Egypt: Gene Sharp Taught Us How To Revolt! · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.
Last February, Sheryl Stolberg of The New York Times wrote an article about the political science professor, Gene Sharp, whose ideas were credited by her as being an inspiration for the Egyptian revolution, as well as many other uprisings in the region.
Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.
Some bloggers in the Arab world reacted right after the article was published, but not many people noticed the issue back then. Later on, about two months later, two Egyptian users on Twitter (@HanaSelim and @3arabawy) decided to use the Egyptian way in order discuss Mr. Gene's influence on the revolution. They started a new hashtag on Twitter that mocks the claims of The New York Times article – #GeneSharpTaughtMe.
I myself have never heard of Gene Sharp before, as so do many others, and that's why many of them started to wonder who Mr Sharp was after seeing the hastag.
Mostafa Hussein remembered he'd already read one of his books before but draws the line there.
Others also added their two cents.
Finally, Soha Bayoumi wanted to make it clear that Gene Sharp is not the one to be blamed here.
This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.