Intro: Mainstream media (even BBC) are treating the roiling protest in the middle East as if they, like Topsy jumped out of the head of Zeus. As if the people just got to a boiling point. As if there is a natural democrat in all of us that comes through at salient moments especially with the internet available to reflect that surging desire.
Well no, It probably wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been Facebook (thank you, Mark Zuckerman) But it would never have happened if there had not been a model of strategic action, a playbook, that students, in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, young men, educated, but despairing but searching, would not have found Gene Sharp, “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.”
How Egypt happened: Gene Sharp and Optor and years of organizing
Mainstream media (even BBC) are treating the roiling protest in the middle East as if they, like Topsy jumped out of the head of Zeus. As if the people just got to a boiling point. As if there is a natural democrat in all of us that comes through at salient moments especially with the internet available to reflect that surging desire.
Well no, It probably wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been Facebook (thank you, Mark Zuckerman) But it would never have happened if there had not been a model of strategic action, a playbook, that students, in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, young men, educated, but despairing but searching, would not have found Gene Sharp, “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.”
This stuff information is not new. In 2008 Philip Shiskin wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about Gene Sharp and his impact on protest movements in Serbia, the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgistan. The article mentions the fact that Sharp's 1993 guide to unseating despots “From dictatorship to Democracy has been translated into more than 28 language and used by opposition activist also in Zimbabuwe Burma, Russia, Venezula and Iran. The Iranian government has run a campaign against Sharp as a CIA infiltrator. The article includes cloak and dagger stuff (sneaking Sharp, a very old man) into the jungles of Burma to teach young opposition activists. But it also reflects an underground operating just under radar of pro-democracy organizing in places you would never have thought of. Like Egypt.
This is the WSJ article link http://online.wsj.com/...
but you can also access it (since my linking skills suck despite my lingering on this site since 2006) through Ben Smith’s article on Politico headlined “The most influential figure you’ve never heard of.”
There are two New York Times articles discussing the Gene Sharp and organizing the Tunisian protests that begins: As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: “Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.” which is just the beginning for practical advice."
After more than a week of unrest, anti-Mubarak protesters clashed with supporters of the president for control of Tahrir Square. When confronting the police, the protesters wore armor made of cardboard and Pepsi bottles.
The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world — a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades.
They fused their secular expertise in social networks with a discipline culled from religious movements and combined the energy of soccer fans with the sophistication of surgeons. Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they relied on tactics of nonviolent resistance channeled from an American scholar (Sharp) through a Serbian youth brigade — but also on marketing tactics borrowed from Silicon Valley.
the links
http://www.nytimes.com/...
and
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The crux for me though is that Sharp’s books and activities gave the Arab activists access to the thinking of a figure long depised in the Muslim world: Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s successful resistance against the most powerful empire in the world is a model for all of our social change movements. It seems to me that the Gandhian non-violent scenario has not been available to Muslims because of the hatred for Gandhi ever since the Pakistani partition. None the less, what Sharp and others have done is to bring his remarkable techniques and revolutionary practices past old battles into the hands of the Arab left and enabled them to make an end run, at least for relatively secular countries, around the Al Qaida model of anti-imperialism, which just replaces one autocracy for another.
The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world — a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades.
They fused their secular expertise in social networks with a discipline culled from religious movements and combined the energy of soccer fans with the sophistication of surgeons. Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they relied on tactics of nonviolent resistance channeled from an American scholar through a Serbian youth brigade — but also on marketing tactics borrowed from Silicon Valley.
This is getting a a lot of attention: Ben Smith at Politico quotes (I believe without attribution) the Times article