A quick warning, there are curse words that are un-beaped in today's episode of the show.
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
Nothing about politics at all.
Those kind of jokes would get you killed or disappeared into one of Assad's infamous prisons.
So during those years, Sharif kept jokes like that in a folder on his computer labeled Lebanon,
because he pretty much only felt safe telling them when he would take trips abroad.
There is one joke, I want to bring it back,
but there is one joke I used to say when I go to Lebanon,
like listen, We have a lot of problems, but you don't have a president.
And our problem is that we have one.
So maybe if you take him and you can rent him for a bit, and if you like him, you can keep him.
You cannot say anything like this, man.
That joke, if I say it over here, we will get killed.
There is no joke with them.
Bashar al-Assad's family ruled Syria for 53 years, the last 13 of which were a brutal civil war.
over 300,000 Syrian civilians died.
Then, a year ago, to everybody's surprise,
a bunch of rebel groups overthrew the regime in just 12 days.
Assad, his wife Asma, and their family flew to Russia.
The rebels were led by an Islamist group called Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS for short.