Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2011

Gandhi and Gaddafi: The Nonviolent Road to Revolution?

Gautam Adhikari

March 2011

East-West Center

Abstract

After being wondrously jolted by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the world watches Libya anxiously. Its neighbors on either side have carried out the once unthinkable. They have toppled sturdy old Arab dictatorships in weeks flat through, by and large, nonviolent civil disobedience. Is it now Libya's drive on the same road? Gautam Adhikari explores how nonviolent civil disobedience can--and cannot--prevail over tyranny.