134 Coming Out and Coming Together At the same time that many southerners came to boycott revolution events and protests, pro-unity activists also reported being threatened by the efforts of elites and elders to dominate their coalitions. Activists in Liverpool, for example, commented that this dynamic was pervasive from their very first community meeting about the revolution. Former regime allies dominated the discussion, which made the youth angry. “While they’ve got a voice in the community and a valid voice,” Kamal of Liverpool explained, “they’re not representative of all of the voices, and they were trying to be dictatorial in how they did it.” As a result, the youth broke off to form their own independent group. But as Awssan of London recounted, “Even when protests were initiated successfully, the problem was people were put off because the actual youth leadership were pushed aside.” He found it highly questionable that community leaders who used to be friendly with the Yemeni ambassador were now drowning out independent youth voices during demonstrations and in the media. These dynamics created a significant “division within only five hundred or three hundred or two hundred people who would come out.” Awssan’s colleague Anter agreed, stating that it was difficult for the participants to keep working together because they all had their “own agendas.” Rabyaah, a New York–based organizer, likewise lamented that certain figures within the pro-revolution movement tried to co-opt the protests. We had some within our group who were more conservative, working for their own agenda – essentially for the Islah party. I had a big argument with one of the organizers. We wanted to keep it non-partisan. We’re not going to say Islah – we’re just an [independent] group, no Islah, no socialists. We’re not going to associate ourselves with any party. [But] they wanted to bring their Islah banners. We were at a rally and I said, you had better bring that down right now. It doesn’t represent us, it’s not what we’re here for. Here we are, already glorifying Bayt al-Ahmar [the Ahmar family] and this hizb [party]! Have we not learned anything from this revolution? Dr. Ibtisam al-Farah of Sheffield also noted that the main reason that solidarity for the revolution started to break down was because certain figures were taking advantage of the situation. She found pro-Saleh individuals who were throwing their support behind the revolution in demonstrations to be highly suspicious. That said, other respondents mentioned Dr. Ibtisam as an example of a pro-regime infiltrator, signifying prevalent mistrust between supporters of regime change. The lack of trust between participants in the protest movement was also apparent through respondents’ personal stories of being slandered as proregime spoilers. Speaking of her activist colleague Ibrahim, Safa in London recalled, “You’d get idiots in Sheffield accusing Ibrahim, who are you to lead the movement? Who are you, the London people? And you think, bloody hell, who are you?” Mazen O. of Washington, DC, attributed this infighting to elders and elites wanting to do things the “Yemeni” way, rather than the https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press