Ever wondered who gets to be portrayed as a brave resistance fighter and why? The role of the media in bringing â??the storyâ?? to the attention of the public is crucial. Unfortunately the public (thatâ??s us) is too occupied to carry out real investigations so we generally tend to accept anything the media tells us. Naturally with varying degrees of skepticism.

The skepticism depends to a large degree on several factors: the trustworthiness of the source, the importance of what is being said, the personal impact on our lives, our beliefs and cultures. But mostly we (the public) tend to accept what is being presented before us. Sad, but true.

The first main barrier is the choice to tell the story or not. Certain stories get a great deal of press attention while others get little or none. The next barrier is the presentation of the story. Will those resisting be described as the white or the black hats? Will resistance be legitimized or criminalized? The third barrier is the reconstruction after the fact. What will the victor say of the vanquished? What will be the persistent historic truth once the conflict is over?

Julius Caesar vanquished all of Gaul. After the task he wrote his account of the wars. Generations of children have since then learned their basic Latin language by reading exciting excerpts from his book. Even if we no longer learn Latin Caesars version of the truth remains the dominant story. He was â??forcedâ?? to attack the Gaul in order to protect the Gallic friends of Rome. The fact that he achieved personal fame, an enormous fortune and eventually sole power of Rome was beside the point.

The ability to resist does not build upon the ability to control the dominant truth â?? but no resistance (from a local protest to outright war) can afford to ignore it.

An exciting example of this is the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers from wikipedia:

The film depicts an episode in the war of independence in the then French Algeria, in the capital city of Algiers. It is loosely based on the account of one of the military commanders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), Saadi Yacef, in his memoir Souvenirs de la Bataille d’Alger. The book, written by Yacef while a prisoner of the French, was meant as propaganda to boost morale among FLN militants. After independence, Yacef was released and became a part of the new government. The Algerian government gave its backing to have a film of his memoirs made and he approached the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and screenwriter Franco Solinas with the project. The two dismissed Yacef’s initial treatment as biased toward the Algerian side. While sympathetic with the cause of Algerian nationalism, they insisted on dealing with the events from a distanced point-of-view.