"You're not from here, are you?" Malky Mardini addresses the Spanish photographer trying to capture the scene. "It's obvious, we don't use those things here," he says, pointing to the earrings worn by the foreigner in both ears. "Just wait until Golani sees you!," he adds, referring to the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was nicknamed Golani when he led the Al Qaeda franchise in this country.
The attendees, several dozen, greet the joke with a thunderous laugh. The same way they receive the performance by two of their colleagues about the absurd conversation between a member of the feared muhabarat (Bashar Asad's secret service) and a taxi driver.
At that moment, gunshots are heard outside, and another comedian sticks his head out to the street and returns saying, "The HTS guys (the fundamentalist faction led by Sharaa) are coming for us," something that the audience responds to with more laughter.
The setting chosen by the members of Styria for their show matches in spirit and decoration with the hilarious performance of the comedians. "May your life be like toilet paper: long and useful," reads one of the posters adorning the café walls. "Live, love, and laugh," says another.
For weeks, after the fall of the Syrian regime on December 8th, the members of Styria staged a show they called Run, Asad, Run, where they directed their acidic humor towards the figure of the former dictator, who after ruling as an all-powerful autocrat for 24 years has now become a subject of mockery not only for comedians like Mardini but for the entire local population. Just a few meters from the establishment where Stytiria performed, in the heart of Damascus, passersby can now purchase socks with cartoons depicting the former strongman of the country with the caption "we trampled on him."
For the more than half a dozen members of Styria, the possibility of unleashing irony without worrying about the reaction of the aforementioned muhabarat is as shocking as for the rest of Syrian society to witness the tsunami of unrestricted artistic activities taking place in the Arab nation.
The founder of Styria, Sharif al Homsi, admits that the current period in the country is a kind of "dream." He himself was a "wanted" figure for months for a simple joke he made that reached the ears of the Minister of Culture. "I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get my name off the wanted list! If they had caught me, I would have ended up in Sednaya (the worst prison of the last dictatorship)," he comments in a conversation after concluding his performance.
Sharif does not exclude Ahmad al-Sharaa from the mockery, saying that if he continues "evolving," he will end up being a hipster or one of those who greets other world leaders like rappers: "Yoooo, what's up, man!"
However, his colleague Jude Joher admits that while the red line used to be any reference to Bashar or his acolytes' policies, now they have other ones: "Religion and sex". "We have lived decades of fear, and the fear is still there, but if a government feels insulted by a joke, it should fall," Sherif adds.
The multiplication of Styria's shows is part of the busy agenda of the Syrian artistic scene, where not a week goes by without a new concert, play, or public event being organized to celebrate the revolution's victory. A series of events that have taken place so far mostly without interference from the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) authorities, the Salafist movement led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, which not long ago advocated extremist thinking where music, the mix of artists from both genders, or paintings depicting human figures were prohibited.
The memory of the 'Damascus Spring'
However, a significant number of members of this intellectual elite have not forgotten the origins of the militant turned politician and view the current period of freedom with as much hope as apprehension. They are aware that Syria already underwent a similar experiment between 2000 and 2002: the so-called Damascus Spring.
After the death of Hafez al Asad, whose rule was characterized by brutal repression, Bashar Asad allowed the proliferation of democratic discussion forums - the remembered muntadat - where the cream of the opposition and the country's intellectual elite gathered to discuss democracy and freedom. The mirage began to fade in the summer of the following year when the regime began detaining the same individuals it had allowed to organize those meetings.
The writer and former political commentator Yaarab al-Eissa was one of the participants in those early century meetings but does not believe that is a "fitting comparison." For him, it is better to look at what happened in Iran after the Shah's escape in January 1979, when the Persian nation went from being dominated by a secular autocracy to religious absolutism months later.
"All these religious movements do the same. They bide their time until they feel they have enough power and then seize total control," he comments.
The novelist cites two examples that fuel his apprehension. The appointment of Shadi al-Waisi as Minister of Justice, who has been linked to the execution of two women accused of prostitution in 2015, and the ban on the human rights conference organized by the Syrian Center for Legal and Research Studies. The conference was supposed to take place in Damascus on the 27th but had to be canceled when the guests tried to enter the hotel where it was to be held.
"They were told that the HTS had called and they couldn't let them in," explains Eissa.
The decision prompted a strong criticism from the president of that organization, Anwar al Buni - a well-known human rights defender - who said in X that the measure "takes us back to the criminal times of the (Asad) regime."
Eissa's distrust is shared by the owner of the popular Zawaya art gallery, Rola Sleiman, 39, who has become another cultural reference in the first Syrian metropolis. Her venue has hosted the illustrious figures of Styria, screenings of banned films, and exhibitions of sculptures full of nude female figures, which prompted a timid intervention from the new authorities.
"Two months ago, a representative of the HTS came who claimed to be their Culture officer and told me we couldn't display sculptures of nude women. We held the exhibition with those sculptures, and I invited him, but he didn't come. I'm worried they want to impose their worldview. They have already banned eating in public during Ramadan (when Muslims fast until sunset) and organizing events during Ramadan that are not related to religion," she recounts in a phone conversation.
"The era of tyranny has ended"
At the end of January and as part of this perception among some liberal sectors of the country, a large group of writers, artists, and intellectuals issued a statement demanding that the new power "not interfere" in the "people's customs or dictate how they should dress or what they should drink or eat, "or in other aspects of their daily lives."
"The era of tyranny has ended, and the Syrians will not accept a repeat of what they have suffered," the text read.
Others, however, are more optimistic. Nasser Munzer is an "expert" in challenging the limitations of a dictatorship since he started showing films that pushed the boundaries set by the security forces six years ago. Films that questioned other similar models like Pinochet's Chile or the excesses of other Latin American military figures.