All resistance, whether it was directed at improving the food or reestablishing banned organizations, raised questions about the most effective means of opposition and its consequences. Perspectives on the most appropriate courses of action were influenced both by generational and organizational politics. Both factors shaped two debates: official classification of the prisoners on the one hand and inmate behavior toward warders on the other. More than shaping debates in prison, organizations wanted to shape external politics, including by recruiting fellow inmates to one's own movement. This competition introduced heightened levels of conflict into the Island community, which threatened community cohesion, and thus resistance itself.

How Best to Resist?

The tensions and conflicts on Robben Island in the 1960s and between 1977 and 1980 or 1981 had both similar and different causes in the two different time periods. In both cases, significant aspects of the tensions arose out of a struggle for ideological and organizational dominance. When prisoners were sent to Robben Island in the 1960s, the PAC's split from the ANC was still a recent event, and emotions and passions were often still raw. More importantly, however, prisoners needed to work out ways of living together. They also had to identify common ground in the strategies and tactics of challenging the authorities in prison.