The Free School University is hosting a documentary film screening tonight at 7pm in Dewey Square. The screening of “How To Start a Revolution” will be followed by commentary from the director, Ruaridh Arrow, and Jamila Raqib, of the Albert Einstein Institute.
Gene Sharp – How to Start a Revolution Teaser
HOW TO START A REVOLUTION is a portrait of how one man’s thinking has contributed to the liberation of millions of oppressed people living under some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world and how his work in direct action and civil disobedience continues to be used today to topple dictators using the sheer force of nonviolent people power.
Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gene Sharp is one of the globe’s greatest thinkers on nonviolent revolutions. His work over the last 50 years has been groundbreaking.
His seminal book, ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’ has been the standard manual for leaders of ‘colour’ revolutions around the globe – it lists 198 steps to nonviolent regime change. He has been called the ‘Machiavelli of nonviolent struggle’, and called much worse by the regimes who have fallen as a result of his work. His book is available free online and has been translated into over 40 languages.
His methods have been used in democratic struggles in the Balkans, throughout Eastern Europe in Georgia, the Ukraine, in Indonesia, Burma and Iran. In 2009 the Iranian government charged protesters with following Gene Sharp’s tactics; the Tehran Times reported: According to the indictment a number of the accused “confessed that the post-election unrest was preplanned and the plan was following the timetable of the velvet revolution to the extent that over 100 stages of the 198 steps of Gene Sharp were implemented in the foiled velvet revolution.” (http://howtostartarevolutionfilm.com)