120 Coming Out and Coming Together table 4.2. Syrian groups and organizations converted to the revolution and relief during the Arab Spring (2011–14), as reported by respondents Diaspora Group/Organization Converted to the Rebellion and/or Relief? USA All4Syria Syrian American Association (Southern CA) Syrian American Club of Houston Syrian American Council Syrian American Medical Societya Syrian Center for Political & Strategic Studies Tharwa Foundation Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Britain Syrian British Medical Societya Syrian Justice & Development Party British Syrian Society (London) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Yes Yes No Yes a Denotes an exclusively charitable/service nonprofit organization. previously perceived by respondents as co-opted by regime elites, to the cause of relief. The two medical associations that operated in the US and British diasporas before the revolution – the Syrian British Medical Society and the Syrian American Medical Society, both founded in 2007 – came to channel their resources to the conflict after pro-revolution humanitarians and activists mobilized to liberate these organizations from regime loyalist control. Dr. Fadel Moghrabi of London, who came out early for the revolution, attested that he joined the Syrian British Medical Society during the revolution in 2012 “for one reason: because corruption was everywhere [in Syria], and it was reaching here as well. When the people were killed in the street, the Syrian British Medical Society was silent because half of the leaders were connected to the government.” Fadel responded by mobilizing his colleagues to threaten a mass resignation unless regime loyalists were removed from the society’s leadership. After these doctors succeeded in pressuring the organization to hold new elections, Fadel and his colleagues joined the board so that “now we can open up, we can talk freely, we can talk as a medical society looking at the scale of atrocity going on against doctors, against medical facilities, hospitals, paramedics, all those things.” The Syrian American Medical Society did the same, enabling the organization to “fulfill its potential,” according to one respondent, as a bona fide relief agency working inside and outside of Syria to save civilian lives. That said, conflict transmission over the revolution and the presence of loyalists in Syrian communities meant that not all groups followed in lockstep, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press