How to Start a Revolution (2011) - full transcript

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 we're effective.

It means we're relevant.

This is the story of the power

of people to change their world,

the modern revolution,

and the man behind it all.

Gene Sharp's 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, that's 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 don't know quite how it's 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.

That's 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 didn't 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 don't 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 don't know how I got his address.

I said: “Well, I'm about to do

such and such and go to prison,

but by the way I've written

this book on Gandhi

three quite different

cases from each other

about Gandhi's using nonviolent

struggle for a greater freedom

through just nonviolent means.”

And he wrote back that he was very

much hoped, but couldn't 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 government's 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 that's 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 o'clock 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 weren't 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 we're 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.

That's 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

Sharp's 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.

I was talking to one

of the Karen Commandos

and he says: “Where in the hell

has this information been?

We've been fighting and

killing people for 20 years.

How come we didn't know this?”.

Some of the Burmese came

up to him and asked

if he would write something

for the Burmese on

how to move from a

dictatorship to a democracy.

That's the origin of why

the book was written:

The Burmese.

I couldn't write about Burma honestly,

because I didn't know Burma well,

and he said not to write about something

you don't know anything about,

so I had to write generically.

If there was a movement that wanted

to bring a dictatorship to an end,

how could they do it?

And so I wrote those theories,

and they were serialized there,

and published in English and in Burmese,

and I thought that was it.

In 1989, Gene traveled

to China at the height

of the demonstrations

in Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Square, 1989.

It would shape his views about the

importance of planning and strategy.

Lesson 1: Plan a Strategy.

I'd gone to Beijing

after the Tiananmen Square

protests were well underway.

That whole event, which it should be

remembered, was not just in Beijing

but reportedly in 350

other cities of China,

similar protests were going on.

But they were not planned.

They were not prepared.

There was no strategic decision.

There was no advanced

decision how long you

stay in the square and when you leave.

The students had no plan.

They were improvising

all the way through,

and later on we know

that many of those

Chinese people who were

out on the streets,

in another day, were shot and killed.

The attitude that you simply improvise

and improvisation will bring you

greater success is nonsense.

Exactly the opposite.

That if you don't know

what you're doing,

you're likely to get into big trouble.

Serbia, 2000.

The government of Slobodan

Milosevic, in Serbia,

presided over years of crimes against

humanity and brutal internal repression.

The regime fueled the

creation of new democracy

groups in the country

fighting, for his removal.

I went to Budapest at the request of the

International Republican Institute,

which was providing support to

the Serbian Opposition Movement,

and one particular part of that

opposition movement was Otpor.

That's a Serbian word for resistance.

He's a retired colonel, and he has

this type of military approach,

and the way he speaks is

really something that

creates a strange impression

with a bunch of student leaders.

We talked for a while, and I said:

“Well, there's something missing here.

We haven't talked about who's

leader of this organization.

Who is the leader?”.

And then one guy said: “We

don't have a leader.”

And I said: “Well, wait a minute guys.

I did not

fall off the turnip

truck coming over here.

Somebody has to lead

an organization that

has mobilized the entire

Serbian society.”

So we spent probably one hour

fooling him about some stuff,

and the reason for this

was that we were not

very comfortable about

giving the details

about the organization to the foreigner.

And then they explained to me,

why there's no quote “leader”.

To keep it away from the government. The

government doesn't know who's in charge.

And I later found out I was

talking to the leader,

Srdja Popovic.

Belgrade

Bob began teaching Gene Sharp's lessons

to the new Serbian revolutionaries.

When Bob Helvey gave us

the Gene Sharp's politics

of nonviolent action,

we were quite amazed.

Partly I was ashamed that I didn't

know about such a book before,

even if there was a translation of From

Dictatorship to Democracy in Serbian,

but I had never seen it.

And seeing the knowledge

of how power operates,

and pillars of the support operates,

and all this stuff, we needed to learn

the hard way throughout our experience

written systematically on one place

was quite an amazing thing.

One of Otpor's first

tasks was to create a

symbol of resistance to

help unify the people.

