DIAND'S demise an event to celebrate

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Ding dong, the department's dead. Which old department? The mean old department.

Well, maybe they're not dead yet, merely ill, on their last legs, about to kick the proverbial bureaucratic can, suffering from chronic archaisms and terminal outdatedness. I am, of course, referring to the soon-to-be late Department of Indian Affairs. I would say let us observe a minute of silence but I hear too many people out on the reserves cheering much too loudly. No more forms to fill out or offices to visit, or people to tell you what you can and can't do, or who is a Native and who isn't. In my mind's eye, I can see river upon river clogged with discarded Indian cards.,

Just a few weeks ago, strangely enough on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, federal Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin set in motion the machinery that will see to the department's own obsolence. signing an obsolescence with Manitoba Grand Chief Phil Fontaine that will allow individual Native communities more autonomy, the DIA has effectively put the first nail in its own coffin.

Native people looking after Native people. What a concept. Talk about the ultimate in political correctness. Just a few years ago, the term "Indian' was deemed inaccurate and offensive and the expression was soon put out to pasture. Now, the whole Department of Indian Affairs as well as the Indian Act are as passe as their names, and are about to be taken out to a governmental field somewhere and a bullet put through their jurisdictional heads.

I don't mean to sound bitter but you can't grow up Native in this country without feeling a certain animosity towards this big overwhelming and faceless government organization that was set up specifically to run your life. And I always marveled at what a misnomer the name Department of Indian Affairs was itself.

As a child I always had visions of people in turbans from India running around having affairs with each other. You can imagine my disappointment when I finally managed to get a job there eons ago and discovered the boring reality of working in a

DIA office. Talk about a let down.

And did you know, the Indian Act is one of the few pieces of government legislation in the world that actually and precisely defines what a specific race of people is and how they fit into the scheme of society? Scary, huh?

Oh well, the end of those days are within sight. Oh sure, there will be some birthing pains, there always are with things like this. But look at South Africa. Canadian Reserves and the DIA eerily mirrored the now abolished apartheid system. While Phil Fontaine isn't exactly my idea of a Nelson Mandela - Mandela dresses better - it's got to start somewhere.