Letter to NYT editor about Erica Chenoweth Op-Ed on nonviolent struggle

My letter to the editor of the NYT re: Erica Chenoweth's op-ed on nonviolent struggle.

Erica Chenoweth's op-Ed "Give Peaceful Resistance a Chance" (Mar. 9) fails to mention the most influential thinker on the means and effectiveness of nonviolent struggle, Gene Sharp. Prof. Sharp (Emeritus, U.Mass. Dartmouth), who heads the Albert Einstein Institution, is the author of

• Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential with Joshua Paulson, Extending Horizons Books, 2005. ISBN 978-0875581620
• From dictatorship to democracy: A conceptual framework for liberation The Albert Einstein Institution, 2003. ISBN 978-1880813096

The first of these is the "bible" of nonviolent struggle, historically and in terms of practical methods; and the second is a handbook version which had a documented influence in Kosovo, Tunisia and Egypt, to name just a few venues of recent nonviolent liberation movements.

By failing to even mention this key element in these recent historical developments, Chenoweth's piece is of questionable value.


David Studhalter

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Addendum:


I also happen to think that writing a piece on this general topic that fails to mention the connections with what is happening right here in America right now is very curious and oddly unengaged, to say the least.