It's obvious that we are a majority.

If we can just recognize all of

those who are against Milosevic

by saluting each other with a fist, he

would probably be over

within a few years.

Lesson 2: Overcome "Atomisation"

“Atomisation” is

when a regime attempts to make

every individual in this society

an isolated unit.

It's one of the main ways

that took over their

systems, seek to control

their populations,

make them all fear each other, fearing

to speak out and to act together,

never telling your

neighbor or even sometimes

a family member what you really think.

By seeing the example

of the demonstration

and bravery by other people:

Now it's "we", now it's "we", and we can

do something that I alone could not.

During the 96-97, we were walking

day after day after day,

and the police was walking streets,

and our numbers would start falling

because it was obviously

too boring for the

people to demonstrate every

day in harsh winter.

So we said: “Okay, why

won't we go home and

try to make noise from our balconies.”

We were doing it from 7:30 until 8:00

pm, as a response to the state TV news.

That was the answer...

we don't watch your crap.

We do our own thing.

From the pots and pans

to doing the stickers,

so the stickers can be

doing in every building,

and also the things like,

“Will you go and prosecute the

kids for wearing Otpor t-shirts

when there is not one single law which

bans wearing anything on a t-shirt?”.

So for the policemen,

getting inside high schools

and arresting high school kids only

because they were wearing the t-shirt,

and then going home and

talking to their wife

whose friend was complaining

because her son was arrested.

Getting a dialogue of your kids

was coming now from his school

where nobody wants to spend

time with him or her

because their father is now beating

kids from my neighborhood.

And now, this systemic

oppression doesn't work.

Lesson 3: Pillars of Support.

These pillars are holding

up the government,

like my fingers are

holding up this book,

and I developed a strategy to

undermine each of those pillars:

The police,

the [???], the religious

institutions, the workers,

whatever, every organization.

And as they weaken and start to

collapse, the government will collapse

when those pillars are broken.

Ideally we want those

pillars not destroyed,

but transferred over to

the democratic movement.

If you want these pillars to shift

sides, you need to co-opt people.

It's exactly what Otpor has done.

We were telling the police that we

are both victims of the same system.

There is no reason to have war

between victims and victims.

One of the victims wear blue uniforms,

Other victims wear blue jeans,

but there is no reason

for this conflict.

And this worked, really worked.

And it worked in Georgia.

It worked in Ukraine.

It worked in many other

places in the world.

This is the way you do.

You go and co-opt from

this course of pillars.

You don't throw stones at the police.

Lesson 4: Resist Violence.

The many people in conflict situations

that would like to use violence,

but their opponents really have more

military weapons and

weapons of violence,

usually physical weapons,

than the potential resistors have,

the resistors choose to

fight with violence.

Their opponent has all

the advantages in that

situation because you're

choosing to fight

with your opponent's best weapons.

But you can choose to fight

with a totally different

kind of weapon in these

nonviolent forms,

which are much more difficult

for the opponent to counteract.

Big concentration tactics are

very difficult to control.

You have 20,000 peaceful demonstrators

and one idiot breaking out a window.

These people got all the media.

So this is the message which can

efficiently undermine your movement.

You would go on a march and there is a

risk of the people getting arrested,

so what would you normally do?

Instead of putting the

big guys in front,

you will put the girls in front,

you will put the grandmas in front,

you will put the military

veterans in front.

So the police is now faced

with the friendly faces.

And these people are actually carrying

the flowers and the banners and smiling,

so you make the situation

less threatening,

so you make the possibility of

a violent outcome very small.

October the 5th should be seen in the

context of successful strategy,

and that was not the day like many

spectators or media, like CNN.

They just see it as a

big bunch of people,

revolution, boom, and it's all over.

It was, first of all, ten years

of attempts and failures,

and two years of resistance of

Otpor, five different campaigns,

and we were setting the

victory on the elections.

Serbian National Election

September 2000.

In September 2000, Serbia

went to the polls.

But Otpor expected Milosevic

would fix the election.

We knew that Milosevic will lose,

and we knew that he will not

accept the fact that he has lost.

So around 3 pm, you hear like two

to 300,000 people on the square,

and there was a nonviolent takeover

of the physically of this building.

And this is where the people who broke

into the building, on October the 5th,

found many leaflets

pre-marked for Milosevic.

So this is where, actually

the physical cheat was

taking place on the second

floor of this building.

It was more like a symbolic takeover,

because what was the real takeover was

that Milosevic lost power that day,

because police disobeyed,

because he ordered the

military to get through

the barracks after 3

pm and they disobeyed.

This is where he lost the power.

What you are looking at on the TV and

physical overtaking of the building,

was just a symbol of him,

losing authority that day.

I think what we learned

from Bob and what comes

and derives from Gene Sharp

thinking and writing,

influenced the way we think,

and also made our struggle more

efficient in a very important point

when we were preparing for

a resistive struggle.

And yes, I think what Bob and Gene are

doing are precious around the world,

and we strongly believe

that the nonviolent

revolutions cannot be

exported or imported,

but the knowledge on how to successfully

implement nonviolent struggle

can and is transferred from one

group to another as we speak.

Well, I felt good that here was a

revolution that occurred non-violently.

There was no violence on the part

of the democratic opposition,

and it shows that what Gene was talking

a bout year after year after year,

There are realistic alternatives

to violent conflict.

Well, I mean, after Serbia,

we were working with

Georgians and Ukrainians and

Lebanese and Maldivians

and Iranians and

Zimbabweans and Colombians

and Guatemalans and West Papuans

and the groups from places in the world

I couldn't literally find on a map.

Georgia, 2003.

Then, from Serbia, the

news spread to Georgia,

which was under a very

repressive regime,

and then to Ukraine, which again had

problems, and it spread there,

and then to a series of

other countries in the

southern tier of the

former Soviet Union.

Ukraine, 2004.

Vlodymyr Viatrovich was a leader

of Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

He used Gene's book to

convince activists that

there was a powerful

alternative to violence.

The protester community had

various schools of thought.

In particular, there were people

ready to use some kind of force.

The book in question

is Gene sharp's book, From

Dictatorship to Democracy.

The central concept of that book,

fighting dictators non-violently,

was very pertinent for us.

That was the idea that pretty

much shaped the protest

that led to the Orange

Revolution of 2004.

We're united, we're many...

I think that tens of thousands

of people, no more,

ever received Sharp's ideas

directly from his book.

But the ideas themselves,

no longer linked to Gene Sharp,

reached hundreds of thousands of

people in the Orange Revolution.

We're united, we're many,

we won't be conquered!

So if we're to speak of his ideas,

even if the people didn't

know they were Sharp's,

they were still widespread

and influential.

Yushchenko! Yushchenko!

On the top floor of Gene's

home is his orchid house,

a refuge from the work below.

They take quite a bit of work.

They became very important because

it was something I could treat,

as they needed to be treated,

and not expecting miracles,

but if you don't treat

orchids right or anything

else in life, then it's

not going to thrive.

- How did it feel watching

your work spread?

- Oh, that spread was really quite

remarkable, I always think.

I'm still amazed.

I'm still amazed.

To have this piece that I

regarded as very introductory,

I think it's maybe 70 or 80 pages,

to take off like that

was a confirmation

that the analysis was

more or less accurate.

It didn't spread because

of good propaganda,

or some sales pitch.

It spread because

people found it usable.

They found it important.

The books are there.

The literature is there.

It's online. It's in people's homes

and people's hard-drives,

and it's being disseminated

at a level where

that cannot stop, and

it cannot be stopped.

People go to great lengths

to discredit this work,

and there was one case where President

Chavez had referred to our staff as

“the bunch of gringos

at the Albert Einstein

Institution don't

understand Venezuela,”

and I thought: “Well,

it's true that we may not

fully understand the

situation in Venezuela.

It's probably quite complex,

but I'm not a gringo.”

Gene Sharp, George Bush,

and the ideologues of this

soft coup with a slow fuse…

Gentlemen, you can forget this

plan of yours in Venezuela.

In 2008, the Iranian government

broadcast a propaganda video

accusing Gene of working for the CIA.

The White House,

Washington D.C.

Gene Sharp, the theoretician

of civil disobedience

and velvet revolutions,

who has published treatises

on this subject.

He is one of the CIA agents

in charge of America's

infiltration of other countries.

Well, you've seen our office.

You can see how well funded we are.

In a way, I was impressed

that we were on the radar,

that they had Gene Sharp sitting at the

White House, and in a way, I thought

I wish those in the White

House would listen to

us, I wish they would

request a meeting with us,

but they don't.

We sit here.

We operate out of our Tourem office.

We have no connection

with the White House.

It just didn't happen.

We don't do that.

We are absolutely not a

CIA front organization,

and it's really ironic because

we see this charge in the press

and among various groups quite often,

and we always wonder, where

is this coming from?

After the Iranian elections in 2009,

opposition groups declared

the result was a fix.

Iran, 2009.

There are thousands upon

thousands of people

streaming down through

the main boulevard,

all heading in the same direction.

It's quite something.

They're waving green flags.

People are hanging out of cars

giving the 'V' for victory sign.

I was not sure people would

turn up given the warning,

and I'm wrong.

Thousands of protesters exploded

onto the streets of Tehran.

The government response was brutal.

During the uprising, a young

Iranian student, Neda

Agha-Soltan, was shot

by a government sniper.

Her image would become a

rallying call for the opposition.

Lesson 5: Political Ju-Jitsu.

When people are slaughtered,

when they are beaten,

this produces a process

I call 'Political Ju -Jitsu, '

in which the opponent's

supposed strength

is used to undermine the opponent

by alienating more people

from supporting that regime,

mobilizing more people into

the act of resistance.

It's a kind of backlash effect.

If the regime is so

brutal, and instead of

intimidating people which

the regime intends,

it causes other population

groups and institutions

to withdraw their cooperation

and their obedience

and that loss of power and control that

more people are joining the resistance.

Iason Athanasiadis was

arrested by Iranian

Intelligence while reporting

the Green uprising.

When I went to see the Chief Prosecutor

on the second day that I was in prison,

he looked at me when I took off my

blindfold, sitting in his office,

and he said: “Do you

know why you're here?”.

And I said: “No, I mean, I've no idea.

I've just been arrested two nights ago”,

and he said: “Well, there's a very

serious accusation against you.”

And I said: “What is that?” And he

said: “Are you sure you don't know?"

"Espionage."

The interrogator kind of

patted his laptop and said:

“You know, this laptop contains

a Persian language translation

of Gene Sharp's "From

Dictatorship To Democracy"

which is a handbook

for insurrectionists,

and it gives them several

dozen easy ways by which,

if they only follow these ways,

they can overthrow a government

a legitimate government,

any kind of government.

And I have read this book,

and so have my colleagues."

When the organizers of the

uprising were arrested,

they were charged with using over

100 of Gene Sharp's 198 methods.

What this work does is

show people that they

themselves can be responsible

for their own future,

for their own liberation.

People are beginning to

liberate themselves,

They don't have to depend

on an outside power.

This is Srdja, my cat,

named after Srdja Popovic.

But they don't have to

depend on an outside power.

They can do it themselves.

And can you imagine how good

that makes a country feel?

That we did it ourselves.

And that's why it's so important that

we transfer this skill and knowledge.

There's no reason for the United

States to be occupying anybody.

We're not good at occupying anybody.

Neither was the Soviet Union

good at occupying people.

Let the people alone.

Give them the power to change their

government if they want it changed.

To be counted as a threat to a tyrant

is a matter of pride, I would say.

It means we're effective.

It means we're relevant.

It means, out of this very small office,

we produce work that threatens regimes,

and I think that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Tahrir Square, Cairo, 2011.

This was the beginning of

the Egyptian Revolution.

The uprising was spontaneous,

but Egyptian democracy

groups had been working on

the strategy for years.

Egyptian democracy group Kefaya first

visited Gene in Boston in 2006.

