Link - Arab Tyrant Manual podcast with Jamila Raqib

Here is a link to a podcast interview of Jamila Raqib of the Albert Einstein Institution.  Jamila is the executive director of the Institution, which was originally founded by Dr. Gene Sharp to study the development and application of strategic nonviolent resistance.  The interview was conducted by Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash of the Kawaakibi Foundation, an organization which describes itself thus:

Kawaakibi Foundation is an accelerator for thinkers and doers, with a focus on the future of liberty in Muslim communities and in the Arab world. Our work causes headaches and sleepless nights for tyrants and terrorists.

We envision a world free from tyranny, terrorism, and foreign intervention; one in which society trumps the state, extremism and illiberalism have no appeal, and individual rights are sacrosanct.

The Kawaakibi Foundation is also very active in training movement organizers in effective nonviolent change.  To quote them again,

We don't do traditional activism - our projects are innovative and radical. We develop cutting-edge research and apply new methodologies and a rigorous theory of change to the root causes of problems. That's why our small team have caused headaches to the world's worst tyrants.

Their Arab Tyrant Manual is an initiative designed to fight the spread of illiberal and authoritarian regimes throughout the Arab world.   

The interview with Jamila covers ground that will be familiar to long-time students of strategic nonviolent resistance.  But it breaks some new ground as well in discussing how a successful nonviolent movement depends less on changing the heart of the oppressor and more on changing the hearts of the oppressed so that they begin to discover their own power.  The podcast also discusses questions of how to carry on the legacy of Dr. Gene Sharp.  Enjoy!

Link - Baratunde Thurston Inteview of Jamila Raqib

Here is a link to another resource that readers can enjoy while waiting for the next installment of my series on strategic nonviolent resistance based on Gene Sharp's book From Dictatorship to Democracy.  The link at the beginning of this post points the reader to an interview which Baratunde Thurston conducted with Jamila Raqib of the Albert Einstein Institution in August of last year.  Although the immediate motivation for that interview seems to have receded into the background, the interview contains some very sharp and penetrating insights.  The interview took place during some of the largest Black Lives Matter protests of last year in response to the police murder of George Floyd.  Like myself, Baratunde is an African-American who understands the necessity and requirements of active citizenship for self-liberation.  Like myself, Baratunde was concerned and alarmed by the increasing violence that accompanied some of the protests of last year.  And like myself, Baratunde was concerned by the words of various white "liberals" who were calling for political violence.  Like myself, he became suspicious that these so-called "liberals" might actually be agents provocateurs.  

He discussed this and other concerns in his interview with Jamila Raqib.  As for Jamila, she is a very sharp and astute scholar of strategic nonviolent resistance, having studied under both Gene Sharp and Marshall Ganz.  In her responses to Baratunde's questions, she explained how strategic nonviolent resistance is much more than mass protest marches, how violence weakens a liberation struggle, and how vital it is for those involved in a liberation struggle to develop an effective strategy for their struggle.  She also touched on Gene Sharp's catalog of 198 methods of nonviolent action, and she described how and why she first became involved in the study of strategic nonviolent resistance.