4d. Gene Sharp and Nonviolent Direct Action
As you learned earlier in the course, Gene Sharp (1928-1918) was a peace thinker who, in many ways, built an action plan based on concepts of civil disobedience and nonviolence. First, watch this brief video clip about Sharp, drawn from the 2011 film How to Start a Revolution.
After viewing this teaser, you might want to watch the entire film (though that isn’t required for the course) which is available on Vimeo.
The Big Indy. (2013, September 14). Gene Sharp - How to Start a Revolution. [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/74542075
In 1983, Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institution, the tagline of which is “advancing freedom with nonviolent action.” You were introduced to his 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action in Module 1. His strategies for nonviolent action, alternately referred to as nonviolent struggle, were utilized by numerous resistance movements in the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century.
Gene Sharp believed that violent conflict, particularly that exercised by an oppressive state regime, could be countered by mass movements using nonviolent tactics. His ideas were more of a plan for political action – a technique or strategy – than a particular philosophy. And he often referred to his promotion of nonviolence as a pragmatic rather than principled, approach, a dimension of his ideas that has been critiqued. In this, he is unlike religious pacifists or Tolstoy who viewed nonviolence as a moral ethic. Responding to violent oppression with violence happens because violence is a “habit,” but not the only way to respond, according to Sharp. He divided his 198 methods into three classes:
- nonviolent protest and persuasion,
- noncooperation, and
- nonviolent intervention; and suggested that future additions to his list could be placed in these categories.
In your reading, "Applications of Nonviolent Struggle in the Modern World," Sharp outlines various applications of nonviolent direct action that he believed could be used to respond to manifestations of violent conflict. What are they? He outlines ten different areas.
Sharp’s writings have been translated into over thirty languages and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times. Indeed, his work continues to inspire the approach and methods of nonviolent pro-democracy movements in the recent past and in the present, in such places as Serbia, Syria, Iran, and Hong Kong.