The past year has seen people take to the streets across the Middle East and North Africa to demand an end to tyranny and oppression and as a result, unprecedented regime change has taken place across the region.
Less known is the extent to which the protesters were influenced by the 83-year-old political scientist, Dr Gene Sharp. His book From Dictatorship to Democracy has previously been utilised as a blueprint by democratic movements from Serbia, to the Ukraine, Guatemala to Indonesia, in their fight to overthrow oppressive regimes .
We are thrilled to announce that Dr Gene Sharp will be joining us at the Frontline Club in conversation with Ruaridh Arrow, journalist, filmmaker and director of the award winning documentary How to Start a Revolution to discuss the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa and his work.
From the ground floor of his home in Boston the 83-year-old runs the Albert Einstein Institution which is devoted to the study and promotion of the use of nonviolent resistance worldwide. The 198 “non-violent weapons” listed in his book range from the use of colours and symbols, writing large banners in English to mock funerals and boycotts. First written in 1993 to support the opposition movement in Burma, Sharp‘s work has now been circulated amongst dissidents around the world.
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