Five years later, former

Serbian revolutionaries

were training new groups

on the outskirts of Cairo.

Egypt's Muslim brotherhood posted

Gene's work in Arabic on their website.

When the moment came, these groups

were ready to guide the revolution.

Well, let's go live to

Tahrir Liberation Square.

We can speak to a freelance journalist

who joins us on the line now,

Ruaridh, we were hearing

about those heightened

security measures today

around Tahrir Square.

Is there a different

atmosphere here compared

with say yesterday and the day before?

Ah, yes. It's an incredible

atmosphere today.

That cross section of

Egyptian society that left

Tahrir Square yesterday

is back in force now.

They've managed to

re-energize the protesters.

There's very young children,

women, older men here.

People are singing and dancing. There

are many instruments in the square,

and it's more full here

than it has been in days.

Ahmed Maher was a leader of Egypt's

April 6th democracy group.

We waited for an incident, the spark,

that would move all the people.

There were many reasons to act,

but we were waiting for the spark.

And that was Tunisia.

Tunisia, 2011.

In fact it was...

There has always been rivalry in soccer

between Egypt and Tunisia.

So maybe we started before Tunisia

but Tunisia beat us and started

the revolution, so why not us?

People saw on the web

"The answer is Tunisia".

Leave! Leave!

Of course there was a strong influence

from Gene Sharp's writings

articles and books.

We got them from the internet, read them

and we learned quickly

and understood the

essence of non-violence.

We also saw many documentaries

on the internet

about the experiences of

people applying non-violence.

The idea itself was very inspiring

whether it came from the

documentaries or the books.

As the peaceful protest

grew in Tahrir Square,

President Hosni Mubarak intimidated

them with weapons of war.

Our experience may be

slightly different to Otpor.

Before the revolution, they won the

army and police over to their side.

It was different with us.

We had a very big battle with the police

and the army was always neutral

but eventually intervened on our side.

The experience is different to an extent

between us and Otpor in Serbia.

Even after violent

clashes with police, the

revolutionary leaders restored

nonviolent discipline

in the face of overwhelming force.

The protesters faced brutal attacks

from police and security forces,

but they held their ground.

Of course, technology played a big role

in faster communication,

in delivering the message to the

people and mobilizing them.

Also, technology played a role

in the internal organization.

You have groups in various governments

and need to be in constant

contact with them

so instead of holding a

meeting every fortnight

you can, through a secret

group on Facebook,

via conference on yahoo,

Skype or Abouttalk

via any program, constantly communicate.

All those helped so much

in spreading ideas.

As Muslims and Christians guarded

each other while they prayed,

the leaders of the

revolution were persuading

the army to support the protesters.

I believe the army eventually helped us

because the army is of the people.

The army conscripts

come from the people,

and the army has a big patriotic role.

The police may have fixed

elections, protected the corrupt,

they've been involved for many years

and were protecting their

interests and existence.

I was returning to Tahrir Square,

just entering the square through

the permanent search gate.

There was a cafe which

had the TV on very loud.

In the name of God the Merciful.

Citizens,

in these difficult circumstances

that the country is going through.

President Mohamed Hosni

Mubarak has decided

to step down as President

of the Republic.

It took him a while to step down.

I just went crazy when

I heard the speech.

I started crying, thinking that at last

the dream we've had for years

and endured so much for

has come true.

It was a really tough moment.

I then ran screaming into the square.

Everyone was just crying, screaming,

laughing, dancing, singing...

It was a historic moment.

I just couldn't believe it.

For a few days I wondered

if it was possible.

But somebody knew what they were doing,

and we don't need anyone claiming

credit for us or me or anyone,

if it's not deserved and

if it's not documented.

Syria, 2011.

Massacre in Juma, 15 so far killed.

Ausama Monajed is a

communications expert and

one of the leaders of

the Syrian Uprising.

This is a video of a kid

that'd been shot at.

One boy was shouting: “My

brother, my brother!”.

He co-ordinates a network of secret

cameras all over the country.

It's just a basic HD camera

linked to a satellite modem,

and we upload it on streaming websites

where we can get the live feed,

and we managed to get

this Al Jazeera today.

