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Many lined the streets, sleeping on donated blankets, discussing their uncertain futures as they waited for food and water to be distributed by local charities. A nearby park was even more grim. Here I remember seeing hungry pregnant women or families with children far too young to understand what was happening. I remember one small girl tugging on my trouser leg playfully while her young Nicaraguan mother was describing a narrow escape from gangs while traveling through Mexico. Their stories are all uniquely horrific, if broadly similar. Driven by poverty, political persecution, or rampant crime, these people fled to the US in the hope of a better life and future just a few days before Christmas in 2022, I distinctly remember one shivering, tearful Venezuelan man telling me how he had watched a young female traveling companion drown during a treacherous river crossing on their way to the US border. But now, in 2025, the migrants have vanished from the streets of El Paso. On a recent day, the church that previously offered help to thousands was now nearly deserted, with only a handful of parishioners coming in and out. The park was empty and silent. All I saw there was a small team of builders smoking cigarettes at the same street corner where I once stood and spoke to young Venezuelans about what they hoped for their new lives in the U.S. these quiet scenes are ones that are now commonplace across the length of the US Mexico border, from the Pacific coastline in California to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. For US President Donald Trump, these scenes represent a political victory. One White House official proudly told me recently that the statistics show nothing less than a wildly successful strategy. Since President Trump returned to the White House in January, the number of people attempting to cross the border has plummeted, as have detentions. For months, not a single undocumented migrant who was detained has been released into the US A far cry from hundreds of thousands of paroles that took place under President Joe Biden. For many residents of the border in Texas, including people who are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants, the change is welcome. One young woman told me her own memories of the border under Joe Biden are overwhelmingly of death, of hearing reports of migrants drowning or dying in the desert, and of frightening encounters on local streets. Others described people smugglers, perhaps arms, trudging through their properties after dark. But the border is often described as a metaphorical gray area in which black and white narratives fail to capture the full realities on the ground. Many of those opposed to Trump still recognize the need for a stronger border, and many die hard. Trump supporters hawkish about border security can still become emotional when they describe the plight of migrants. The administration's broader immigration strategy, which includes mass arrests and deportations, is a particular focus of contention. For some, the authorities have gone too far. I recently spoke to a man named Ross, a former U.S. army colonel and longtime Republican. On one hand, he's happy with a stronger border. Residents of his town, Rio Grande City, still cross the border on business or to visit family every day, as do residents of the Mexican city on the other side of the river, Camargo. Legal commerce continues, but the sight of long term undocumented residents of the US Being rounded up and deported has caused rifts in the community. That upsets me too, he told me with a hint of sadness. People are human. It bothers people that the lady who's been here 20 years is getting deported or the dad who's been here 40 years is getting deported. For Mr. Trump, this sort of sentiment could pose a challenge in the future. Several border residents quietly told me that people in their overwhelmingly Latino border communities feel conflicted. Jesse Fuentes, a long time migrant activist, put it to me simply, saying that many people around here are having second thoughts about their support for Trump, but are too fearful of a potential backlash from their neighbors to say anything. But whether those shifting feelings change U.S. immigration policy or have any real political impact remains to be seen.
- [18:29]
BBC Correspondent
Berndt de Westman.
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BBC Correspondent
Next China's mighty Yangtze river is a vital water source, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes and a cultural icon. And once home to an array of huge river beasts, many of which are now extinct. Among the survivors is the finless porpoise, the last large species to survive in the river, which is being helped by a group of determined Chinese scientists. Our China Correspondent, Stephen McDonnell reports from the Yangtze in Hubei Province.
