136 Coming Out and Coming Together 4.3 conclusion As the Arab Spring took the world by surprise and the region by storm in early 2011, the moment that many political exiles had been waiting for arrived. In the Libyan case, the sudden eruption of a nationwide revolt at home produced the quotidian disruptions necessary for activists abroad to back the revolution and justify armed resistance against the Gaddafi regime. These disruptions enabled fearful regime opponents and revolution sympathizers to overcome the deterrent effects of transnational repression and use their voices publicly on behalf of the uprising. As regime opponents were relatively united under the banner of revolution led by a singular cadre, this correspondingly unified the revolution-supporting diaspora around a common cause. The emergence of the Syrian uprising, on the other hand, was far more piecemeal than in the Libyan case. As a result, the quotidian disruptions necessary for Syrians to overcome the deterrent effects of transnational repression occurred gradually over time. The revolution in Syria also succumbed to power struggles and infighting between groups. This dynamic was transmitted to the diaspora through a resurgence of conflict transmission. As a result, just as Syrians began to come out against the Assad regime as never before, so too did revolutionary movements fall victim to infighting over who should lead and represent the opposition. Suspicions over Muslim Brotherhood “agendas” at home and abroad were widespread, and Kurdish separatists withdrew their support after becoming marginalized within the Arab-dominant opposition. These dynamics exacerbated long-standing fault lines between ethnic and religious groups, as well as between older and younger generations, and factionalized the anti-regime diaspora. Yemenis in the diaspora did not report the same degree of fear of the regime as their Libyan and Syrian counterparts. They came out against Saleh en masse after the Friday of Dignity Massacre because regime violence stoked a sense of outrage and urgency to use voice against the regime. Just as in the Syrian case, however, the opposition at home and abroad splintered along preexisting fault lines. Many southerners came to feel betrayed by what they perceived as northern co-optation of the movement, and independent activists also perceived that elite elements were working to co-opt the revolution on behalf of existing political parties and Islamist factions. As a result, the Yemeni revolution produced a heightened degree of both mobilization and factionalism in the diaspora, and as in the Syrian case, activists’ efforts were plagued by mistrust, in-fighting, and frustration. Nevertheless, while diaspora mobilization was far from a seamless process, the activist groups that emerged did far more than hold demonstrations in their free time or post headlines from their laptops. Beyond coming out and coming together to hold lawful demonstrations on the streets of London or https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press