The Syrian dream rises from the ashes of Assad’s nightmare | Waad al-Kateab

The Big Picture with Mohamed Hassan

Two years after our conversation with Waad al-Kateab about the desperate plight of Syrian refugees, we return to have a very different conversation.

Less than a week after the dramatic and unexpected collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal reign, Syrians are beginning to dream once again of a future they believed had died.

Waad al-Kateab and her family had settled in the UK, though they continued to fight to speak on behalf of refugees and the Syrian revolution which they refused to give up on no matter how bleak the situation seemed.

In her Oscar-nominated film ‘For Sama’, al-Kateab documented the last days of her city of Aleppo, besieged by Assad’s forces for five years and reduced to rubble.

Today, she counts the days until she can return to her childhood home.

This week on the Big Picture Podcast, Waad al-Kateab invites us to her home to talk about her dream of a new Syria, her fears and trepidations about what comes next, and revealing her real name for the first time.

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