HOW TO START A REVOLUTION a new documentary film

"HOW TO START A REVOLUTION is a new documentary film revealing how one man's work has helped millions of people achieve freedom in the face of oppression and tyranny. 

Gene Sharp is a shy, modest and little-known man. But his work has inspired a generation of people to challenge dictators through non-violent action in a tidal wave of revolutionary spirit and reform that has swept from Eastern Europe, though Asia and to the Middle East and North Africa. 

18 months ago we started work on this feature-length documentary.  Through the candid and intimate testimony of the people responsible for non-violent revolutions our film seeks to tell the story of how people power can be used topple dictators. 

To make this film our director (Ruaridh Arrow pictured above) slept overnight in Tahrir Square in Cairo at the height of the February revolution.  He’s met the leaders of the Syrian pro-democracy movement and the people responsible for overthrowing dictators in Serbia and Ukraine. He has spent time with Gene and his colleagues as they spread their message of effective non-violent revolution. 

The film reveals how the leaders of an uprising in one country train the participants in the next and how social media now threatens dictators and tyrants around the world in ways that were unimaginable just a decade ago.

Not only is this documentary an important film of record of the civil uprisings that have shaken the world in the last decade but we also hope it will help inspire future pro-democracy movements develop their strategies for non-violent revolution in the face of apparently overwhelming odds."

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/172444007/how-to-start-a-revolution-a-new-documentary-film?ref=category

Afghanistan surge ? Sir, No Sir.

With the US about to send another 17,000 more ground troops to Afghanistan to add to the 36,000 already there it seems appropriate to remind ourselves that in the past ordinary people fought against such foreign adventures and brought them to a halt by just saying no.

David Ziegler's 2005 documentary, Sir, No Sir traces the grass root movement amongst GIs to stop the war in Vietnam. As they say themselves

"Sir, No Sir tells the long suppressed story of the GI movement to end the war in Vietnam. This is the story of one of the most vibrant and widespread upheavals of the 1960’s- one that had a profound impact on American society yet has been virtually obliterated from the collective memory of that time."



To see the whole film click on the image below.



And to find out about a similar movement in the Greek military check out the Diktios Spartakos network. It's in Greek but you can translate this into English using Google translation tools.