Breakdown of Conflict Transmission 129 in the previous protest? We’ll come and protest with you, but on one condition: that you come and protest with us on the southern issue.” And then after that, they faded. Abdo Naqeeb of Sheffield, who had been an organizer on behalf of the South for many years, stated that both he and his colleague Dr. Mohammed alNomani initially supported the revolution and even connected with activists in Taʻiz to give a speech through Skype. He said, “We ask them to recognize our revolution in the South, to recognize our specific goals and aims. I am not against the public in the North, but against the mafia, the corrupt people.” However, after the Islah party and Ali Mohsen sided with the uprising, he viewed the revolution as antithetical to the southern cause. When organizers in Sheffield approached him and fellow Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ) members to join them, he refused. I had a discussion with people who came to convince us to join them. I said, why didn’t you recognize our marches [from before] February 2011? You didn’t recognize our movement and our rights, our people’s aims, what they experience and how they suffer! If you don’t recognize that, how will we be together? They said you are calling to divide the country. We said that our differences are not only with Saleh but also with you. In addition to being upset that purported opportunists were trying to “jump on the bandwagon” during the revolution, as Ali put it, southerners expressed how northerners were being callous by pushing aside their grievances. Ali lamented that after he tried to raise southern grievances on the Yemen Revolution UK Facebook page, he was lambasted for being partisan. “They said it’s nothing to do with the South, that the main objective is the Yemeni revolution,” he explained. “‘Don’t bring North and South into it.’ What do you mean, don’t bring North and South into it? They’re neglecting the southern issue. It really hurts.” His Birmingham-based colleague Abdul Hamid agreed, adding, “They don’t understand us. They don’t feel our pain. I thought the revolution would change them a little bit, but it’s the same.” The dismissiveness with which some treated the southern issue at this time also led to renewed disagreements onand offline. Adel of Sheffield described his disgust at the fact that pro-revolution Yemenis at home and abroad did not demonstrate goodwill by drawing up concrete plans to address the problems in the South. He argued, They said this is a chance to get rid of Saleh and build a new Yemen when I’m still discriminated against, with no house, no job, a lot of people have been killed since the unity and since 2007. You want us to forget about that? Do you have a solution for these problems? As Abdul Hamid told me, “Everyone is opposing us, even here, since 2007. When the revolution come, people join us. They say oh, there will be change. And then they hijacked the whole thing.” Accordingly, as southern separatists in Yemen became disillusioned with the revolution, so too did secessionists in the United States and Britain. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press