Mourning the passing of strategic nonviolence scholar and icon Gene Sharp.

"Using violence is a stupid decision." - Dr. Gene Sharp, February 5, 2012

Gene Sharp 1928 - 2018

Today I learned of the passing of Dr. Gene Sharp. He is the theoretician of nonviolent action, that thanks to Jose Basulto, in June of 1996 was able to meet him and learn from him over a series of lectures and conversations at Florida International University. This encounter marked a before and after in my life. This blog has cited him time and time again and promoted the South Florida premiere of the documentary about his life, How to Start a Revolution, back in 2011. He taught generations that there was an alternative to bloody conflict and that it was non-violent armed conflict. He demonstrated that there was nothing passive about nonviolent resistance and that it also required strategy to increase the odds of success in a struggle. In 1990 at the National Conference on Nonviolent Sanctions and Defense in Boston, Gene Sharp succinctly outlined his argument.

"I say nonviolent struggle is armed struggle. And we have to take back that term from those advocates of violence who seek 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 that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence."

Gene Sharp listening to Coretta Scott King

Gene Sharp, who had exchanged letters with Albert Einstein, would go on to found an institution named after the physicist dedicated to studying nonviolence and providing a theoretical grounding.



Yesterday, seventy years to the day Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated, the Albert Einstein Institution issued a press release announcing the passing of their founder, Gene Sharp two days earlier on January 28 which is reproduced below.

January 30, 2018

Statement from the Albert Einstein Institution on the death of our founder Dr. Gene Sharp 

The Albert Einstein Institution is greatly saddened to announce the passing of our founder, mentor, and friend Dr. Gene Sharp, who passed away peacefully on January 28, 2018, at his home in East Boston. He had recently celebrated his 90th birthday.

Widely recognized by scholars, practitioners, organizers, and activists worldwide as the greatest theoretician of nonviolent action since Mohandas K. Gandhi, Sharp founded the field of academic research on the theory and strategic practice of nonviolent action.

A four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the winner of the 2012 Right Livelihood Award, Sharp devoted his life to studying nonviolent struggle, deeply researching and documenting its use in human history, analyzing how the technique operates cross-culturally, and sharing the results of his research with other scholars, practitioners, organizers, government institutions, and citizens and civil - society groups on every continent. His numerous books and articles on the subject have been translated into more than 50 languages, and are disseminated worldwide. Hi s work continues to inspire and enable people engaged in struggle to wield social power by building on and learning from the experience, results, bravery, and sacrifice of those who have come before them.

Sharp is survived by a brother, nieces, nephews, and cousins, and by a large national and international family of friends and colleagues. His legacy lives on in the Albert Einstein Institution, which he founded in 1983 to advance the study and use of strategic nonviolent action as a pragmatic alternative to violence in acute conflict. He refused to retire and worked up until his death.

A rare collection of orchids on the top floor of his home were his joy and respite, along with his dogs and exploring the wild spaces of Mexico, Norway, and Canada.

He is loved and was loved, and leaves behind generations of students and adherents of his work all over the world, who are as a result of his findings better able to win political freedom and resist oppression. He has set down his pen for the last time; yet his work will live on forever.

Memorial donations in Gene Sharp’s name may be made to the Albert Einstein Institution, https://www.aeinstein.org . A memorial service to celebrate Gene Sharp’s life and work will be held later this spring .

 On the internet one can find decades of presentations by Gene Sharp on nonviolence. Below is a sampling of some of his lectures, and the lectures and speeches of other nonviolent scholars, theoreticians and activists. Today I mourn the passing of this scholar and theoretician of strategic nonviolence. Dr. Sharp's scholarship on nonviolence will continue to inspire many around the world. Requiescat in pace.

Gene Sharp: "Using violence is a stupid decision"

The strategic wisdom of nonviolent resistance


Gene Sharp turned 84 on January 21. At a time in his life when most are enjoying their retirement, Gene is on the move spreading the word on strategic nonviolence and working at the Albert Einstein Institution. On Tuesday, February 7, 2012 he will be speaking at the Documentary Film Festival: Human Rights Human Wrongs in Oslo, following the sold out Norway premiere screening of How to Start a Revolution. There is also a second opportunity to watch the documentary by Ruaridh Arrow and meet Gene Sharp on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 3:00pm.

Interviewed in the United Kingdom by Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum, on Sunday, February 5, 2012 nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp gave the following advice to the opposition in Syria:

"Maintain non-violence, do not organise soldiers to use violence against the remaining army. That is suicidal. That becomes a tool - that is what the government would want you to do". ... "Use the mutinous soldiers to persuade the rest of the soldiers also to mutiny - take the army away then the regime will come tumbling down."

In another interview in the United Kingdom on the BBC News program HARDtalk on January 30, 2012 Dr. Sharp said that "using violence is a stupid decision."

