5 Voice for Rebellion and Relief As the Arab Spring revolutions escalated over the spring and summer of 2011, the Libyan regime battled NATO-backed insurgents in a fight to the death; the Syrian regime waged a scorched-earth campaign against rebelling cities as foreign extremists declared war on all sides; and regime loyalists attacked peaceful protesters and fought with defectors in Yemen. As each revolution became prolonged and increasingly bloody, these conflicts and ensuing humanitarian crises presented a unique opportunity for anti-regime diaspora activists to intervene in their home-countries. For newly invigorated anti-regime activists in the American and British diasporas, mobilizing for the Arab Spring did not simply involve protesting on the weekends or issuing Tweets during passing moments of distraction. Instead, they wielded voice against authoritarianism in order to fuel rebellion and relief using a common tactical repertoire, summarized in Table 5.1. Activists’ first type of intervention was to broadcast revolutionaries’ grievances and demands through protests, online, and other awareness-raising efforts. Second, they represented the cause abroad by acting as formal delegates and informal proxies of revolutionary organizations to outside audiences, especially through lobbying. Third, they brokered between insiders at home and outsiders abroad to channel attention and resources to their allies. Fourth, they remitted tangible and intangible resources homeward to rebels and civilians under siege. Fifth, activists volunteered on the front lines as humanitarian relief workers, interpreters, citizen journalists, fighters, and leaders. Many of them combined overtly political activism with relief work, since the regimes blocked aid delivery to liberated areas. Others focused primarily on relief efforts due to their unique skills, as in the case of doctors who volunteered in field hospitals. The first part of this chapter elaborates on this repertoire, demonstrating how activists worked creatively across a variety of venues to help their comrades. Because not all diaspora groups gained the capacity to fulfill their goals 138 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press