100 Coming Out and Coming Together This sea change in respondents’ orientations toward risk and a new obligation to fellow nationals was both a strategy of resistance and an expression of newfound empowerment. As Mahmoud, a lifelong activist who had been shot by regime agents in London in 1984, stated, “The mask came off. It became [about] facing them eye to eye.” As the regime was put on the defensive in Libya, the third factor prompting participants to come out was the regime’s relatively weak response to dissent in the diaspora and the rapid collapse of its outposts and informant base. Initially, activists expected a significant counter-mobilization effort because of the heavy-handed tactics used in the past. As Dina of California explained, some people refrained from joining the diaspora’s first anti-regime protests because “they thought that others were going to report back to the regime, take pictures, and take down names and send them back to Libya. So people were still afraid at first.” Osama, an organizer of the first demonstration held on February 19 in Washington, DC, recalled that they made plans for “security because [we] had an expectation that Gaddafi would send his people” to confront them and instigate a fight to discredit pro-revolution demonstrators. But while the presence of pro-Gaddafi demonstrators “shook up” those who traveled periodically to Libya, as a participant named Manal recalled, these efforts came to be perceived as an empty “scare tactic.” Mohamed of London also attested that the students who were initially coerced into attending pro-regime protests rapidly defected to the revolution side, and the throngs of pro-Gaddafi supporters that many expected to materialize never did. The regime’s inability to deter dissent through threats and counterdemonstrations further empowered activists to confront the institutions and agents that had long terrorized them. Tamim, co-founder of the Libyan Emergency Task Force, attested that the Washington, DC-area community spoke out to harass and shame the Libyan ambassador, Ali Aujali, after he refused to side with the revolution in an interview on CNN. After Aujali officially resigned from his post on February 22, protesters entered the DC mission, which was still under the regime’s jurisdiction, and ripped down pictures of Gaddafi, shouting, “Is this a free country or is this Libya?” (Fisher 2011). Exhilarated by this previously unthinkable showing of dissent, participant Rihab recalled that it was about “finally being able to do something and [making] a statement on behalf of the martyrs.” A similar incursion occurred in London on March 16 when demonstrators stormed the embassy and raised the revolutionary flag. Ten of my respondents reported guarding their identities beyond the first days of the revolution because their family members were trapped in Tripoli or because they were corresponding directly with rebels on the ground.3 As Dina from California attested, 3 Six Libyan respondents joined the insurgency in Libya during the first week of the revolution. I treat anonymous mobilization in war as distinct from the guarded advocacy approach adopted by Syrians in the diaspora because of the obvious differences in risk. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press