We recently read Gene Sharp’s book “From Dictatorship To Democracy” after reading about the massive revolutions occurring throughout north Africa and the middle east. With the whole mumbo jumbo going on in Syria right now, We had to really re-read this book. Again, the thing that peaked our interest was an article written by a Stanford international relations major on how “peaceful protesting” was the wave of the future.
We will sum up the entire book by telling you that peaceful protests cannot be crushed by military might without repercussions from the international community. After all, isn’t this the reason why Yugoslavia fell? And the reason why Un invaded Serbia? Is it not because of peaceful protest that Gaddafi was ousted? And the list simply goes on (although gene sharp really wrote this book with Vietnam in mind).
So lets look at this from the opposite side: what if a dictator where to read this book? And what if they actually took the time to literate themselves and see that violence was not a possible solution to crush popular demand? It was funny to us because If you (you should by the way) read this book, you can take every word and reverse it. You can literally use it as a handbook on “how to be a dictator”. We just think this book is absurdly ridiculous and its paradoxical how easy it would be for a simple commoner to take this book and use it against his own people. Not that we would in any way like to see this happen. In case you are intrusted in seeing what we mean, we might write a book on this subject. In the mean time why not read the book yourself to get a rough idea?
Click here to buy the book off amazon
