Self-Liberation: A Guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression

This strategic planning guide is intended to assist people who wish themselves to plan a grand strategy, or super plan, to achieve their liberation from oppression and to build a more free and democratic system. This document is not only relevant to people facing internal dictatorships. It is also meant to be useful to people facing any kind of oppression.

This short document cannot include adequate in-depth presentations of all the knowledge and ideas needed for strategic planning of a nonviolent struggle for liberation. Therefore, interspersed in this text are references to selected published readings covering those important topics. Careful study of these selected readings, available for download below, in the sequence recommended is essential. They contain much of the understandings, knowledge, and insights that may be useful in the preparation of strategies of liberation.

--Taken from aeinstein.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Which way to liberation
Moving beyond past experiences
Pragmatic and strategic
Gaining new knowledge
Baltic and Balkan experiences
Earlier planning
A new model for self-reliant planning?
Three types of knowledge
      (1) Knowledge of the conflict situation, the opponents, and the society and its needs.
      (2) In-depth knowledge of the nature and oper- ation of the technique of nonviolent action.
      (3) The knowledge and ability required to analyze, think, and plan strategically.
Basic strategic considerations: the sources of power of the opponents
Basic strategic considerations: the balance of dependencies
Basic strategic considerations: what is the status of civil society?
Basic strategic considerations: do the campaign objectives and activities aggravate weaknesses of the oppressive system?
Basic strategic considerations: the importance of the initiative in the conflict
Selecting the strategy drafters Basic strategy decisions Formulating a grand strategy Self-empowerment Escalating liberation
Steps toward the possible Blocking a new dictatorship Liberation not perfection

APPENDICES

Appendix one
Readings

Appendix two
Glossary of Important Terms in Nonviolent Struggle


All of the readings recommended in Self Liberation may be downloaded as PDF files, here:

	On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict by Robert L. Helvey (2004) [1]
	The Anti-Coup by Gene Sharp and Bruce Jenkins (2003) [1]
	From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation by Gene Sharp (1993) [2] and (2003, 2008, 2010) [1]
	Social Power and Political Freedom (excerpts) by Gene Sharp (1980) [3]
	The Politics of Nonviolent Action (excerpts) by Gene Sharp (1973) [3]
	There Are Realistic Alternatives by Gene Sharp (2003) [1]
	Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential (excerpts) by Gene Sharp (2005) [3]

[1] Boston: Albert Einstein Institution
[2] Bangkok: Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Burma
[3] Boston: Extending Horizons Books, Porter Sargent Publishers