The Islamist junta which overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024 took the unusual step of allowing a Halloween party in Damascus on Friday.
The event was a somewhat awkward affair, especially after the midnight curfew arrived, and partygoers began worrying that security forces might kick in the doors at any moment.
Attendees at the Friday night rave compared it to a high-school dance party, with a generally “nervous” mood, which was not improved when the power failed twice.
“Only about half of the expected 150 attendees showed up, leaving awkward gaps on the dance floor, a rented space atop a three-floor shopping complex on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Whisky, vodka, and beer were served in plastic cups from a small bar,” Canada’s Globe and Mail reported on Monday.
Few of the young partygoers had any real memory of the time before Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011 and killed over 600,000 people. The capital of Damascus was not ravaged as badly as the countryside, but its residents lived under a “reign of fear” as the paranoid Assad regime fought for its life — and then they watched a coalition of Islamist jihadi insurgents run him out of town in a lightning-fast attack at the end of last year.
Damascus has a nightclub scene, and they serve drinks at the bars, although all of that could change under the control of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadi alliance led by interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former member of al-Qaeda.
The junta has yet to outlaw liquor under Muslim law, but many in cosmopolitan Damascus expect it to, so alcohol consumption has dwindled rapidly. Some restrictions on importing and selling alcohol have been imposed, including the revival of a rule against selling alcohol near places of worship that was largely ignored by the Assad regime.
“Of course we were happy to see the regime fall, but we also have concerns about the nature of the people in charge now. We’re still in a transitional phase,” music festival organizer Tariq Abbas delicately explained.
“The mood is not the same as it used to be. Now the party ends when the party ends. Before there would be an after-party, and a party before the party,” Abbas said.
“The new authorities, who are very conservative and come from the rural areas, are seeing women like me for the first time. At first we were scared, but we’re getting used to them, and they are getting used to us,” a young woman who attended the rave in a Viking costume said more optimistically.
Evidently some things have not changed, because Abbas said he was accustomed to paying heavy bribes to Assad regime officials to hold his music festivals, while the organizers of the Halloween rave said they paid a “fine” in advance to the junta’s security forces.
DPA International News reported in June that nightlife in Damascus was holding up surprisingly well half a year after the fall of Assad. Syrian-born, Berlin-based DJ Nuria said it was a “dream come true” for her to play a sold-out concert in her home country after the long and bloody civil war.
“That night, we were finally able to live the life we had been waiting for for so long — our freedom. Everyone was living and dancing. We weren’t afraid,” she said.
The group that organized and financed DJ Nuria’s concert in June said they did not trust the new Islamist government to continue taking a light touch toward the Damascus nightclub scene.
“I don’t believe the state wants there to be nightlife. They say they do, but they act differently,” said organizer Philipe Zarif.
The DJ said it seemed foolish to keep organizing dance parties under an Islamist regime in a time of continuing unrest, but maybe it was “the good kind of stupidity.” She said she planned a return engagement for December on “Liberation Day,” the anniversary of Assad’s defeat.
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