Gene Sharp's tactics

and theories are being

practiced on the streets

of Syria as we speak now.

What we did is promote these

tactics and explain them

to people through the

Facebook pages that we have

and also the YouTube channels.

This is how they're applied,

from putting flowers on the spots

where fallen heroes

fell and frustrations

from the campaign while you marched,

from cleaning streets and

making it nicer and better

because we can do something

even better than the

regime can do in terms

of services, so yeah.

From Dictatorship To Democracy gives

you the inspiration, the assurances

that this could really be achieved

and this can really happen.

In Summer 2011, after a brutal

onslaught by the Syrian military,

Ausama traveled to Boston to meet Gene.

- When were you last here?

- I can't remember exactly.

Was it 2007 or 2006?

Yeah, years ago,

when it was only a few

people thinking about

nonviolent resistance

scenario in Syria,

and only quite a few believed this can

really happen in a country like Syria.

Ok. All set.

- Gene.

- Hello.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Hi, good to see you again.

Good to see you. Good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you too.

How are you doing?

- Not too bad.

- I'm happy to see you.

It was so good you have

time in your schedule to

come to say, “Hello.”

- Well, the pleasure is mine.

I was really delighted, and I can

tell you there's a lot to talk about.

- This is new territory for us.

- Yeah.

- We've never been there personally. The

cases we've studied don't exactly match.

He's so humble and down to earth to a

limit that you feel how amazing this is,

like all these great

writings coming from

a very tiny little

office in Old Boston.

It's rather interesting.

Maybe there's one thing

that's been “learned”

in quotation mark, may

become Tunisia and Egypt

which I think is a

mistake, a major mistake.

And that is that the existing

ruler has to resign.

He doesn't have to resign.

You take all the supports from

out from under him, he falls,

no matter what he wants to do.

This is the distinction in the

analyses between nonviolent coercion,

in which he has to resign

but he's forced into it,

and disintegration, when the

regime simply falls apart.

There's nobody left with

enough power to resign.

If Einstein was the genius in physics,

so Gene Sharp is the genius in freedoms,

and how to achieve freedoms.

Lesson 6: Don't Give Up

I feel good in a way

that we're spreading the

word, and if people

follow Gene's advice

on how to think about waging

an unbalanced struggle,

sooner or later they'll win.

See, the advantage that

we have using this form

of struggle, the people

against the tyrant.

As long as we don't

surrender, we never lose,

and that's a key.

As long as you haven't given

up, you haven't lost.

I think, in the long term,

Gene Sharp will be a household name.

I think his books will be in

every library in the world,

and they will be translated

into most languages.

Can we survive until then?

Can this institution survive until then?

Well, we certainly hope so.

Politically significant

nonviolent action has

occurred in at least the

following countries:

Guatemala, Australia, Thailand,

Burma, China, Japan, …

…Georgia, Iran, Kurdistan, Russia,

Serbia, Ukraine, Venezuela,

Vietnam, Zimbabwe,

and there's bound to be a couple more.

I think there's the father-daughter

relationship developing there.

They can sit down and talk,

and they're on the same wavelength.

She protects him,

and I think she loves him as a

daughter who loves a father.

Gene Sharp is someone who is,

of course, my personal mentor,

but I think he has served as that

role for multitudes of people.

He is someone who has dedicated his life

to providing the means

by which oppressed

people can self-reliantly

gain liberation,

and that is something which I

believe has changed the world

and will continue to do

so in dramatic ways,

It's really personal stuff.

Sometimes people ask

me what I really want.

Do I have a dream?

And I do.

I dream that the oppressed

people of the world

will be able to learn from

the available records

and new experiences that this

type of nonviolent struggle

can be used to liberate

all oppression and

replace military and

violent conflicts,

so that you won't have to carry on

struggles against terrorism anymore

because the people who might

have become terrorists

have instead chosen

to use this kind of

struggle to help out

the oppressed people.

This can change the local

systems throughout the world.

My name is Gene Sharp,

and that is my dream.