Angry in the Great White North

You might think negotiations should be suspended because you can't reward violence and lawlessness.

You might think negotiations should be suspended because the orders of the courts have to be respected.

You might think negotiations should be suspended because of the danger to the integrity of the State.

You might think negotiations should be suspended because you just don't like Aboriginals.

Or you can chuck philosophy (and racism, if that's your thing) over the side, and just admit that negotiations are pointless unless you have two parties who can speak with authority:

There is no hierarchical organization governing the occupiers, who form an amorphous mass that hails from reserves across North America.

Decisions are reached by consensus of whoever happens to be on the site that day. But consensus can be long in the making, and the porous nature of the native lines means decisions are often ephemeral.

To the non-native observer this can seem chaotic; to government negotiators, it is downright exasperating.

"There's a constant dynamic inside the place; it's like a swirling cauldron," said David Peterson, the former Ontario premier who negotiated the removal of the blockade of two main roads in Caledonia. "Nobody answers to anybody. They all answer to each other."

Where the Globe and Mail and others see chaos, I see an indicator. It indicates to me that the true leaders of the protest have not yet made themselves known, and so negotiations can't even address the real motives of the protest, since the Native negotiators aren't sure themselves.

I think that is deliberate, since if the real reason was understood, negotiations would be in jeopardy. Best to pretend this is about land, get the land, and then once it's all over, come out of the shadows, boot out the Native negotiators, and proceed with the real agenda.

Even if you think my interpretation is off the mark (and a bit paranoid), it is clear that these negotiators, whatever their legitimacy, have no authority:

The native decision-making process stems from the Great Peace brokered hundreds of years ago between five warring nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. A sixth, the Tuscarora, joined that confederacy in the 18th century.

"No decisions are made until everybody more or less agrees," Mr. Peterson said. "So it's very, very, very frustrating by our standards."

Judging by the protesters' letters to the government, the occupation is carried out in the name of Six Nations clan mothers, who said the site had been wrongly taken from them by the Crown.

Traditionally, those 50 women -- the oldest ones in every clan of each band that makes up the Six Nations -- were the titleholders of the land. They also held the power to name and to demote chiefs.

That changed in 1924, when the federal government imposed an electoral system on the reserve. The influence of the traditional chiefs and of the clan mothers started to wane, as Canada wrote assistance cheques to the elected chief.

Now about a third of the Natives still use Clan Mothers, a third have embraced an electoral system, and third just do what they feel like. The government negotiators have chosen to deal with the Clan Mothers though, which undermines the elected Native officials, and may have implications for Native government long after this dispute is settled.

But those sideline elected Native officials are saying the Clan Mothers are not in control either:

"Some of the clan mothers are just saying the occupation has served its purpose," [elected Grand Chief David] General said. The protesters, he said, "are not listening to anybody."

"I told my clan mother the other night I'm not going to leave," Doreen Silversmith told reporters last week [when some of the Clan Mothers were reported to have decided that the occupation has served its purpose and should end]. "I said: 'I don't care if you tell us to go, nobody's going to leave.'

"We're not giving up without a fight," added Ms. Silversmith, clad in camouflage pants and wearing two feathers in her hair.

Then, she walked away from reporters. She returned after five minutes, accompanied by [occupation spokeswoman] Janie Jamieson, to retract her comments.

How much would you wager that once Jamieson left the scene, Silversmith reverted back to her militant stance?

All this means that negotiations have little chance of ending the violence. Whatever the negotiators hammer out, assuming negotiations resume, is not likely to satisfy everybody. But since the negotiators seem to have no authority, the agreement will not be seen as binding, and these factions will resume the violence at some time in the future in an attempt to fulfill their goals.

Since the whole point of the negotiations is to forestall future trouble, it seems to me that there is little point in going forward.