Abd alhade alani@abdalhadealani
I hopped in a taxi in Damascus 🇸🇾 after Friday prayers، and a few minutes into the ride, I noticed the driver had a song playing, one of those tracks by the Turkish singer Sımga.
So I asked him: “Were you ever in Turkey?”
He looked surprised: “How did you know?”
I smiled and said, “You’re playing a Turkish song in the middle of Damascus, what do you mean how did i know?.”
He laughed and told me he’d lived in Bursa for eleven years but the moment the country was liberated, he came straight back, but part of him, he said, never quite left Turkey behind, We both laughed about it, and we even chatted a little in Turkish, (my Turkish language is broken and he mocked me too 😂)
Just last week, on my way to a film studio i was shooting here in Damascus, I was in another cab, a Yalla Go car, and the driver was playing Ibrahim Tatlises, Turned out he used to live in the Beyoğlu neighborhood in Istanbul.
When you walk into any mall here you’ll find Turkish and Ukrainian products filling the shelves, and people genuinely reaching for them.
Tomorrow, the Turkish brand LC Waikiki is officially opening a branch in Damascus. they’ve already put out the announcement.
Many of those who’ve returned home came back with Turkish university degrees or solid professional experience gained there, and they’re building things here with that same organized, structured mindset they picked up abroad.
And let’s not forget the obsession with Turkish dramas، entire families are glued to their screens watching all kinds of Turkish shows, even my own family has their two sacred hours every night, completely reserved for their favorite Turkish series.
Displacement was painful, there’s no doubt about it, but it also carried something with it too:
everyone who came back brought a piece of the world with them, and that’s quietly making its way into new Syria that we all trying to build together.
