70 Exit from Authoritarianism the initial purpose was to first connect and mobilize the Yemeni diaspora, and in time to develop the capacity to help Yemen as well. The second group, led by a university-age youth named Maha, was called the Yemeni Youth Association. This informal group was founded in 2010 as an apolitical social club for London-based Yemenis. Maha was motivated to form this group in order to help her younger sister remain close to Yemen and to meet other Yemenis. She did so because London, in her estimation, did not have a “proper” Yemeni community at that time. Overall, while these organizations varied in size and scope, the British Yemeni diaspora nevertheless had a relatively robust domestic empowerment sector, while the American Yemeni diaspora was represented by one professional association. 2.10 conclusion After exiles and émigrés found refuge in the United States and Britain, they appeared to have gained what social movement scholars call the “political opportunities” necessary for activism and social initiatives. As Zakia of the Libyan community in Manchester told me with a wide grin and open palms, “The first time I feel that I’m free, that I’m safe, was when I came to England.” By keeping hope for change alive, reaching out to their community members, and participating in events for the national community, exiles and youth activists fostered transnational “ways of being and ways of belonging” in their home-countries (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004: 1002) and laid the groundwork for the building of social movements for the Arab Spring in 2011. However, I also find that Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni activists were hardly the “unencumbered” long-distance nationalists envisioned by Benedict Anderson (1998: 74). Despite their opportunities to voice grievances against home-country regimes from abroad, movements for regime change in Libya and Syria remained small and exile-driven, and those for Yemen remained focused on southern independence. And although these diaspora communities hosted nonpolitical empowerment and socialization initiatives for the diaspora itself, less than a handful of Yemeni groups were engaged in charitable efforts of any kind, and no Libyan or Syrian groups were established for this purpose. Despite the fact that the diaspora communities contained exiles and welleducated professionals who were eager to see democratic change and development at home, transnational activism of any kind for democratic change immediately preceding the Arab Spring was weak. What accounts for the character of voice in these anti-regime diaspora communities prior to the 2011 revolutions? Chapter 3 provides the answers, demonstrating how political conditions in the homeland cast a shadow over diaspora mobilization. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press