Dr. Gene Sharp: Overthrowing Tyrants
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Dr. Gene Sharp is the author of various books, including The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973), Gandhi as a Political Strategist, Social Power and Political Freedom, Making Europe Unconquerable, Civilian-Based Defense, and From Dictatorship to Democracy. His most recent book is Waging Nonviolent Struggle: Twentieth Century Practice and Twenty-First Century Potential. His writings have been published in more than thirty languages.
He is the senior scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution, he founded the Institution in 1983 and its mission is “to advance the worldwide study and strategic use of nonviolent action in conflict.” According to a profile in Thursday’s New York Times, activists around the world have consulted his 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, “From Dictatorship to Democracy.”
Gene Sharp is the world’s foremost expert on non-violent revolution. His books are slipped across borders and hidden from secret policemen all over the world. He is being credited with the strategy behind the toppling of the Egyptian government.
An example of his strategies
* Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want
* Overcome fear by small acts of resistance
* Use colors and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance
* Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements
* Use non-violent “weapons”
* Identify the dictatorship’s pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each
* Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement
* Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence.
His central message is that the power of dictatorships comes from the willing obedience of the people they govern – and that if the people can develop techniques of withholding their consent, a regime will crumble.
For decades now, people living under authoritarian regimes have made a pilgrimage to Gene Sharp for advice. His writing has helped millions of people around the world achieve their freedom without violence. “As soon as you choose to fight with violence you’re choosing to fight against your opponents best weapons and you have to be smarter than that,” he insists.
“People might be a little surprised when they come here, I don’t tell them what to do. They’ve got to learn how this non-violent struggle works so they can do it for themselves.”
The 83 year-old Sharp holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Ohio State University and a D.Phil. in political theory from Oxford University. He is also Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. For nearly thirty years he held a research appointment at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs.
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What a wise person.
That book is going to be my next acquisition, words that very well may have importance here as well as in Egypt.
The rules have changed along with the world. We are seeing history being made.
Thanks, Holte.
Krell, here is the site I ordered mine from.
http://www.quakerbooks.org/waging_nonviolent_struggle.php
Thanks guys, the writer who penned the mother article has also made of film about him, it comes out this spring.
Hey baggers, see how most people are able to deal with things using the 1st amendment like here in the USA, and in other countries demanding rights to assemble peacefully, mostly without violence. Tell you what, I’ll bet on more mileage out of the first amendment, than the one you people like to use when things don’t go your way, that second one or threats of it.
Yours truly
tree hugging, chai drinking, gay loving, pothead DFH
Ok now I got my slangwhanging out of the way(thanks Prof Smug bastard) Holte, thanks for the read and the getting of a new book to boot. Waging non Violent struggle to be precise. Yeah I read some reviews and it looks like something I will really enjoy reading and as an active activist, ah maght eben find teh lernin inside the book 😉 Quakerbooks has it, for under 20 bucks, if anyone is interested.
There is a photo making its way around the toobs for the last couple days. Guy protesting in Egypt and his sign reads Egypt stands with Wisconsin workers, one world one pain. It is a great picture and sentiment, because you know the powers that be are not liking the peons fighting back. Here he is, doing his thing to overthrow injustice in his own country and still has time to make it about another group of people.
With all the social networking making the world a smaller place, those powers that be are finding out, we may all live in different places, but we stand with each other for rights.
Yes, and Sharp’s strategy makes sense for America as well, since the military and the police here have state-of-the-art weapons and weapons systems. Now to IMPLEMENT it…
Now to IMPLEMENT it… There needs to be a great will to bring about change. There is a will to keep the status quo . . .
Great post, Holte. An excellent blueprint for many and varied applications … globally!
. . . maybe even Wisconsin . . . ?