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Voice for Rebellion and Relief
respondent recalled, and Libyans abroad took up the call, becoming a fullspectrum auxiliary force for rebellion and relief as broadcasters, representatives, brokers, remitters, and volunteers on the front lines for the duration of the
revolution, as Table 5.2 illustrates. Activists also frequently reported swapping
indirect, lower-risk forms of support (like broadcasting) for direct, higher-risk
ones (like volunteering on the front lines) over time. All respondents were keen
to point out that the true sacrifices were those of their allies at home.
Nevertheless, by undertaking a full-spectrum intervention consistently over
time, Libyan diaspora activists from both the United States and Britain became
an important transnational source of support from the first hours of the riots in
Benghazi through the liberation of Tripoli in August 2011. As one Libyan
American activist attested, “Not a single thing was left undone by Libyans
abroad.”
In contrast, Syrian interventions were far more variable by host-country and
changed significantly for both diaspora groups over the course of the revolution
and internationalized civil war. Although Syrian activists initially undertook
the same repertoire as their Libyan counterparts to bolster a badly outgunned
insurgency and escalating humanitarian emergency, their roles differed in two
main ways. First, their collective interventions differed by host-country in that
Syrian activists in the United States played an elevated role as representatives
who lobbied consistently over time, while their British counterparts rarely
reported doing so. Second, Syrian activists in both the United States and
Britain faced significant challenges in sustaining their respective repertoires as
revolution wore on. Both sets of respondents overwhelmingly reported a steep
decline in their broadcasting, representing, brokering, remitting, and volunteer
work by 2014. Although some efforts continued – and still do today at the time
of this writing – Syrians’ voice for regime change was largely muted by the time
I conducted interviews in 2014.
As in the Libyan and Syrian cases, Yemeni activism in the United States and
Britain also marked an unprecedented shift in the voice and visibility of their
members for liberal change at home. However, efforts to broker, remit, and
volunteer on the front lines were not a part of the diaspora activists’ collective
tactics. Instead, Yemeni activism focused primarily on broadcasting and representing the independent youth movement from their places of residence. Thus,
in contrast to the full-scale interventions of Libyans, the repertoires of Yemeni
movements in both host-countries remained selective over time.
Of course, it is important to note that the Yemeni revolution had different
needs than the Libyan and Syrian insurgency. Yemenis, having successfully
launched a durable, peaceful, popular uprising, did not rely on activists abroad
to augment a war effort or a government-in-waiting. Yet, it was also the case
that the Yemeni revolution was hugely under-resourced. For example, the
Sanaʻa field hospital, which I visited during a trip to Yemen in 2012, was little
more than a shed – the size of a walk-in closet with the sparest of equipment.
The protest encampment in Taʻiz also faced violence by regime forces and arson
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press
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