U.S., Europe discredited, oblivious

Faced with sustained nonviolent struggle, dictators, violence fail — Gene Sharp

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Nonviolent struggle 

“If you choose to fight with violence against this oppression, you will not succeed because you are fighting with your enemy’s best weapons. Nonviolence is the secret. The age of the dictators will be short-lived.”

In a Deutsche Welle interview, Gene Sharp explains the background of nonviolent struggle. “I was aware of the Nazi regime and what had happened in the Holocaust,” he said. “I knew there was the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union. I knew there were many other problems in the world — European colonialism, various dictatorships, racial segregation and discrimination in the United States, and the importance of civil liberties and labor movements.”

Certain books about nonviolent struggle, mostly from the 1930s, guided me, he said. These are quite elementary in terms of today’s situation but they are nevertheless revealing. “One book, I think, cited 12 cases of nonviolent struggle in the world history.… We now know that there were hundreds of thousands of cases. …

“… [W]e can learn how this works, what makes it succeed, what makes it fail, and how you can develop strategies and increase your chances of success. How people can mobilize themselves, take charge and keep discipline. All the testimonies in various places — even some recent ones in Libya, and it was certainly true in Egypt — are saying, ‘We have lost our fear’ • ‘We are no longer afraid’ • ‘You can’t control us any longer’ by threatening or doing this or that against us.”

U.S., European intervention worsens situation — “Stay out of it”

As a strong advocate of people power who believes “only the people within countries can and must take action to free themselves from their regimes,” Deutsche Welle asked Professor Sharp. “Can Europe and the United States stand by and do nothing as the situation in countries such as Libya deteriorates and people are massacred?”

Sharp answered, “I think Europe and the United States should stay out of it. Likely, they will not understand what is going on.

“Statements in Washington indicate that there is nobody in the administration who knows what kind of struggle this is. Whatever they [U.S and Europe] decide to do [no matter what they say] will be in their own U.S. or European interest — not in the interest of the people in Tunisia or Libya.

“They [Europe and the U.S.] can make things worse because people have suffered under extreme dictatorships before and people have resisted before, and sometimes won. …

“They can win this way and then the lesson will be taught: that no matter how cruel and brutal and ruthless you become, you are not going to win against nonviolent struggle.”

Mendacious, discredited policy

World Socialist Web site reported on Tuesday, “A full-scale propaganda blitz is under way, modeled on the campaigns that paved the way for U.S. and NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, highlighting atrocities committed by the Gaddafi regime as an argument that a joint intervention by the imperialist powers is needed to ‘save’ the Libyan people.”

But the U.S. Secretary of State, the Obama (or third Clinton) administration, has “feted one of Gaddafi’s sons and appointed the founding chairman of the U.S.-Libya Business Association to be the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs… Until two weeks ago, [U.S. and European] powers were paying court to Gaddafi to obtain lucrative contracts for the exploitation of the oil and gas resources of Libya.


“A parade of Western suitors—Condoleezza Rice, Britain’s Tony Blair, Chirac of France, Berlusconi of Italy, Zapatero of Spain—followed the smell of oil to Tripoli.


“They paid no heed then to Gaddafi’s police state and the screams emanating from his torture chambers. The United States made a major political and financial investment in the cultivation of friendly relations with Gaddafi.…”

However, this week Hillary Clinton denounced “Gaddafi’s use of ‘thugs’ and ‘mercenaries’” and declared “nothing off the table so long as the Libyan government continues to threaten and kill Libyans.” But this U.S.-European “posture of humanitarian outrage has no credibility [and] foreign intervention will inflame popular hostility,” the report said.

In the literal sense what is happening in this “anti-Libya campaign is an exercise in plunder. The first major action has been the effective seizure of $30 billion in Libyan assets held in U.S. financial institutions, and billions more in European accounts, after the passage of a sanctions resolution by the UN Security Council. While dubbed an asset ‘freeze,’ it is really a confiscation of resources belonging to the people of Libya.”

Speaking at a business conference in Germany, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “‘Mistakes made by governments should not be paid by people.… Discussions about an intervention in Libya or sanctions are worrisome considering the people of Libya and foreigners in this country.’”

Most important is the fact that “many of those engaged in the uprising in Benghazi have declared their vehement opposition to the entry of U.S. and European troops.”

Sources and notes

“‘The genie is out of the bottle,’” DW-WORLD.DE (Interview: Michael Knigge, Editor:  Rob Mudge),

February 24, 2011, | www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14871825,00.html

Professor Gene Sharp

Gene Sharp is the author of various books on nonviolent struggle, power, political problems, dictatorships, and defense policy. His works appear in many languages including English. His The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973) (Introduction by Thomas C. Schelling) is considered a classic and the definitive study of nonviolent struggle.

His Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System (1990) examined how organized nonviolent noncooperation and defiance can potentially deter and defeat internal takeovers and invasions. This book was used in 1991 and 1992 by the new independent governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in planning their defense against Soviet efforts to regain control. He is co-editor of Resistance, Politics, and the American Struggle for Independence, 1765-1775 (1986) and of Nonviolent Action: A Research Guide (1997). Dr. Sharp’s recent shorter writings include From Dictatorship to Democracy.

Gene Sharp holds a doctorate in political theory from Oxford University (1968), a Master of Arts in Sociology (1951), and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences (1949) from Ohio State University.  He lived for ten years in England and Norway and has held positions at the University of Oslo and the Institute for Social Research. For nearly thirty years, he held research appointments in Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs. Gene Sharp is Senior Scholar at the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Massachusetts, and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, The Albert Einstein Institution, www.aeinstein.org; http://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htm

Article: “Imperialist hands off Libya! — The United States and the European powers are moving towards direct military intervention in Libya. They are seeking to exploit a legitimate popular uprising against the 41-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi, preempt any possibility of a more radical regime emerging, and install a colonial-style puppet in place of the discredited dictatorship.” March 1, 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m01.shtml

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