114 Coming Out and Coming Together Saif’s speech also prompted individuals like Adam, who had engaged with regime representatives through Saif’s diaspora outreach initiative in 2010, to change his mind. He explained his decision in the following way: If I’m having a debate with somebody and the person decides to slap my sister, the debate is over. I understand we want to limit as much bloodshed as possible. But when you’re fighting a rabid dog, you can’t speak with it, you can’t calm it down with words anymore. That’s it. You’ve got to put it to sleep, end it then and there. The point of return is long gone. And [the regime] passed it. Abdullah of Enough Gaddafi! also recalled the transformative effect of the revolution in unifying members’ grievances. He reported that during the initial planning meetings for the first protest in Washington, DC, on February 19, he and his fellow organizers debated, What if people bring [the] green flags [of the regime]? What if people don’t want to see posters that are cursing Gaddafi? There were all these things that we were trying to accommodate so that we’d get as many people to come out as possible. But when the nineteenth came, all of that went out the window. When people were getting killed, people could see the bravery of the youth in the street, and it was all the independence flags, down with Gaddafi! It was just unified all of a sudden. Niz, a Libyan doctor-turned-revolutionary who was living in Cardiff at the time, also noted that the regime’s use of overwhelming force was critical in legitimizing armed revolution as a necessary method of resistance. He explained, Very quickly, the realization was that Gaddafi is not Ben Ali or Mubarak. They are all brutal and corrupt dictators, but Gaddafi is a different breed, and public protests at squares – these things were not going to bring the regime down. And that the Gaddafi regime would easily kill 90 percent of the population if it meant him staying in power. They would continue to gun down protesters. And very quickly, the idea came about that this cannot be a mass peaceful protest movement. It needed to become an armed uprising. For this reason, respondents came to validate the armed struggle by the Free Libya Army (also known as the National Liberation Army) and to back the NTC. Respondents overwhelmingly reported experiencing a newfound sense of community that brought exiles, refugees, non-activist immigrants, migrants, and even some formerly pro-regime individuals together for the same cause. As Abdo G. of Manchester recalled, “It unified the Libyan community. Because before February 17, the Libyan community in Manchester was in silence. There wasn’t a community.” But after the onset of the revolution, he exclaimed, “People [were meeting] new people. My own brother met his future wife at one of these events!” This sentiment was echoed by activists based in the United States as well. As Khaled recalled, the first Washington, DC, protest on February 19 was https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press