Talk politics.

"For all the meetings, plans and requests by prime ministers and native chiefs, conditions within some First Nations communities languish. While a growing number are improving, others suffer from severe deprivation. The poorer communities often seethe with frustration. Expectations raised by legal victories and government announcements seem to lead nowhere, or fall away. As the frustrations of unfulfilled expectations rise, anger in the communities festers, especially among young people. The outcome? An idea that most Canadians would have seen as preposterous a year ago, but which is now very real: the possibility of a disruptive confrontation between Canada’s Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal communities. This paper examines that possibility in the context of five determinants central to an accepted ‘feasibility hypothesis’ developed by an Oxford researcher:

-Social fractionalization
-The ‘warrior cohort’
-Economic and resources factors
-The security determinant, and
-Topography"

I just find papers like this pretty interesting, because they can provide an inside look at the relationship between economic capital and political power as well as the kinds of tactics, research and language employed by professionals who are paid to 'make the world safe for its ruling class', as it were.

Other interesting quotes like these jumped out at me as well:

"The young warrior cohort is here to stay. By 2017, about 42 percent of the First Nations population on the Prairies will be under the age of 30, over twice the 20 percent in the non-Aboriginal community. To reduce the feasibility of an uprising in the First Nations, Canada needs educational and employment policies that immediately transform future First Nations cohorts aged 15 to 24 into productive, self-reliant people."

Education (is it fair to call it indoctrination or even propaganda in this context, given its designed end?) and employment (transforming people from an unproductive population, to their economic system at least, into one which will be too incentivized or busy to challenge the status quo?) are weapons to be used so Canada doesn't have to deal with the consequences of an unfair, exploitative economic system that severely alienates its aboriginal population?

"The minimal capabilities of Canada’s security forces are well understood in Aboriginal communities. Native leaders also understand the reluctance in governments, in the Canadian Forces and police organizations (as demonstrated at Caledonia) to intervene in Aboriginal demonstrations, even when there are urgent and lawful reasons for doing so. This reinforces the feasibility factor, and makes more certain future challenges to civil authority at times and places of Aboriginal leaders’ choosing. Finding the right balance between legitimate protest and armed confrontation may be difficult, but it must be found. An indispensable part the solution will be policing regimes that assure peaceful Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people of their rights and freedoms under the law."

So, once again, social change must be on their terms only, and of the kind that has little hope of actually affecting root causes without enormous institutional support, i.e. corporate sponsorship, parliamentary reform or NGO affiliation. Also we see again the strategy of spreading division into movements for change by isolating so-called 'nonviolent' or 'peaceful' protesters from 'violent' and 'armed' ones. A practice that has already lead to a lot of unnecessary antagonism between like-minded activists in various countries. For a lengthy exploration and discussion, not without its flaws, into the huge issues of the so-called 'violence issue' in strategies for radical social change, see Peter Gelderloos' latest work, The Failure of Nonviolence- From the Arab Spring to Occupy.

As the paper goes on, eventually pretense just seems to fall away, replaced by tactical formulations that would make the U.S. DHS proud.

"The key assertion is that feasibility, and not root causes, provides the incentive to challenge civil authority. As we shall see, it follows that the prevention and/or suppression of insurgencies and rebellions requires a determined effort directed not at so-called root causes, but at the factors that make such uprisings feasible."

So don't bother with improving the root oppressive conditions that affect these people and motivate this kind of activity, instead just work at neutralizing their ability to resist or fight back. That's how I read it.

"Others might ask: if the conditions of young Aboriginals provide a motive that ought to ignite an uprising, why has the uprising not occurred? A quick and credible answer is that it has and is occurring – as a quick head count of the Warrior Cohort inside our penal colonies will demonstrate. In any case, this dismissive question cannot be left to answer itself: no rebellion, no problem."

Reminds me of a lyric from the recent song "Don't Riot" by Sole and DJ Pain, partially inspired by the acquittal of George Zimmerman:

"Shut your facebook status talking about a race war
Ain't no race war
Like the one that's been going on since 1492
What you think we got them jails for?
What you think we got them fuckin jails for?"

It goes on to list and analyze key strategic and critical infrastructures around aboriginal communities that the writer feels are under-protected and vulnerable to such a situation. All I can say about that is, I hope these young aboriginal 'warrior cohorts' are reading this stuff and taking notes =)