Gene Sharp: The face of revolution?
The Christian Science Monitor ran a story today on a little-known former Harvard professor named Gene Sharp. Gene Sharp is generally considered the “Godfather of strategic non-violence” or non-violent revolution. He and a small number of other scholars including Jack Duvall and Peter Ackerman are leading authorities on the subject. The trial transcripts of Iranian dissidents over the last few months have been punctuated by allusions to Sharp’s theories and teachings as they relate to the “green revolution” in Iran. Iranian security officials publicly obsess over the destabilizing influence that Sharp’s work is having on their country.
To some it may come as a surprise that Iranian officials would be more concerned about the activities of a humble professor in Boston than they would be about the possibility of armed conflict with Israel or the U.S., the looming threat of international sanctions, or the wars raging on both its eastern and western frontiers.
In fact, their concern is well-placed. Gene Sharp, the man, is not a threat to the Iranian regime. But the people who are reading the Farsi translation of his pamphlets certainly are. Iran is relatively safe from externally-imposed regime change – any attack on the regime from abroad would inflame historically-justified nationalistic tensions. Iran’s Government is afforded no such protection against internally-led regime change.
Iranian officials seem convinced that they can only preserve what’s left of their own diminishing legitimacy by depriving the Iranian dissidents of their own. If painting Gene Sharp as a peerless international conspirator is their best idea so far, they are in trouble.
