End of the World? Nah!
by Gilbert Oskaboose

The end is near.

Or so say the members of a new genre of the survivalist movement created by the nexus of two subjects of great societal anxiety: the end of the millennium and the computers pervasive presence.

They are the cyber-survivalists, computer experts who believe that a some sort of modern day apocalypse is imminent - one wrought not by flood, fire or plague but by the force they themselves unleashed at the Dawn of the Computer Age: the two-digit software error.

In the jargon of computerese, this is Y2K - the dreaded Millennium Bug.

Explained as simply as humanly possible Y2K was created in the early days of computers, when space was at a premium, and to save space the date was written using two digits to represent the year. For example the character string '63' was used to represent 1963. Many of the older computer systems which remain in use today still have the two-digit date code.

The problem arises when an older computer tries to use the year 2000 date because it thinks the date is 1900, not 2000, speaking of super intelligent "tinking" machines. This misreading can potentially cause serious problems, the extent and scope of which are not truly and fully understood.

In the meantime, adherents to cyber-survivalist beliefs are stockpiling food and water, buying electric generators, selling their stocks, fleeing cities, arming themselves and, in short, doing all they can to prepare for the end of modern Life as we know it. They are also running frantically hither and fro, screaming that the sky is falling and scaring the living bejabbers out of everybody else.

Doomsday scenarios predicting the fall of human civilization in tandem with the failure of computers are proliferating in popular books, in informal discussions among computer workers, on talk radio and ,especially, on the Internet. Dire forecasts are flourishing on Internet message boards tailored to people who are knowledgeable about computer programming and in World Wide Web sites that run the gamut from fringe sources with ties to religious millennial end-of-the-world views to outright crackpots to fairly credible economic and government sources.

American religious fundamentalist ayatollahs of the airwaves are predicting hellfire and damnation for everyone who doesn't swear allegiance to God in the next month. Many are urging that we start the final war, bring on Armegeddon and we will bring on the Second Coming all the sooner. Come then, precious Lord, come.

Personally, I don't think anything will happen at all, unless we humans in our own stupidity bring it on ourselves. The year 2000 is a man-made date, totally irrelevant and inconsequential in the normal space and Time continuum. Some world calendars show the world to be already around the 5000 year mark. The sun will not fall from the sky. It is not computers that hold it on its axis and in its orbit. It is not computers that bid the winds to be silent or to roar fiercely along their chosen path. Computers can't account for the majesty of the moose or the fleetness of a deer...or the tastiness of the tiny strawberries that grow wild and sweet in hidden meadows. Get real!

So what does this all have to do with my beloved Indian Country? Apparently not a goddamn thing. Ive haven't heard a single utterance from Indian Country or from its leadership or any of its writers regarding this awesome event, not a squeak, not a sound. Amazing! Most of the old-time "skins" have never even heard of the Millennium Bug yet! Maybe they know something the rest of us have forgot.

Maybe they understand already that Indian Country was around long before electric generators, powdered eggs, stocks and bonds and it will continue to be around long after these things are but an unpleasant memory.

I like that notion. Reminds me of the time I was talking to a group of native students in Toronto. I posed the question: What would you do in the event of a national catastrophe when all social services, transportation, communications and everything else needed to sustain modern Life had collapsed?

"Hell, thats easy," one little warrior said, pushing his way to the front of the group and into my face. "Im Ojibway. Id just slip into some nice buckskins and fade away into the deep woods. Live off da fat of the lan."

Might not be that simple, son, but I gave the cheeky little rascal an "A" for sheer gall and confidence in his own abilities. Thats the kind of attitude and over-confidence that will allow Indian Country to survive anything the cosmos throws at us - including any silly Millenium Bugs.