Full page advert of the Human Rights film festival

History backs up Gene's assertion. University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns. Finally there study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.” This also depends on the nonviolent opposition movement having a strategic vision and maintaining its non-violent posture even under the worse repression.

Narcotics Anonymous in a 1981 publication they called "the basic text" observed that "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." The same holds true for both drug addicts and those who rely on violence. History has demonstrated that nonviolence is a superior method of struggle that offers both a greater chance for success and less death and destruction. In September 2011, Gene Sharp spoke at Zeitgeist of the Americas and following his presentation the moderator said that for Every Egypt and Tunisia were nonviolence worked there was a Libya and Syria where it had not. Sharp responded saying that was an oversimplification and went on to give the following response.

Don't lump Syria and Libya together

"...Syria is very different from Libya. In Libya you had very quickly a military intervention. One of Qaddafi's generals with his troops and guns changed sides supposedly. I have a suspicion that he was an extreme agent provocateur and he was later killed in the rebel camp. For months foreign military assistance was brought by NATO, and the United States, France and all the rest. That wasn't nonviolence certainly anymore. That kind of thing ...Violence can wreck a nonviolent struggle movement. So that is not a good example."

"In Syria they are still going. I have been startled and amazed at the not only the nonviolent discipline . Only scattered violence in the midst of all kinds of killing almost every day by people who say 'we are not afraid.' This is what Gandhi was trying to tell the Indians 'don't be afraid, cast off fear'. I always honestly thought he was being a little romantic and naive. The Syrians and others have said 'we are not afraid anymore' and that is what terrifies the dictators. Thats why the brutality is so great in Syria. They think that if only they are brutal enough the resistance will collapse. So far the dictators have been proved wrong. But this is not easy. If you have people within your movement who do not keep discipline, who decide to do this or that, or you don't have a plan, you don't have a strategy, how the hell are you going to win? And yet people try to do that all the time. They have to learn what makes it effective, and what makes it fail and do the things that make it successful."

Later on during the question and answer period Gene Sharp highlights the reality that those in power will do anything to stay in power and that means that you have to be as prepared as possible in engaging in a nonviolent struggle.

"You have to learn how to do it skillfully. If you are going to fight a war violently you don't go to all the neighborhood bars and get all the guys out there and say lets go fight a war but thats about the way nonviolent struggle has been conducted over the centuries. People were improvising. They didn't know what the hell they were doing. What would make it effective? What should they be aware of? Who was this guy who was urging violence? They didn't know he was a tool of the political police. This happened in the Russian empire ... and repeatedly. It also happened I am told with the Gestapo doing that. Dictators and rulers who fear the power of people will do their damndest to defeat it and you have to know how to be smarter than they are and more courageous and more skilled in what you do."

The full interview is available below:

There is more than a century of evidence that nonviolence is more effective then violence with better long term results yet the cult of violence remains. Professor Erica Chenoweth speaking at Dartmouth University offers an explanation, reported in the student paper The Dartmouth, that still asks why?: “Often violence is serving very personal functions for people. “Rational insurgents should be able to substitute the method that works for one that doesn’t, but people are hanging onto violence for dear life, and I don’t know why.”

One could say it is an example of mass insanity. Hopefully its survivable.

Learn how to end tyranny without a blood bath

"If you fight with violence, you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapon and you may be a brave but dead hero."- Gene Sharp


Gene Sharp founded the Albert Einstein Institution in 1983. Since its founding the institution has been and remains "dedicated to advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world. It is committed to the defense of freedom, democracy, and the reduction of political violence through the use of nonviolent action." Professor Sharp has been described as the Machiavelli of nonviolence.

Now through film, How to Start a Revolution, the world has an opportunity to learn about this man and his work. The world premiere was in Boston on September 18. There is a one time opportunity to see this film in South Florida. How to Start a Revolution, a documentary about non-violent strategic theoretician Gene Sharp premieres in South Florida at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival on Wednesday, November 9 at 5:30pm at Cinema Paradiso. Its in the middle of the week at a horrible time but it is worthwhile to do what you can to attend.



The Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter blog has been online since August 23, 2009 and has already referenced Dr. Sharp on several occasions. The author of this blog back in June 14-15, 1996 spent two days in a training led by Gene Sharp in Miami, Florida at Florida International University that was sponsored by Brothers to the Rescue. Sharp gave a presentation on how to face dictatorship's realistically. It was a life changing experience.

Gene Sharp is now 83 years old and his physical movement is limited but the strategic nonviolent vision, strategy and tactics that he has spent a life time teaching and writing about is on the march around the world. It is an alternative to violent wars that minimizes the human cost in confronting tyrants and despots around the world.

If you want to learn how to change the world without a blood bath then you should run to see this film and read as many of Gene Sharp's books as you can get your hands on.

South Florida Premiere of How to Start a Revolution, at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival on Wednesday, November 9 at 5:30pm at Cinema Paradiso located at 503 S.E. 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL - (954) 525-3456 Tickets available here.