Bjørklund, Ivar; Brantenberg, Terje; Eidheim, Harald; Kalstad, John Albert; Storm, Dikka --- "Sápmi - Becoming a Nation: The emergence of a Sami national community " [2002] AUIndigLawRpr 1; (2002) 7(1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 1
Commentary
Sápmi — Becoming a Nation:
The
emergence of a Sami national community
Ivar Bjørklund, Terje Brantenberg, Harald Eidheim, John Albert Kalstad and Dikka Storm*
Introduction
In October 2000 Tromsø University Museum in Northern Norway opened a new Sami exhibition with the title ‘Sápmi — Becoming a nation’. A booklet with the same title was also produced as a catalogue for the exhibition, printed in Sami, Japanese, German, English and Norwegian versions. The text published in this issue of the AILR is taken from this catalogue.
Sápmi is a Sami term connoting the Indigenous Sami world of land and waters, people and culture — a nation without borders, but with a shared history and language covering traditional Sami areas of land and sea use, and occupation in northern Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway. The emergence of the modern nation states is common knowledge to majority populations. However, the story of how Indigenous peoples like the Sami have developed their form of nationhood is generally unknown to the public, and hence also the background for current Indigenous issues like land and sea rights, self-determination, language and so on. Most people appear to know little of Sami society beyond past lifestyles related to nature, reindeer herding, and the ‘wilderness’. Like other Indigenous peoples, this tendency towards an exotic view is maintained by news media, tourist promotions and written material.
Through their emphasis on cultural history, museums have also contributed to such notions of Indigenous peoples like the Sami, albeit unwittingly. Museums have tended to present ‘culture’ as collections of old and ‘foreign’ artefacts, thus contributing to conventional stereotypes of Sami as exotic and belonging to the past — separate from contemporary realities and suitable for presentation in glass cases in museums.
Our museum project was intended as a means of correcting public narratives of the Sami. We describe the cultural and political struggle of Sami from the middle of the 20th century towards Sami nationhood. Our starting point is the post-war period, a time when the Sami movement began to develop and express itself in most fields of activity — art, handicraft, politics, academia, sport, and so on. In our presentation we emphasise the increasing tendency of Sami to see themselves as a separate people in spite of their internal cultural variety. Most of the material shown is from Norway, which also has the largest number of Sami, but it reflects an historical development that is shared by all Sami in the four countries they inhabit.
Our presentation is not intended as a typical ‘exhibition’ of physical objects. Rather, it is an attempt to narrate a process of social and cultural development that is now underway and which the visitors may experience and interpret as a ‘story’. We aim to show how individual Sami have created — through their ideas and actions — the forums and measures that have come over time to shape the form and content of Sápmi. We are particularly interested in where this awakening is going culturally and politically in the new century. The Sami context is no longer limited to a local community. Today, international connections and a world arena are no less important to the Sami future.
Our presentation is not only meant as a means of correcting the conventional philosophy and practice of museums, but also to provide the public with a means to grasp the implications of the emergence of Sami nationhood as an innovative and cumulative process — a virtual revolution in political and cultural terms within a span of a few decades. Moreover, we also want the audience to be aware that museum displays are not just ‘facts’ but presentations reflecting the interests and historical contexts of those who made them. Instead of replacing the old Sami ethnographic exhibition (from 1972) with the new one, the museum agreed to keep the old one, enabling visitors to also experience and reflect on the two different presentations. The aim of the project may, in short, be said not just to represent the development of Sami nationhood, but also to function as an argument in the ongoing Sami-Norwegian discourse.
The idea for this project grew up from discussions among the research staff of the department of Sami Ethnography at Tromsø Museum, particularly on the need to update the old Sami exhibition (from 1972). We have a varied background; some with a relatively long career as university anthropologists, others with their main experience from anthropological museum work. We share a fund of common experience from and knowledge of Sami-Norwegian issues from various forms of impact studies, consultancy, exhibitions and cultural inheritance projects. We have done fieldwork in Sami-Norwegian areas, lectured and produced films, as well as published popular and academic works. All this, building on both systematic research as well as more informal contacts, has provided us with a wide range of personal and professional experience in Sami-Norwegian matters from the 1940s to the present. Our project was supported by the Sami Parliament and was funded by the Norwegian Research Council, the ministries for Municipal Affairs and Culture and Research as well as the University of Tromsø.
Many people have been involved in the project from 1987 to 2000, both from the museum and outside in addition to the staff of the Department of Sami Ethnography.
Major participants were Svanhild Andersen (research assistant), Ivar Bjørklund (editor for manuscript and catalog), Ellen Marie Beck (producer), Terje Brantenberg (project leader and editor of video interviews), Göran Carlsson (designer), Harald Eidheim (initiator and co-editor, Ottar issue), John Hansen (secretary), Johan Albert Kalstad (documentation and video interviews), and Dikka Storm (co-editor, Ottar issue). The manuscript for the exhibition was edited by Ivar Bjørklund, in discussions with other project members. The manuscript served as basis for the catalogue text, of which Bjørklund was also the editor. In addition to the catalogue, a special issue of the museum’s journal (Ottar) was published with a collection of papers on issues relating to the Sami movement.[1] The project is being developed in two ways: First, by a study of the interaction between audience and the museum on the basis of the new Sami exhibition, and second, by an educational web project in Sami and Norwegian, but also in versions for foreign web users (to be finished 2003).
Sápmi — Becoming A Nation
Should the Sami ever experience having books written in their own language, having literature and art based on their national heritage, and cultural institutions that nurtured their folk art, fairy tales and language, it would be the beginning of a process — cultural, social, and economic — the extent of which cannot be perceived today. (Per Fokstad, 1951)
Part I: ‘All for Norway!’
Out of the ashes
The German evacuation and torching of northern Troms and Finnmark in the autumn of 1944 is still considered a national disaster in Norwegian history. But it also represents an historic turning point in recent Sami history. It was after the reconstruction that Sápmi slowly emerged as a political and cultural community of Sami people. In the course of just one generation, a Sami alternative made an impact on political life — an alternative which was to become a political and cultural force in Norway and the other Nordic countries.
Although the German devastation of the north brought the total destruction of all traces of human activity, reconstruction meant that most of the Sami areas in Norway became fully incorporated into greater Norwegian society. It is a fair assumption that close to half of the approximately 70,000 people living in northern Troms and Finnmark in 1944 were of Sami origin. The 1930 census — which was heavily affected by the Norwegianisation process — records that 20 per cent of Finnmark’s population regarded themselves as Sami. The great majority of these lived along the seaboard, making a living from what the sea and the coast had to offer. In numbers, the coast Sami population has always been dominant in Norway. Reindeer Sami have never constituted more than about 10 per cent of the Sami population.
The Norwegianisation process had lasted throughout the century, especially in the Sami coastal areas (where there was greater contact with other Norwegians). Here, many families and townships were making the transition to Norwegian language and customs. It was particularly in these areas that reconstruction was to have dramatic consequences for the Sami national community.
Approximately three-quarters of the Sami population in Norway lived in the scorched earth areas. The destruction thus had important consequences for Sami culture in general. In the course of a few months, most Sami in Norway were deprived of all their material possessions — their homes, boats, tools and household goods were destroyed and had to be replaced when the war ended. This would affect the way people dealt with their Sami identity in future.
Entire communities in northern Troms and Finnmark had to be rebuilt. The refugees returning in the summer of 1945 encountered a land that was scorched black.
Reconstruction was a tremendous undertaking, possibly the largest public-sector scheme Norway had ever seen. A comprehensive bureaucracy — the so-called Finnmark Office — was set up, with departments and officials spread throughout the northern part of the country. Reconstruction era houses were based on standard government plans developed by architects from southern Norway. Formerly, people had wanted as little as possible to do with government and bureaucracy. But now the situation had changed utterly. When you had no boat, barn or home, your ability to use the Norwegian language and bureaucracy determined your standard of living and your future to a large degree. Forms had to be filled in, regulations had to be read, and budgets drawn up. You had to write letters to the Norwegian State Housing Bank and you would be visited by assessors and inspectors.
The reconstruction bureaucracy was a small scale version of the post-war Norway which was taking shape under the Labor government. The whole apparatus was founded entirely on Norwegian cultural premises. There is not a single example of any of the public initiatives being designed to take account of the ethnic diversity of the north. German occupation, evacuation, and reconstruction thus became events which served to make the Norwegian national community a dominant reality for most people.
In the future that now awaited them, there was little room for the Sami past. Besides, little remained in their physical surroundings to remind people of the past. German destruction had eliminated all traces of human activity that might indicate people’s ethnic background. The aim of reconstruction was to provide the whole population, regardless of ethnic background, with identical housing and technology. Uniform standard houses (‘typehus’ in Norwegian) and barns designed for three cows gave little room for the cultural diversity which had formerly been visible in the buildings of the north.
One school for all Norwegians
The emergence of the welfare state in the Sami settlements during the early post-war decades also changed people’s relationship to Norwegian society. Now, social goods like paid work, education and health care became available to more and more people. Modern technology made everyday life simpler. Increasingly, people realised that the road to economic development and material prosperity went via Norwegian language and culture. The welfare state was founded on the idea of ‘equality’ — all citizens should have access to the same social goods. There should be no difference between rich and poor — or between Norwegian and Sami, for that matter.
Schools were an important arena for spreading the ideology of the welfare state. All social classes were to have access to education — as was the Sami population. For more than 100 years, Norwegian authorities had worked to make the Sami and Kvens (people of Finnish extraction) as Norwegian as possible. Schools in Sami and Kven areas would thus conduct all their teaching in Norwegian only. Such regulations were part of what is called the policy of Norwegianisation.
The strongest opposition to the Norwegianisation policy in the schools came from Sami quarters. Sami teachers thought educating children through the medium of their mother tongue was a human right. This same view had been argued by Sami activists around the turn of the century. The Norwegianisation regulations were eventually abolished in 1959, and from then on Sami could be used as the medium of education. Although this change was relatively unimportant at first, it indicates that a more liberal policy in Sami issues first made its appearance in the school system.
It took a long time before this had any practical consequences. When it happened, it was in the so-called core Sami areas, that is, in inner Finnmark. The bulk of Sami children in Norway remained in Norwegian schools which taught a Norwegian curriculum in Norwegian. Many southern teachers were totally unprepared when they arrived in Sami areas. One of them describes his experiences as follows:
I go hot and cold thinking back on the early days. There I was, fresh out of teacher’s training and with little experience. And in front of me sat these little beings with expectation in their eyes. It was their first day of school; so much should have been said. But we did not understand each other. (Lofotposten 30.10.54)
There were hardly any Sami speaking teachers or textbooks in Sami. The history books told the stories of national heroes such as Tore Hund and Asbjørn Selsbane. If the Sami were mentioned at all, the books dealt with the exotic lives of the reindeer herding nomads, as is the case in Nordahl Rolfsen’s reader. ‘History’ and ‘religion’ meant kings and the Norwegian State Church. It was a vicious circle: The children went through school learning nothing whatsoever about their own culture and heritage. Many teachers, for their part, could spend years in coastal Sami areas without learning anything about the children’s ethnic background. The result was that the school reaffirmed and reinforced the process of Norwegianisation which had already been under way for a century. In post-war Norway, there were no longer to be any differences between people. The old class society belonged to a bygone age, and Sami culture was a thing of the past.
The welfare state and everyday life
Improved living standards after the war went hand in hand with a comprehensive national process of standardisation. Homes and education as well as diet and health care were affected by the official ideals of equality, and these ideals would gradually have an impact on most aspects of people’s daily lives. In furnishing their homes, in dress and hygiene, people tended to follow prevalent notions of what was nice, healthy and ‘correct’. As the 1950s and 1960s wore on, more and more Sami realised that Norwegian language and cultural skills were absolutely essential if they were to participate in the general rise in living standards. Sami-ness was by most people — including many Sami — perceived as culturally inferior and a hindrance in daily life. There was not much room for traditional Sami dress (the ‘gákti’) or traditional boots (‘komager’) in the new Norway which was now emerging.
As early as 1952, the government presented its ‘North Norway Plan’. The north was to be ‘modernised’ through large scale industrial development. The plan was based on four concepts which all started with the letter K in Norwegian, and which were known as ‘the four Ks’: Kunnskap, Kapital, Kraft and Kommunikasjoner, that is, knowledge, capital, power, and communications. The construction of large power plants in Nordland made possible, for example, the Mo i Rana Iron Mills. The vision of an industrialised fishing sector produced the Findus plant in Hammerfest. The road system expanded, and bus and boat routes reached most homes. New dairies provided cash incomes for many smallholders, and nylon nets, echo sounders and fishing cooperatives made small fishing boats profitable.
But the changes were felt most strongly in the home. Electric cookers and washing machines revolutionised everyday life for women once electricity was installed in their homes. It brought lamps and light, news and weather forecasts. Weekly magazines carried news of the outside world and life in the cities. New products with exotic names made their appearance at the local store. Sons who had been sailors in the Norwegian merchant fleet soon introduced new standards in fashion and music on their return. It was in many ways a new age.
The whole country now had a stake in the Labor Party’s national vision. Even the most remote outlying districts felt the ideological grip of the social democratic government. The state financed theatre performances, concerts and exhibitions which toured the whole country, and which, together with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, were to unite the country culturally.
But not everybody could join. Gradually, reports revealed that even the map of the Norwegian welfare state had uncharted areas. In 1964 the newspaper ‘Lofotposten’ wrote of ‘the people of Hellemo — a community much like an underdeveloped country’. It became apparent that the Sami areas of Tysfjord had not enjoyed rising living standards. Bad housing and low incomes made Hellemofjord a poor area, and poor schooling did nothing to improve the situation. Similar conditions were discovered in other Sami areas and reinforced the widespread idea that Sami culture and poverty were two sides of the same coin.
Many chose to move away from both their Sami past and their poor present. Good opportunities for paid work in towns and cities, in combination with depopulation of the most marginal coastal settlements, led many Sami to move to industrial centers such as Kirkenes, Hammerfest, Mo i Rana, Sauda or Oslo. New hydroelectric schemes and the merchant navy also provided work for many. People were on the move, and there were plenty of opportunities. Norway was changing and the future was just around the corner — a future that was Norwegian. ‘We are building our country’ was the theme tune of the newsreels. The song continued: ‘Thousands of workers shall sing the great victory song of brotherhood!’
‘Respectable people or Sami?’ — the process of Norwegianisation
Reconstruction meant that the Sami population (also sometimes referred to as ‘Finns’) became a part of a larger national community in cultural terms as well. Norwegianisation implied — in practical as well as ideological terms — that all Norwegian citizens should share the same cultural skills that underpinned the reconstruction bureaucracy, namely Norwegian language, culture, and identity. The 1950s and 1960s were marked by a belief in increased prosperity and modernisation schemes. A national collective project was underway and any attempt to question the place of the Sami in the Norway of the future appeared completely irrelevant. The theme was the Society of Equality. There was little room for difference, whether it was economic or cultural. Sami issues could only be raised in such contexts as discussion of ‘poverty’, ‘disease’, or ‘illiteracy’, and then preferably in relation to reindeer herding and inner Finnmark. This was a period in which the majority of the Sami population experienced economic restructuring, their numbers declined, and they were disguised as Norwegians in Norwegian public life.
The general increase in prosperity, migration from rural districts, and the construction of a national infrastructure served to reinforce the Norwegianisation process which had already lasted for close to 100 years. The result was that the whole population of North Norway became increasingly uniform in cultural terms. Thus, the cultural distance to the reindeer Sami increased, and for the Norwegian public, these were becoming the ‘real’ Sami. The Sami fishing-farming family had little or no opportunity to express their Sami-ness in their own surroundings. In terms of dress, dwellings and occupation, they did not distinguish themselves from their Norwegian neighbours.
Sami-ness was now seriously presented — and perceived — as a barrier to development. Or, in the words of a Sami from Tana:
Yes, I mean it — I’m against everything Sami. The sooner we’re rid of anything that has to do with the Sami the better. Where will being Sami get you? If you go out into the world they just laugh at you. Sami culture? Eating bone marrow with your fingers? No, there is no future in that, you know. (Tor Edvin Dahl, 1970)[2]
Many Sami thus learned to despise their own background — their ethnic identity simply became no more than a social stigma. Sami-ness seemed inferior, poor, and almost morally reprehensible. One of the things that served to greatly strengthen this trend was what we might call everyday North Norwegian racism: making fun of — or simply ignoring — all forms of Sami cultural expression was fully acceptable. This was particularly true of the Sami farming settlements in Troms and Nordland, where a small Sami population was surrounded by a Norwegian majority.
In 1930, 61 per cent of the population in Kvænangen municipality defined themselves as ‘not Norwegian’, that is, Sami or Kven. In 1950 this percentage had dropped to zero.
Even as Norwegianisation was running its course, a committee was set up by the Government to report on Sami issues. This happened as a result of increased concern from teachers about the education of Sami children, especially in inner Finnmark. The report, completed in 1959, proposed a range of measures to encourage Sami language and culture. This was a clear break with the Norwegianisation policy of former times. The report was distributed in Finnmark for consultation, but met with strong local reactions. The conflicts were particularly intense in Karasjok, where the Labor Party was strongly opposed to the whole report. It would, it was claimed, lead to an ‘Apartheid policy’ and make inner Finnmark a ‘Sami reservation’. A meeting of Sami in Karasjok at Easter 1960, gave assent to this view and stated that they as a people ‘feel we are one with the rest of the population of the country’.
Part ii: ‘ ˇC ájehehkot Sámi Vuoihha!’ — ‘Show Sami Spirit!’
Party politics or Sami politics?
In the summer of 1955, the Director General of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), Kaare Fostervoll, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Church and Education. He asked the Ministry to clarify whether ‘the goal of our work with Sami issues should be cultural preservation, or whether we should aim at cultural and linguistic development leading to full equality’. The questions raised by Fostervoll were very important. NRK had started Sami radio transmissions, and now Fostervoll wanted to know which political line the government wanted to follow in Sami matters. Apart from the Norwegianisation regulations of 1898, Norway did not actually have any explicit Sami policy.
The letter ends with a request for ‘a representative ministerial committee to clarify aims and guidelines for Sami cultural policy’. This led to the setting up of the ‘Sami Committee’ of 1956, which reported three years later. The committee proposed a decisive break with the old Norwegianisation line, proposing, among other things, to scrap the old Norwegianisation regulations. The committee stated that: ‘It is a human right of every child to have his or her initial education in his or her first language.’ This view provoked considerable conflict in parts of Finnmark, particularly Karasjok.
The question had thus been raised at last: Should State Sami policy only be concerned with cultural preservation — that is, measures within particular sectors to protect language, handicrafts, and so on — or should the authorities aim for full equality in all aspects of life? This question was to influence all debates on Sami policy down to the present day. The idea of cultural preservation had already taken root in the 1950s; the Sami language was becoming accepted in schools. Schooling in Sami was first of all intended for the children of the reindeer Sami, as it was thought that this was where it was most needed. Separate ‘nomadic Sami classes’ were set up, and in 1951 Margrethe Wiig’s Sami primer — a book focused on the world of the reindeer Sami — was published. Although such measures were small but important steps towards liberalisation, they also served to reinforce perceptions of Sami issues as being concerned exclusively with reindeer herding and inner Finnmark.
However, Fostervoll was not alone in emphasising ‘full equality’ as an alternative Sami policy. Per Fokstad was a Sami teacher from Bonakas in Tana. Back in the years between the wars, he had claimed that the Sami had to find their own political aspirations and solutions — independent of Norwegian party politics. Such views did not find much support at a time when Norwegianisation was an important goal for most people. ‘Fokstad had gone crazy’, said people in Tana. Fokstad made a strong assault on Norwegianisation, claiming that it destroyed the Sami as human beings:
The feeling of pain and shame that comes from always being on the losing side, a feeling which the Sami have experienced for long periods of time, must have been so profound that it seems to have become ingrained in every aspect of the being of the Sami population.[3]
Fokstad thought the Sami needed to reconstruct their cultural self-esteem. He argued for higher Sami education, for teaching Sami and teaching in Sami, and last but not least, he placed the question of Sami rights on the agenda. As leader of the newly founded Finnmark Sami Council (Samisk råd for Finnmark), Fokstad helped push through the following resolution:
The Sami have a deep conviction that the mountain areas as well as the headlands and islands on the coast, which they have been using since time immemorial, are not ownerless land but belong to the Sami people.
These were radical ideas which were diametrically opposed to the political views of the day. There was also strong opposition to political activities that were founded on ethnic interests rather than party politics. ‘Sami politics’ was still an unknown concept in the Norwegian party system. All political activity took place within the framework of Norwegian party politics — even for the Sami.
Hans Opstad from Goarahat in Porsanger is a good example of this. He was a Sami who had behind him a long and varied career as a Labor Party politician in Finnmark. In the early days, Opstad wanted to find solutions to Sami problems, but these had to be Norwegian political solutions. The Sami were still considered ‘Sami-speaking Norwegians’ — as Norwegian government publications called them — until well into the 1970s. In Hans Opstad’s view, the problems of the Sami were first and foremost the problems of the periphery — a view which was shared by all political parties. Any attempt to treat the Sami as a separate group politically was pure madness. ‘Actually, there is no Sami problem distinct from the general problem of the periphery’, Opstad claimed.
Opstad’s political experience came from Porsanger in the interwar years. This was a time when poverty and class distinctions made their mark on Sami and Norwegians alike. For Opstad, the Labor Party’s policy of redistribution was the only solution to the problems facing his municipality and Finnmark county. He had no difficulty in supporting the following proposition, passed by Finnmark County Council in 1973:
Sami issues are mainly commercial and economic problems. In general, these are largely of the same kind as the other problems of the peripheries in this country.
Sami organise politically (again)
But views such as the above also made more and more Sami question what being Sami in Norway meant. Were the Sami only regional stragglers in the development of Norwegian society, or did Sami language and culture represent something more? As early as 1948, a Sami organisation was founded in Oslo with the aim of uniting ‘all those who are interested in our Sami population and in their material and spiritual well-being’. The members of Oslo Sámi Særvi were mostly Sami students, but there were also a few Norwegian academics. This marked the beginning of post-war Sami organisation, a generation after the first attempts at Sami organisation had gone into decline around 1920.
In the course of the 1960s, more and more Sami got involved in Sami political issues. This was particularly true of the young, just as the new education society lead to increased political radicalism all over the Western world. More local Sami associations were founded up and down Norway, and in 1968 the National Association of Norwegian Sami (NSR) was established. The objective was no longer the ‘spiritual wellbeing’ of the Sami, but ‘to put the case for Sami rights to Norwegian authorities and the public’.
For the first time ever, a nationwide Sami organisation set out to promote the interests of all Sami in Norway. From that time onwards, the goal was no longer just equal living standards for Sami and Norwegians. It was at this time that work started on creating a Sami national community and asserting Sami national identity: The Sami were to be regarded as a people with their own language and their own history within the Norwegian nation state. This perspective gradually led to demands for political representation and the right to land and water based on international law.
The Nordic Sami Council was established as early as 1956 on the realisation that the Sami were one people, living in three Nordic countries. In 1971, the Sami Council passed a cultural program emphasising the national community and historic destiny of the Sami:
We are Sami and want to be Sami, but without claiming to be either better or worse than other peoples in the world. We are one people and we have our own land, our own language, and our own cultural and social structures. We have seen the land we have lived taken from us, destroyed, and plundered of resources, and we have been pushed out.
During the 1970s, the NSR vigorously opposed a whole series of schemes that would affect the environment in Sami areas, primarily the building of hydroelectric power plants. The most important issue was the damming of the Alta-Kautokeino river system — a scheme which enjoyed strong support among county politicians in Finnmark. It was claimed that the Norwegian state had obligations towards the Sami minority — they had to be considered an oppressed people. Without special constitutional provisions and a popularly elected representative Sami assembly, the Sami people would vanish. The NSR also exploited international developments in their campaigns, and the concept of Indigenous peoples now became a political reality. The World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) was founded in 1975 and Finnmark newspapers reported that there had been Sami participation. That the Sami were an Indigenous people in Norway and that this had implications in terms of international law added a completely new dimension to the debate.
Such views aroused strong reactions, not least from Sami quarters. Many Sami thought the Sami demands undemocratic; they would provoke conflict, and moreover, they were an insult to the King and the Royal Family. Expressions like ‘Super Sami’ and ‘Oslo Sami’ started appearing in Finnmark newspapers. In 1978, the newspaper ‘Finnmark Dagblad’ told its readers that the national convention of the NSR had discussed ‘a separate parliament, laws and flag!’ Many letters to the editor characterised the work of the ‘Sami activists’ as ‘the work of communist-inspired moles’, and Bjørnøya, an island far to the north, was suggested as a fit place for these people to ‘set up their own country with their own king and all the other paraphernalia of an independent state’.
Along the coast of Finnmark, ‘coast Sami action groups’ were cropping up. These were loose associations which often lumped the arguments of the NSR together with the ‘reindeer problem’, thus implying that it was really the reindeer Sami who were behind it all. These were turbulent times. The Sami issue was now properly on the political agenda in Finnmark.
‘We are doomed to remain Sami — we are no longer permitted to function as Norwegians as well’, wrote Peder A Varsi of Tana, protesting the policy of the NSR. In 1979, such reactions made many ‘moderate’ Sami leave NSR and establish the Norwegian Sami Union (SLF), whose manifesto reads as follows:
The Norwegian Sami Union should work on the basis of the principles of the Norwegian Constitution, showing respect for the King and his Government, the Storting and other state authorities in a democratic manner.
The SLF was soon accused of being commissioned by the Labor Party. In 1982 the organisation had 800 members, while the NSR had more than twice as many. The SLF drew its support mainly from the coastal areas of Finnmark and Troms, from parishes where the lack of fish landing facilities and roads was seen as a much more pressing issue than Sami language teaching and rights to land and water. Many of their political arguments originated in opposition to the NSR’s flagship issues, such as the demand for a popularly elected Sami assembly and official inquiries into Sami rights. Nevertheless, in just a few years, two national organisations had been established, both claiming a base in Sami politics. This was a new situation altogether compared to just a couple of decades earlier, when 87 Sami from Karasjok sent a resolution to the Norwegian government ‘protesting any initiative which requires the setting up of special bodies for the Sami people’.
ˇC SV: A new way of being Sami
The development of Sami politics during the 1970s and 80s was, in many respects, a new awakening. A new awareness was expressed in art especially. Young Sami wanted to reclaim what they had lost. Old cultural expressions such as place names and the ‘gákti’ were rediscovered, and new cultural traits invented. This was a political and cultural renaissance without precedent in Sami history. The period was often referred to as ‘ ˇC SV’, after three of the letters of the Sami alphabet.
Our thoughts flew out of closed cages. A movement was born:
ˇC SV. We wanted back our land, our language, our self-esteem, our culture, our property. We wanted back everything that had been taken from us through the centuries. It was an unorganised movement whose main slogan was: ‘Show you are Sami!’ (Synnøve Persen 1986)
ˇC SV soon became a rallying call for radical Sami, that is, Sami people who had a confrontational attitude toward Norwegian society. ˇC SV represented an alternative Sami self-image. Sami language and culture was no longer something to be ashamed of. ‘ ˇC ájehehkot Sámi Vuoihha!’’ (‘Show Sami Spirit’) was one slogan, ‘ ˇC ohkkejehket Sámiid Vuitui’ (‘Unite the Sami for Victory’) another. To the outside world, the development seemed ominous. Some newspapers were writing about ‘Lapp Power!’ among the Sami, a parallel to the Black Power movement in the USA.
Much more important than the political rhetoric found in these Sami puns was the extensive cultural awakening that was taking place. This was evident in the visual arts, the media, literature, ‘duodji’ (Sami crafts), theatre and music. The introduction of elementary education in Sami had improved the writing skills of more and more young Sami. In 1976, the Sami Educational Council was set up, and a few years later, ‘Jårgalæd’dji’, a Sami publishing company, was set up. All this led to an increase in the publication of Sami textbooks and literature. For the first time ever, literature was now becoming available to the Sami in their own language — a language very few of them had formerly been able to write. Poetry collections by Paulus Utsi, Nils Aslak Valkeapää, and Rauni Magga Lukkari were read by people in all the Nordic countries, as were Kirsti Paltto’s books.
The gradual reduction of Sami illiteracy helped pave the way for Sami media. In Tromsø, Sami students started ‘árpa’, a Sami newspaper. This paper was the precursor of the newspaper ‘Sámi áigi,’ which today is called ‘Min áigi.’ In 1976, Sámi Radio was established in Karasjok as a separate department of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It was responsible for daily transmissions in North Sami. South Sami transmissions had begun three years earlier, with first one, and then two programs a month.
Music became another important arena of Sami cultural activity. Artists using Sami musical traditions now started presenting the Sami chant, the ‘yoik,’ in both traditional and modernised forms, which did not fail to provoke reactions from certain Sami quarters. ‘Yoik is not culture, but a result of uncontrolled drinking’, remarked a Sami mayor in Finnmark in 1977. But the yoik was accepted the world over for what it was; a distinctive Sami musical expression. It was developed by artists such as Mari Boine and Nils Aslak Valkeapää, and is today more vital than ever in both traditional and modernised versions.
This period also saw a renaissance in duodji (Sami crafts). Courses were started by the Sami Duodji foundation and duodji became an important means of spreading Sami esthetics and design. Sales outlets and product development units were set up, and duodji came to be a source of income for many people. At the same time, several Sami visual artists made their entrance. Iver Jåks combined Sami traditions with new techniques and forms in both graphic art and sculpture. Hans Ragnar Mathisen’s 1976 map of Sápmi literally put the concept of Sápmi on the map and enjoyed wide distribution. Along with Synnøve Persen, Mathisen made Sami visual art widely known and recognised. The former worked as a painter as well as publishing poetry; she also co-founded a Sami Artists’ Union in 1979.
Gradually, extensive organisation of Sami arts and culture occurred. Beaivváˇs , a Sami theatre, was established in Kautokeino in the early 1980s. In 1979, ˇC álli, the joint secretariat of the Sami Writers’ Society was set up for all these organisations. As a result of this development, a separate Sami Cultural Council was founded in 1993. The new council took over responsibility for Sami cultural activities which had formerly rested with the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs. Per Fokstad was thus proved right in his 1951 prediction that, in the future, a cultural process would start among the Sami ‘the extent of which cannot be perceived today’.
All this artistic creativity has contributed to the creation of a new Sami self-awareness: Sami cultural expressions have equality with the culture of the majority population. They are — like Norwegian cultural forms — expressions of a shared national culture. The emergence of a realisation that the Sami constituted a separate people, historically and culturally, revolutionised the wider relationship between Sami and Norwegians. The new awareness was not only a result of political and cultural activity. It was also fed by the history and social science research that was being carried out at the newly founded University of Tromsø. The University could, in time, document a Sami past, as well as the problematic present, which helped enormously in shaping both Sami and Norwegian accounts of these peoples’ coexistence.
Sami revitalisation: The ‘gákti’ and place names
Efforts to recover Sami cultural expression took many forms. Much had been lost through generations of Norwegianisation and the general improvement in living standards. This was true in particular of the ‘gákti’, the Sami national costume. After the language, the gákti has probably been the most distinctive expression of Sami culture in recent times. By wearing the gákti, Sami people have been able to emphasise their Sami identity, and they have also been perceived as Sami. As with Norwegian national costumes, the gákti is subject to great regional variation. This variation gradually decreased as the gákti was used less and less in many Sami areas. In other places, however — primarily in inner Finnmark — there is an unbroken tradition of wearing the gákti.
The recovery of local gákti traditions was one of the first manifestations of the Sami revival. Local Sami associations organised courses in gákti-making, and enthusiasts travelled all over Europe, searching for gákti and other Sami objects which had been collected by foreign museums in the past. Old photographs proved particularly valuable, and gradually a rich gákti tradition was documented in areas where the gákti was now unknown. This happened in particular in municipalities like Kåfjord, Kvænangen, Loppa and Kvalsund, but also in Sami townships in southern Troms. Many National Day processions saw the traditional North Norwegian costume lose ground to the gákti.
But it was not at Norwegian national celebrations that increased use of the gákti was felt most strongly. For most Sami people, the revival of the gákti was a way of expressing Sami national unity. The gákti serves as a reminder that the Sami have their own national history — a history very different from that of the Norwegian nation state, but nonetheless a history in which the Sami figure as a separate nation in cultural terms.
Such cultural manifestations did not, of course, go unheeded, especially in parishes where the Norwegianisation process had been going on for a long time. A petition sent to the municipal council in Skånland claimed that: ‘Because of the Sami organisations, there has never before been as much trouble among the population as there is today.’ The petition was signed by a substantial number of the population of the municipality to protest against signposts with Sami place names. They would not have any ‘equality between Norwegian and Sami signposting here’, they said. Similar protests took place elsewhere, clearly signalling that place names also have obvious political implications.
Place names are important elements of cultural heritage and in many locations they constitute the clearest expression of Sami-ness. But place names have also been subject to strong Norwegianisation, especially on maps and road signs. North Norway has many interesting place names which, on closer inspection, prove to be distorted Sami names: Gurluvtgohppi (Norw Skarbuktdalen) became Godluktbukt (literally ‘nice-smelling bay’), Jiemmaluofta (Norw Selbukt, that is, ‘bay of seals’) became Hjemmeluft (‘home air’) and Skabmavuopmi (Norw Mørketidsdalen, that is, ‘dark-time valley’) became Skamdalen (‘valley of shame’); the possibilities are infinite.
But the direct Norwegianisation policy conducted by the State through map production and land transactions come in addition to such popular constructions. Until the 1960s, the State consistently took the line that names on maps should, as far as possible, be Norwegian. When property was sold and registered, only Norwegian names were given. The result of this policy was that the Sami presence was officially rendered invisible. A topographic map of the eastern part of the Finnmark Plateau — an area where Norwegian place names have never existed — would, for instance, contain such Norwegian names as Ørnevidden or Simlefjell. This policy has changed in recent decades. The new Place Name Act 1990 requires that: ‘Sami and Finnish place names which are used by the local population shall normally be used by the authorities on maps, road signs, etc., in addition to any Norwegian name that may exist.’ Today, maps largely reflect this linguistic diversity, but they also provoke intense local debates as to what the locality’s ‘real name’ is.
