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.

I began learning about the

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.

In those days you counted the

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 do

such 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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