I will weep for thee,
For this revolt of thine methinks is like
Another fall of man. William Shakespeare, Henry V 137-139
They’ve managed to re-energise the process. BBC news, report from Cairo Square
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F Kennedy, address White House 1962
Here at home the changing face of the future is equally revolutionary. John F Kennedy
This administration has failed to recognise – has failed to recognise – that in these changing times, with a revolution of rising expectations sweeping the globe, the United States has lost its image as a new strong vital revolutionary society. John F Kennedy
The long view shows us that the revolution of national independence is a fundamental fact of our era. This revolution will not be stopped. John F Kennedy
This is the final struggle
Let us group together, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be the human race … Eugene Pottier, L’Internationale, anthem 1871
Armed warfare must be preceded by a struggle against the inclinations to compromise which are embedded among the majority of British workmen, against the ideas of evolution and peaceful extermination of capitalism. Only then will it be possible to count upon complete success of an armed insurrection. Grigory Zinoviev, letter to British Communist Party 15th September 1924, disputed and probable forgery
All over the world people are struggling against tyranny. How to Start a Revolution, 2011
‘My name is Gene Sharp and this is the work I do.’ ibid.
Gene Sharp is the world’s leading expert on non-violent revolution. ibid.
Gene Sharp has written a guide to overthrowing dictatorships. It contains a list of 198 non-violent weapons. ibid.
Gene runs the Albert Einstein Institution with Executive Director Jamila Raqib. ibid.
We need to have alternatives for killing people. ibid.
Lesson #2: Overcome atomisation; Lesson #3: Pillars of Support; Lesson #4: Resist Violence. ibid.
Srdja and his colleagues formed a new organisation CANVAS to teach the lessons learned during the Serbian revolution. ibid.
Georgia 2003: And then to Ukraine, and it spread there. ibid.
As Gene’s work spread, his books came under attack by dictatorships all over the world. ibid.
In 2008 the Iranian government broadcast a propaganda film. They accused Gene of being a CIA agent. ibid.
In 2006 the Egyptian Democracy group Kefaya visited Gene in Boston. ibid.
In 2010 former Serbian revolutionaries continued training new groups. ibid.
Ahmed Maher was a leader of the April 6th democracy movement in Egypt. ibid.
‘I dream that the oppressed people of the world will be able the learn the available records and new experiences, that this type of non-violent struggle can be used to liberate all oppression.’ ibid. Gene Sharp
In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell, disputed quotation, attributions & variations
With its grace and carelessness, it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though [all] could be swept into a nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. George Orwell, 1984
What he realised, and more clearly as time went on, was that money-worship has been elevated into a religion. Perhaps it is the only real religion – the only felt religion – that is left to us. Money is what God used to be. Good and evil have no meaning any longer except failure and success. Hence the profoundly significant phrase, to make good. The decalogue has been reduced to two commandments. One for the employers – the elect, the money priesthood as it were – ‘Thou shalt make money’; the other for the employed – the slaves and underlings – ‘Thou shalt not lose thy job’. It was about this time that he came across The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and read about the starving carpenter who pawns everything but sticks to his aspidistra. The aspidistra became a sort of symbol for Gordon after that. The aspidistra, the flower of England! It ought to be on our coat of arms instead of the lion and the unicorn. There will be no revolution in England while there are aspidistras in the windows. George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Most revolutionaries are potential Tories, because they imagine that everything can be put right by altering the shape of society; once that change is effected, as it sometimes is, they see no need for any other. George Orwell, Inside the Whale, 1940
It seems that all my life I have been waiting for it. 1984 1984 starring John Hurt & Richard Burton & Gregor Fisher & Suzanna Hamilton & James Walker & Andrew Wilde & Corina Seddon & Rupert Baderman & John Boswell & Phyllis Logan et al, director Michael Radford
Julia, do you think the Resistance is real? ibid. him to her
Revolution is touching all of our lives. Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks. Green & Siegel, The Weather Underground, 2002
This nation is in a state of turmoil perhaps unparalleled in our history. Poverty amidst wealth, widespread racism, and bewilderment over a strange war, are the seeds of the revolution. ibid. news report
We were entering an incredible period of revolution. ibid. Naomi Jaffe
A revolution is not a spectacle! There are no spectators! Everyone participates whether they know it or not. ibid. protest poster
We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself a form of violence. That’s really the part that I think is the hardest for people to understand. If you sit in your house, live your white life and go to your white job, and allow the country that you live in to murder people and to commit genocide, and you sit there and you don’t do anything about it, that’s violence. ibid. Naomi Jaffe
They’re not romantic revolutionaries; they’re the same thugs and hoodlums that have always plagued the good people. ibid. Richard Nixon
I think that part of the Weatherman phenomenon that was right was our understanding of what the position of the United States is in the world. It was this knowledge that we just couldn’t handle; it was too big. We didn’t know what to do. In a way I still don’t know what to do with this knowledge. I don’t know what needs to be done now, and it’s still eating away at me just as it did thirty years ago. ibid. Mark Rudd
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. Mao Tse-Tung
A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability. Robert Kennedy, report to Senate of trip to South America 1966
Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries. Christopher Hitchens
The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and said magnificent things when it came to Ireland, India and America. One of them was in some ways a revolutionary conservative and the other was a conservative revolutionary. It's important to try and contain multitudes. One of my influences was Dr Israel Shahak, a tremendously brave Israeli humanist who had no faith in collectivist change but took a Spinozist line on the importance of individuals. Gore Vidal’s admirers, of whom I used to be one and to some extent remain one, hardly notice that his essential critique of America is based on Lindbergh and America First – the most conservative position available. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has – from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness. Christopher Hitchens
Successful revolutions are those which end up by erasing all traces of themselves. Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right
Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: ‘You are tearing up the pavements of hell!’ They might reply: ‘That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.’ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables