How to Start a Revolution
1
In 2011, the Arab Spring Revolutions
swept across the Middle East;
from Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain, and Syria.
For more than 50 years, a quiet American scholar
has been helping people
bring down their dictators.
His tactics of nonviolent resistance have been used
in revolutions from Serbia to Ukraine and Iran.
To be counted as a threat to a tyrant
is a matter of pride, I would say.
It means were effective.
It means were relevant.
This is the story of the power
of people to change their world,
the modern revolution,
and the man behind it all.
Gene Sharps tactics and theories are being
practiced on the streets of Syria as we speak now.
My name is Gene Sharp,
and this is the work I do.
How To Start A Revolution
Boston, Massachusetts
- What do you do?
How would you describe your work?
- Oh, thats always a problem,
describing my work.
Primarily, I try to understand
the nature and potential of
nonviolent forms of struggle
to undermine dictatorships.
This is a technique of combat.
It is a substitute for war,
and other violence.
His handbook to revolution
From Dictatorship to Democracy
has been smuggled across borders and
downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
We dont know quite how its read,
but it certainly did into 30 some
languages in different parts of the world,
on all continents except Antarctica.
The hallmarks of Gene Sharp's work can be
seen in revolutions all over the world.
Colors and symbols
signs in English
civil disobedience
and commitment to nonviolent action
Gene's books contain a list of 198
nonviolent methods of resistance.
Oh, the famous 198 methods.
There seems to have been
an extraordinary response.
Thats simply the 198 specific methods.
These specific forms of
abstract are economic boycott,
are civil disobedience,
are protests.
Exactly the counterpart of military,
different kinds of military guns or bombs,
any military struggle.
Unless they have something
instead of violence and war,
they will go back with violence and war
every time.
In 1983, Gene Sharp founded the
Albert Einstein Institution
to spread the knowledge
of nonviolent struggle.
For years, people living under dictatorships
have been coming here to East Boston for help.
Jamila Raqib has worked for
Gene for more than 10 years.
work at a very basic level.
I did most of my reading and learning as
soon as I started working at the institution
and I was hooked.
I didnt start out to do this.
I had a religious background that
led me to want to leave the world in a bit
of a better place and better condition
than when I came here,
and how to do that was always a problem.
Korean war, 1950-1953
In 1953, Gene was sent to jail for refusing
conscription to fight in the Korean War.
I had a two-year sentence.
I did nine months and ten days.
days as well as the month,
but I dont think that my action
there did any good whatsoever.
It was just to keep my sense of my own integrity
so I would carry on in the work that
I thought was really important.
I never met Einstein,
but I wrote to him.
I dont know how I got his address.
I said:
Well, Im about to dosuch and such and go to prison,
but by the way Ive written this book on Gandhi
three quite different cases from each other
about Gandhis using nonviolent
struggle for a greater freedom
through just nonviolent means.
And he wrote back that he was very
much hoped, but couldnt know
that he would have made the same decision I did
and he would be willing to look at the manuscript
which I had sent to him, and he did so and
wrote a very kind introduction to the book.
Oxford University
While studying at Oxford,
Gene had his Eureka moment
a new analysis of the power of
people to bring down a tyrant.
If you can identify the sources
of a governments power,
such as legitimacy,
such as popular support,
such as the institutional support,
and then you know on what that
dictatorship depends for its existence.
And since all those sources of power
are dependent upon the good will
co-operation, obedience, and
help of people and institutions,
then your job becomes fairly simple.
All you have to do is shrink that support,
and that legitimacy,
that co-operation, that obedience,
and the regime will be weakened,
and if you can take those sources far away,
the regime will fall.
- And how did you feel at that point?
- At the point, that Eureka point?
- Yeah.
- Oh, greatly relieved.
- Greatly relieved,
because thats what made it all reality.
Harvard University
While teaching his theories at Harvard, Gene was
about to meet an unlikely champion of his work
Vietnam War hero, Colonel Bob Helvey.
I first met Gene Sharp
at Harvard University.
I was an Army Senior Fellow
up there for a year,
and one day I saw a notice on the bulletin board
about a program for nonviolent sanctions
at two oclock this afternoon.
So I had nothing to do, so I went
to see who these peace necks were
and to confirm my preconceived notion
that they probably had rings
in their noses and ears
and dirty.
And so I went up there just to see them
and surprisingly they werent there.
I saw regular looking people there.
And a few minutes after we all sat down
this little short, soft-spoken gentleman
comes to the front of the room and says:
"My name is Gene Sharp
and were here today to discuss
how to seize political power
and deny it to others.
I say nonviolent struggle is armed struggle,
and we have to take back that term
from those advocates of violence
who try to justify with pretty words
that kind of combat.
Only with this type of struggle,
one fights with psychological weapons,
social weapons, economic weapons,
and political weapons,
and this is ultimately more
powerful against oppression,
injustice, and tyranny than is violence.
That got my attention.
This is the flag of the 5th Battalion,
7th United States Cavalry.
The 7th Cav, as you know,
was the Regiment of General Armstrong Custer,
who fought and died at the
battle of Little Big Horn.
Thats me in my younger days.
A full head of hair.
This is the award for the Distinguished
Service Cross, that I got in Vietnam.
Vietnam, 1968
In 1968, Bob was deployed in Vietnam.
He was decorated for bravery
during a Vietcong ambush.
But his experiences there would change his
views on the way conflicts should be waged.
I think Vietnam influenced my view about
the importance of nonviolent struggle,
and particularly the importance of getting Gene
Sharps ideas out to the rest of the world,
because we must have an alternative.
Vietnam convinced me that we need to
have an alternative to killing people.
Burma, 1992
As a US defense official in Burma,
Bob had seen the military dictatorship there,
persecute the minority Karen people.
After leaving the army,
Bob traveled back to the rebel camps to teach the
Karen Gene's lessons in nonviolent resistance.
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"How to Start a Revolution" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/how_to_start_a_revolution_10319>.
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