We are just going to need to wait these things out. Syria is still a young country and there is still sectarian rivalries. Al Sharaa is saying the right things and appointing a diverse cabinet so fingers crossed.
> In rural Idlib, the province where Syria’s new Islamist leaders built a rebel ministate during the civil war before overthrowing Mr. al-Assad and seizing Damascus in December, the strongest drink for sale is coffee. Cafes are banned from playing music. Even hookahs are out.
> For years, cosmopolitan Damascenes rarely mixed with the increasingly conservative Syrians from the rest of the country. But now, some of Syrian society’s most religious people have suddenly come to rule over some of its most socially liberal.
> “What are we now? Afghanistan?” said Nivine Torossian, 40, the Christian co-owner of Tiki Bar, a longtime stalwart of the Old Damascus nightlife scene.
> One night this spring, she said, a party was in full swing when a group of armed men from the government arrived. Stern-faced, the men ordered the fun to end, returning repeatedly to harass her about parties and drinking, she said. Bars in Old Damascus are now mostly empty, she and other owners said.
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We are just going to need to wait these things out. Syria is still a young country and there is still sectarian rivalries. Al Sharaa is saying the right things and appointing a diverse cabinet so fingers crossed.
[Clashing Visions of Syria’s Future Play Out in Ancient Alleys of Damascus](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/world/middleeast/syria-damascus-conservative.html)
> In rural Idlib, the province where Syria’s new Islamist leaders built a rebel ministate during the civil war before overthrowing Mr. al-Assad and seizing Damascus in December, the strongest drink for sale is coffee. Cafes are banned from playing music. Even hookahs are out.
> For years, cosmopolitan Damascenes rarely mixed with the increasingly conservative Syrians from the rest of the country. But now, some of Syrian society’s most religious people have suddenly come to rule over some of its most socially liberal.
> “What are we now? Afghanistan?” said Nivine Torossian, 40, the Christian co-owner of Tiki Bar, a longtime stalwart of the Old Damascus nightlife scene.
> One night this spring, she said, a party was in full swing when a group of armed men from the government arrived. Stern-faced, the men ordered the fun to end, returning repeatedly to harass her about parties and drinking, she said. Bars in Old Damascus are now mostly empty, she and other owners said.