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Amol Rajan
When you see a finless porpoise, they seem to look at you with this kooky, mischievous smile. The scientists say they do get excited in the company of humans, and they certainly appear to be showing off, racing through the water, swimming at speed, close to the glass, with people on the other side. The animals we were shown at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan are being held in captivity in a deep tank to be studied by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This facility is next to the Yangtze river, which was once teeming with incredible large animals, nearly all gone. And alarmingly, this extinction wasn't that long ago. The last known Yangtze dolphin, or baiji in Chinese, was named Qiqi by those at the Institute who cared for him for 22 years until he died in 2002. The last paddlefish, which were times as long as a boat was, was accidentally caught by Fishermen in 2003. It was radio tagged and released, but researchers soon lost contact with it. So there's a determination to hang onto the porpoise here when mankind has been so destructive to other species. The preserved dehydrated bodies of a Yangtze river dolphin and a paddlefish hang in the Institute. Professor Wang Shi pointed to them and said to me, now that those have become extinct, we're going to save the Yangtze river porpoise. It's become the most important animal here. It's not only because they're so amazing looking, kind of pudgy, with a big forehead and a little grin. Professor Wang said that it's the only top level predator left in the river. They're rare and their numbers reflect the health of the entire system's ecology. Yet despite the backing now in place from the government, there are only around 1200 finless porpoises remaining in the Yangtze. And the Chinese variety don't exist anywhere else in the world. They're critically endangered, but they're hanging on. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which finished in 2006, didn't hit them directly because they didn't have to go upstream to spawn, but it certainly has had an impact on the fish they eat. For other mega animals, like the paddlefish or the Chinese sturgeon, the dam was catastrophic. Another professor, Wang Wang Ding, has dedicated his life to preserving the health of the Yangtze. He can see the good and the bad with these dams, he said he remembers how it used to be. Every flood season, we'd have to organise a team with strong muscles, using many men to sleep on the riverbank, just in case the flood came. He told me then, if the flood hit, everyone would do their best to try to keep the levee banks solid to make sure that they were not broken by the dangerous rushing water. Now, he said the Three Gorges Dam mitigates against flooding. However, Professor Wong also explained how the giant sturgeons can no longer reach their spawning grounds because of this enormous river blocking structure. He said they seemed to briefly find an alternative location downstream, but that it wasn't working anymore and that the sturgeons were now only in the river because researchers were pouring them in 10,000 at a time. More than a million captive bred animals were released last year. But they're just not reproducing in the wild. So the finless porpoise won't face the same fate. He and other scientists have backed a 10 year complete fishing ban right along the Yangtze, as well as adjacent lakes and tributaries. It came into effect in 2021 and they say that fish numbers are already increasing significantly. Their hope is that after the 10 years is over, the government won't reopen the waterway to commercial fishing. And after all, the pain has already been inflicted with 230,000 fishermen out of work. Another threat to the finless porpoise might be harder to resolve, though. Wang Shi said that ships are very dangerous for the animals brains because they're so loud. In the case of dolphins. Chinese scientists think that the underwater noise pollution from ships carrying both passengers and cargo may have contributed to their demise because the animals used sonar to communicate. Yet for centuries, this busy river traffic has also provided a lifeblood for much of the economy of central China. It'd be quite a big ask to wind it back. What was more achievable was forcing chemical producing factories to move away from the Yangtze. This is said to have significantly improved water quality. And the porpoise numbers tell the story. In the 1990s, there were 3,300 in the wild. By 2006, this had halved. Then came the fishing bans. The factories closed and the decline stopped. In fact, not only stopped, but over the last five years, data shows that porpoise numbers have gone up by nearly a quarter. When the scientists talk about these numbers, they're proud. This time, they don't want to lose.
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BBC Correspondent
Stephen macdonnell and finally we're heading to Chemnitz, where a remnant of communist East Germany is the subject of an exhibition amid the city's celebrations as European capital of culture. Among the items most closely associated with that era is the ubiquitous Trabant car. Many of these motors were housed in garages spaces which evolved into refuges away from spying eyes. Adrian Bridge went to find out more.
