Ryyan Alshebl im Gespräch mit Derya Türkmen

Ryyan Alshebl was born in Suweida, Syria, in 1994. He fled the civil war and political persecution across the Mediterranean to Germany in 2015. After training as an administrative assistant, he was elected mayor of Ostelsheim in the northern Black Forest in 2023 with an absolute majority - he was just 29 years old at the time. In early February 2026, his first book "Flucht nach vorn" (Escape to the Front) is published, written from the perspective of the newcomer who initially saw Germany from the outside and the one who has now been shaping it himself for three years. A Syrian mayor in Swabia who wants to show how good politics can work. And sees this as a plea for a courageous democracy.

In an interview with taz editor Derya Türkmen, he talks about alternatives to populism and disenchantment with politics and what it means to him to have arrived.