Part III: A nation emerges
The Alta affair — An environmental issue
becomes
an Indigenous people issue
The work of seriously promoting a Sami national community gathered pace during the 1980s. This was largely due to the planned damming of the Alta-Kautokeino river system, a scheme which was to become a watershed in Sami political history. Opposition to the scheme started back in the mid-1970s, involving in the first instance Norwegian environmental organisations and the local population in Alta. Soon, however, opposition came to be based on the Sami interests in the area, and the issue was no longer solely environmental. A new dimension appeared on the political agenda: the Sami as an Indigenous people. In the 1970s, Indigenous peoples (including Sami) organised in the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP). Internationalisation reinforced Sami perceptions of themselves as the original population of the north. However, the consequences of doing so launched a far reaching debate, which is still going on.
In this debate, Sami people have organised and taken several different stances. As we have seen, the Norwegian Sami Union (SLF) was founded in 1979 because many Sami were leaving the NSR in protest against that organisation’s portrayal of the Sami as an Indigenous people and the implications this might have for Sami rights. As in Karasjok 20 years earlier, the question was yet again how and to what extent the authorities should take account of Sami interests. The SLF pointed out that the Sami were Norwegian citizens and therefore should not have special rights of any kind. The only exception was certain cultural policies designed to protect language and culture ‘in accordance with general developments in society at any given time’.
Because of the substantial reindeer herding in the area, and the fact that the consequences of the dam on these activities had not been thoroughly investigated, the Alta affair could be used to highlight the lack of a Norwegian minority policy. According to Norwegian law, the Sami existed only as reindeer Sami — and then with very limited rights. The authorities regarded reindeer herding as an ‘acceptable use’ of State land, and Norway had no obligations to the Sami as a people under international law. In the view of the government, the only consequence the dam scheme would have for Sami interests was that spring and autumn grazing for 21 reindeer would be destroyed. ‘That’s all’, minister Bjartmar Gjerde told the Storting.
But for many Sami, that was not all. For them, the Alta affair represented something more than environmental and reindeer interests — it was of the most fundamental importance for Norwegian-Sami relations. The dam scheme was a serious encroachment on Sami cultural autonomy and self-respect, affecting the Sami’s right to decide for themselves how to shape their culture and their future. Time and again, the authorities had emphasised that Sami culture would be an important concern in all such schemes. As already noted in Report to the Storting No 33 (1973/74):
There are limits to the environmental damage that can be permitted in areas of Sami settlement and economic activity. Plans that entail large-scale environmental consequences must be considered carefully, so as to assess their effects on Sami use of natural resources and the effects such schemes might have on Sami culture.
But the Alta affair made it clear to all that this had not happened. There seemed to be no limits to the environmental damage that could be permitted, and each time the authorities would play down the consequences. The dam scheme exposed a fundamental paradox of Sami-Norwegian relations: The Norwegian political system served to prevent equality between the Norwegian and Sami peoples. Norwegian law permitted development with environmental consequences that constituted a threat to the collective interests of the Sami people. These were legitimate according to Norwegian law, a law the Sami had had no part in making. The Sami only had individual rights as Norwegian citizens; Norwegian law did not reflect the fact that there were two peoples within the country’s borders.
The damming of the Alta-Kautokeino river system had been approved by the Storting and therefore became symbolically important for the Labor Government and those who thought the Sami should submit to the will of the Norwegian majority. This, however, was not the opinion of those Sami who went on hunger strike outside the Storting in 1980. More than anything else, it was this protest that turned the Alta affair into a Sami issue. Both the hunger strike and the mass demonstrations in Alta attracted a lot of international attention. The river system was eventually dammed, but the Government had to admit that the constitutional position of the Sami people in Norwegian society had not been made sufficiently clear. The result was a 1988 amendment to the Constitution stating that: ‘It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture, and way of life’ (§110A).
One manifestation of this admission was the setting up of a separate Sami Parliament elected by popular vote. Much of the criticism of Norwegian minority policy had been directed precisely at the fact that the Sami as a people did not have the same democratic rights as Norwegians; they lacked a representative Sami body. Sami parliamentary elections required voter registration, that is, a register of Sami electors. Those wanting to vote in the election had to register on a separate electoral roll. The criteria for registration were perceiving oneself as Sami and being Sami speaking, or having Sami speaking parents or grandparents. Because people were required to register in order to vote, the Sami population was, for the first time ever, quantified in political terms. But this also contributed to deepening the conflict between those Sami who opposed any registration of ethnic origin and those who felt that such a register was a necessary precondition for the development of elected Sami institutions.
Resource crises and demands for rights
The Alta affair was a watershed in Sami-Norwegian relations. It served to put Sami questions on the political agenda for good. The Sami issue was no longer just a question of cultural preservation and language; henceforth the debate would revolve around the rights of the Sami population as an Indigenous people. One of the most important questions in this regard was rights to natural resources: Who should be responsible for overseeing the use of land and water in areas of Sami settlement? Norway had in 1990 ratified the ILO Convention (169), an international agreement which established the principle that Indigenous peoples should have ownership of ‘the land which they traditionally occupy’.
Such questions became increasingly important toward the end of the century, as reindeer herding and fisheries were hit by crises that threatened the livelihoods of many Sami people. In the long term, this development might destroy the economic basis of all Sami settlement, and it might thus have severe consequences for the future of the Sami people. Sami institutions emphasised the connection between Sami culture and resources. If the authorities were obliged to preserve Sami culture and settlement, then they also had to preserve the natural resources necessary for their way of life. The demand for control over the management of resources now became increasingly important in Sami political debate. Sami politicians claimed that the Norwegian fisheries policy was destroying Sami fjord fishing and that encroachment by planners and recreation interests was creating great problems for the reindeer herding industry.
The fisheries underwent great changes in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1990, the cod fisheries were closed because of falling stocks. This was probably due to the large influx of seals in the 1980s, combined with overfishing by trawlers in the Barents Sea. Earlier, anybody who had the equipment and the skills could fish for cod, which was the most important species along the North Norwegian coast. But from now on people needed a quota, that is, an official permit, in order to fish. One of the requirements for getting a quota was having fished actively during the last three years. This affected many Sami fishermen in Eastern Finnmark, who failed to get quotas because the seal invasion had made fishing impossible for several years.
