Gene Sharp > Quotes

“Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic,and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“By placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“The degree of liberty or tyranny in any government is in large degree a reflection of the relative determination of the subjects to be free and their willingness and ability to resist efforts to enslave them.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Some foreign states will act against a dictatorship only to gain their own economic, political, or military control over the country.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Liberation from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people's ability to liberate themselves.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“The foreign states may become actively involved for positive purposes only if and when the internal resistance movement has already begun shaking the dictatorship, having thereby focused international attention on the brutal nature of the regime.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Violence by the defenders will be used by the putschists to justify overwhelming repression which they want to use anyhow.

It will be used to CLAIM that the putschists are saving the country from ‪‎terrorism or ‪#civil war‬, and are preserving "‪law‬ and ‪‎order‬”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“The first basic principle of ‪‎anti coup‬ defense is therefore to deny legitimacy to the putschists”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880:
It is no use relying on the Government . . . . You must only rely upon your own determination . . . . Help yourselves by standing together . . . strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak . . . , band yourselves together, organize yourselves . . . and you must win . . .
When you have made this question ripe for settlement,then and not till then will it be settled.”
― Gene Sharp

“Nonviolent struggle both requires and tends to produce a loss (or greater control) of fear of the government and its violent repression. That abandonment or control of fear is a key element in destroying the power of the dictators over the general population.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Nonviolent defiance often risks serious casualities, but it seem to produce far fewer casualitie than when both sides use violence.

At the same time, presistence in nonviolent struggle contributes to much greater chance for success than if the resisters had chosen to fight a militarily-prepared opponent violence”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“The maintenance of high standards of behavior in nonviolent action is necessary at all stages of the conflict.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Further, democratic negotiators, or foreign negotiation specialists accepted to assist in the negotiations, may in a single stroke provide the dictators with the domestic and international legitimacy that they had been previously denied because of their seizure of the state, human rights violations, and brutalities. Without that desperately needed legitimacy, the dictators cannot continue to rule indefinitely.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Resistance, not negotiations, is essential for change in conflicts where fundamental issues are at stake. In nearly all cases, resistance must continue to drive dictators out of power. Success is most often determined not by negotiating a settlement but through the wise use of the most appropriate and powerful means of resistance available. It is our contention, to be explored later in more detail, that political defiance, or nonviolent struggle, is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

“لا يعني إنتهاء نظام ديكتاتوري أن جميع المشكلات التي خلفها ستنتهي، فسقوط نظام معين لا يخلق المدينة الفاضلة، بل يفتح المجال أمام عهود طويلة لبناء علاقات ءإجتماعية وإقتصادية وسياسية عادلة ويهيى للقضاء على أشكال الظلم والإضطهاد الأخرى. لقد استطاع تحدي الشعوب الذي تميز في الغالب باللا عنف منذ عام 1980 إسقاط الأنظمة الديكتاتورية في استونيا ولاتفيا وليتوانيا وبولندا وألمانيا الشرقية وتشيكوسلوفاكيا وسلوفينيا ومدغشقر ومالي وبوليفيا والفلبين، لكن من المؤكد إن إنهيار الأنظمة الديكتاتورية لم يحل جميع المشكلات الأخرى في هذه المجتمعات كالفقر والجريمة وعدم الفعالية البيروقراطية وتخريب البيئة فذلك ما تورثه الأنظمة القمعية. لكن سقوط هذه الأنظمة الديكتاتورية كان له الحد الأدنى من تخفيف معاناة ضحايا القمع وفتح الطريق أمام إعادة بناء هذه المجتمعات بوجود عدالة إجتماعية وحريات سياسية وديمقراطية وشخصية”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“In nearly all cases, resistance must continue to drive dictators out of power. Success is most often determined not by negotiating a settlement but through the wise use of the most appropriate and powerful means of resistance available. It”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“In some cases, however, limited violence against the dictatorship may be inevitable. Frustration and hatred of the regime may explode into violence. Or, certain groups may be unwilling to abandon violent means even though they recognize the important role of nonviolent struggle. In these cases, political defiance does not need to be abandoned. However, it will be necessary to separate the violent action as far as possible from the nonviolent action. This should be done in terms of geography, population groups, timing, and issues. Otherwise the violence could have a disastrous effect on the potentially much more powerful and successful use of political defiance.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Heavy repression against the nonviolent defenders may also arouse stronger international opposition to the coup and mobilize inernational opinion and diplomatic and economic action against the putschists”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“It is our contention, to be explored later in more detail, that political defiance, or nonviolent struggle, is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“Three of the most important factors in determining to what degree a government’s power will be controlled or uncontrolled therefore are: (1) the relative desire of the populace to impose limits on the government’s power; (2) the relative strength of the subjects’ independent organizations and institutions to withdraw collectively the sources of power; and (3) the population’s relative ability to withhold their consent and assistance.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

“For example, disciplined courageous nonviolent resistance in face of the dictators’ brutalities may induce unease, disaffection, unreliability, and in extreme situations even mutiny among the dictators’ own soldiers and population.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

“Resistane violence may help unite the putschists' basic supporters and military forces against the ‪anti coup‬ defenders”
― Gene Sharp, The anti-coup

“Gene Sharp 6 October 1993 Albert Einstein Institution Boston, Massachusetts”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

“Dictators require the assistance of the people they rule, without which they cannot secure and maintain the sources of political power. These”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy

“As soon as their people become enlightened, their tricks no longer work.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation

“Just as military officers must understand force structures, tactics, logistics, munitions, the effects of geography, and the like in order to plot military strategy, political defiance planners must understand the nature and strategic principles of nonviolent struggle.”
― Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy