The Conversion of Cross-Border Networks 181 In my very naïve British kind of upbringing, this is a citable offence! You can’t have a politician lying in that way. So I spoke to the head of the whole channel [of Barada TV] and said, look, here’s the story. And he’s like, what are we going to gain from exposing this? We’ve got everything to lose and nothing to gain. The regime is going to love the fact that an opposition leader is lying. We’re just going to be seen as causing a shitstorm within the opposition, and we’re going to get hassled from that guy. So just drop the story. I said, alright. But that evening, I went home and I thought, how am I any different than the editor of those government-run state-owned newspapers in Syria? This is selfcensorship. This is not what the revolution is about, and if I can’t hold those people to account now when they’re in opposition, imagine when they’re in a position of power! They’ll probably send people to kill me in the TV station. I’m living in London and I’m subject to censorship. Where is this revolution going? So that made me say, this is completely messed up, and there’s a lot of corruption and incompetence on the part of the opposition. [After that], I decided to take a step back. People called me [for interviews] and I said, I’m not available. I turned down all these requests to go on TV. As Malik’s case illustrates, the questionable – if not outright authoritarian – practices of some opposition leaders and rebel groups led many activists to rescind their support for the official bodies and organizations representing the Syrian revolution in 2012 and beyond. 6.1.3 Yemenis’ Shortage of Cross-Border Ties to Arab Spring Participants In contrast to their Libyan and Syrian counterparts, Yemeni activists in both host-countries reported being plagued from the start by network ties shortages with Yemenis on the ground. Some southern activists did have direct ties to various wings of the southern secessionist movement, as mentioned in Chapter 2. These activists withdrew their support shortly after the onset of the revolution due to concerns about northern co-optation, as explained in Chapter 4. Accordingly, their direct ties were diverted from the revolution effort back to the secessionist cause. Furthermore, while some non-secessionist activists had relatives in the protest encampments, activist leaders with no direct kin living in major urban centers reported feeling separated from revolutionaries on the ground. Besides those Yemeni Americans who were in contact with individuals such as Atiaf and Raja (see Chapter 4), few respondents reported connecting with activists outside of their kinship networks in Yemen. Shaima, one of the most active organizers in Birmingham, recalled that having relatives in rural areas left her disconnected from revolutionary centers. say this.’ He also said that’s not his brother, it’s just a guy who has the same surname or something. Anyway, just complete bullshit. So I said okay, fine, but those guys are prepared to go on the record and say he was a regime stooge and they killed him. So what’s the response? He went crazy. At that point, I realized, this is the big story, this is the big political scandal. Because that means that guy’s a liar. He went on Al Jazeera and said my brother’s a martyr knowing that he wasn’t a martyr. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press