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Adrian Bridge
I don't generally make a beeline for patches of land containing rows of lock up garages when I explore a city. But on a recent visit to Chemnitz in East Germany, I made an exception. Chemnitz is currently a European capital of culture, and as part of its celebration of this special status, it has been throwing the spotlight on the thousands of lock up garages originally built to house the Trabants and Wartburgs that were the pride and joy of those lucky enough to own them. You can find these garage clusters all over Chemnitz, close to the somewhat harsh socialist era city centre, tucked beside the grander villas built on the back of the textile manufacturing prosperity of the late 19th century and on numerous plots of land reachable from the large prefabricated Plattenbau housing estates that were such a distinctive feature of the German Democratic Republic. From the outside, the garages, modest in size and largely consisting of concrete slabs and corrugated iron, hardly come across as works of art. They were functional, and they were built from whatever the more enterprising members of East German society could lay their hands on. We never had much in the way of materials. Uwe Werkner, a benign 73 year old who has been the owner of a Chemnitz garage since 1977, tells me. We made do with what we could get and we worked together to create these little houses for our cars. While the primary aim of the garages was indeed to house cars, there was just enough space in them to store things. Tools and spare exhaust pipes, but also chairs, tables, old GDR made radios, FussballWocher magazines from 1984 and highly pungent cleaning fluids. Many of the garages still contain these things, an archive of everyday life in the gdr. A great selection is on display in the city's Hochgarage, one of Europe's first multi level car parks. But why celebrate the garages of Kebnitz? Well, in a time of drab conformity, these were places where, unusually, there was some scope for individual creativity. Perhaps more importantly, the garages were also places where people could come together to help with repairs. In an economy of scarcity, they had to learn how to fix things. Themselves and also over a beer and bratwurst, to let off a bit of steam, freer from the ever present sense that they were being watched without seeing the era through rose tinted spectacles. Uwe does miss some aspects, it's true. We did get on with each other better then, he says. No one had very much, so there was very little jealousy. The unique role played by the garages of the gdr, and by extension the entire East Bloc, is the primary focus of the so called 3000 Garagen project. But it does also look at how usage has evolved. Garages that are now creative studio and workshop spaces have been showcased. Some of the garage courtyards have been used for concerts and operettas, historical and literary soirees. In one sun dappled courtyard I catch a moving theatrical production which sees the garages, historically a male preserve, through a female perspective, describing them, yes, as repositories of historical significance, but also tellingly, of feelings. This being Germany, academic works have been produced about them too. My favourite is Das Garagen Manifest the Garage Manifesto, an exposition of why these spaces deserve heritage status. This in the city which between 1953 and 1990 was named Karl Marstadt after a man famous for his own kind of manifesto. The citizens of Chemnitz, too often uniformly dubbed far right supporters of the alternative for Deutschland, have watched, initially incredulously, but then enthusiastically, as the modest little spaces that have meant so much to them have been elevated into an art form. I see it in their faces, in the brilliant display of portrait photographs to be found in the old tram repair terminus that is the nerve centre of the 3,000 garage and project. The old wrinkled couple pictured outside their treasured lock up on the day of their 50th wedding anniversary. The young pair in front of a stylishly graffitied garage facade. The lady with a flower in her hair. The splendidly mustachioed man with tight fitting border T shirt and helmet. For years so many of these people, rejected and left unemployed when the uneconomic factories they worked in were closed down following German reunification, were made to feel that their lives were worthless, their achievements negligible. Now, beside their much loved little garages, they are standing tall, free at last to take pride in their heritage and to share it with the wider world.
- [30:24]
BBC Correspondent
Adrian Bridge and that's all for today, but you can hear more dispatches from around the world on BBC Sounds. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
- [30:36]
Adrian Bridge
Hello, I'm Amol RAJAN and from BBC Radio 4.
- [30:39]
Amol Rajan
This is radical.
- [30:43]
Adrian Bridge
We are living through one of those hinge moments in history when all the.
- [30:47]
Amol Rajan
Old certainties crumble and a new world struggles to be born.
- [30:50]
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So the idea behind this podcast is.
- [30:52]
Adrian Bridge
To help you navigate it.
- [30:54]
Amol Rajan
What's really changed is the volume of information that has exploded. And also by offering a safe space.
- [31:02]
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For the radical ideas that our future.
- [31:04]
Bent de Westman
Demands, Go to the Chancellor and say.
- [31:06]
Marcel Theroux
Cut, radically cut the taxes of those with children.
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Telling our stories is powerful and a radical act.
- [31:14]
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