This idea occurred to me when thinking about the French Resistance during World War II (at least as portrayed in fiction), but I'd imagine it would apply to a wide range of resistance movements past, present and future.
A movement resisting tyranny wouldn't be able to recruit openly, because the very tyranny you're resisting would use this to identify who and where you are and eliminate you.
This would mean that if you want to join the resistance, you'd need to be invited, or know someone, or know someone who knows someone.
Which means that there might be perfectly competent - and perhaps even highly useful - people who want to participate in the resistance but can't join because they don't have the right connections, or because the resistance doesn't know about them.
And when there are highly competent (or highly enthusiastic) who want to join the resistance but can't get an in, they might start their own resistance. (Especially if the resistance that they can't get an in to join is particularly good at its secrecy - the would-be resistance members might not even know that it even exists.)
I wonder if there were ever multiple and competing resistance movements? (Like this scene in Life of Brian
I wonder if tyrants were ever able to play one resistance movement off another?
1 comment:
Based on my knowledge of movements, I'm guessing no, yes, and yes.
People highly motivated to find the resistance will find it somehow. But if they can't -- or if the resistance they find doesn't trust them -- or if they can't get along with the leaders of the resistance they find, because they always have to be the leader themselves -- they will form their own group.
And the people in power always try to sow dissent and division between and among groups, mostly through infiltrators. It's pretty much status quo.
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