Ever since the war, Sami fjord fishermen had, through their local fishermen’s associations, demanded that the use of trawls and other actively operated tackle be banned in spawning and feeding grounds. These demands were never met, with the result that fish stocks in the fjords of Troms and Finnmark were gradually depleted. As a result of pressure from the Sami Parliament, a Sami Fishing Committee was appointed in the 1990s to look into the possibilities of setting up a separate Sami fishing zone.
Reindeer herding had undergone a similar development. In 1978, a new Reindeer Herding Act closed this profession as well. The motivation for this was to prevent overgrazing and increase the profits for those Sami who were licensed to herd reindeer. While recruitment to reindeer herding had previously been dependent on Sami customs and cultural institutions, it now came to depend on decisions made by Norwegian political bodies. From now on, it was the State that decided who should own reindeer, where reindeer herding should be permitted, and how it should be carried out.
A set of economic agreements with the State led to radical changes that shifted reindeer herding in the direction of increased meat production — reindeer herding now became an ‘economic sector’ that could be ‘rationalised’ and ‘modernised’. The number of female reindeer increased dramatically, as did the total number of reindeer in Finnmark. State subsidies favored mechanisation rather than the use of manpower. The increase in the reindeer population caused huge problems for herders, since new laws rendered traditional Sami forms of collaboration impossible. The result was overgrazing, low profits, and major social conflicts — the opposite of the intention of the 1978 law.
The use of rough pasture and uncultivated land also saw great changes. Earlier, freshwater fishing, berry picking, and trapping had been important sources of income for many Sami townships, especially in inner Finnmark. Now, lakes and uncultivated land were gradually becoming recreation areas for the coastal population; the Finnmark Plateau was in principle open to everyone. This was largely because of the legal construct of ‘unregistered State land’, which meant that the State owned 97 per cent of the land in Finnmark. As the landowner, the State also started mining in Finnmark. Today, large international mining corporations are involved in mineral exploration in Sami areas.
The destructive developments in reindeer herding, fjord fishing and the use of rough pastures and uncultivated land have in recent years increased the need to settle the question of rights to land and water. One result of the Alta demonstrations was that a committee was appointed in 1980 to inquire into ‘Sami rights to land and water’, the so-called Sami Rights Committee. The committee has produced three preliminary reports, but 20 years on it has still not completed its work.
Towards a Sami national community — Sápmi
In 1953, County Governor Dag Tønder wrote to the Finnmark County Council pointing out that ‘the Sami are not sufficiently aware of the rights society gives them’. He therefore suggested establishing a ‘Sami Council for Finnmark’. The proposal was well received, and thus the first separate body for Sami questions was founded. Much has happened in the 50 or so years since the foundation of the Finnmark Sami Council. From being an almost invisible group characterised by poverty and a ‘lack of cultural self-esteem’, in Tønder’s words, the Sami are today a nation in cultural and political terms. Sami self-perception has gradually developed away from being a purely local affair into something described publicly as shared Sami cultural affairs. This raising of the profile of Sami culture has contributed to making more and more issues and activities into Sami social concerns. We have already seen how the gákti and Sami place names have been affected by this process.
At the same time, there has been a gradual politicisation and mobilisation around these common interests. Differences of opinion as to how these interests should be administered have led to the creation of more and more Sami political organisations and an elected Sami assembly. What all these forms of social mobilisation have in common is the experience of a larger national community — Sápmi. The notion of Sápmi has gradually become a point of reference for the whole Sami community throughout the Nordic countries and in Russia, a community which is national in the sense that it is founded on a common language, a shared history, and a culture shared across national borders.
An important aspect of this development is that it is no longer individuals but institutions that are responsible for the running of Sami society. In the last few decades, an increasing number of Sami institutions have been founded to administer and develop Sami culture and community life. The role of the Sami Parliament is increasing as new responsibilities are transferred to it from central authorities. The objective of the Parliament is to administer Sami interests in Norway in accordance with the Sami policy of the Norwegian government. With its 70 employees, NRK Sámi Radio is today the largest employer in inner Finnmark. The Sami Educational Council — which is now under the control of the Sami Parliament — is playing an increasingly important role in shaping education in Sami areas. Sámi Allaskuvla — the Sami College in Kautokeino — offers further education to Sami students in Sami, thus fulfilling an old Sami dream. For several decades now, the Nordic Sami Institute has functioned as a separate Sami research institute.
Parallel to this process of institution building, a whole range of festivals and cultural activities have sprung up. Many of these are supported by the Sami Cultural Council, one of the administrative arms of the Sami Parliament. The Sami Song Contest — a counterpart of the contest that chooses Norway’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest — has become a large and very important Easter event in Kautokeino. This contest has finally brought the yoik out of the private sphere and into the public arena. Riddu-Riddu, a festival of Indigenous peoples with music from the circumpolar area, is held in Kåfjord, Troms.
An important aspect of this cultural and political activity is that the Sami have also taken their place in the modern world and become involved in processes of a global nature. For example, the women’s organisation, Sarahkka, raises issues of gender roles and equality. Based on awareness of their distinctive character and historical roots, many Sami are now active in the international sphere as artists, scholars and politicians. And they are particularly active in international Indigenous peoples’ organisations. Sami ethnicity has evolved from being a purely local concern to one with international relevance. Sami culture is still about ‘eating bone marrow with your fingers’, but now Nobel Prize winners and heads of state join in.
But Sami culture is still a local question as well. On the one hand, there is the question of how Sami — and Norwegian — politicians present Sami culture and society nationally and internationally. Here, the ‘Norwegian solution’ involving a Sami Parliament and changes to the Constitution often appears quite rosy. But how Sami issues are regarded and managed locally in North Norwegian towns and parishes is a different matter altogether. The emergence of a Sami national community has brought a bureaucratic infrastructure to which people have to relate whether they like it or not. The Sami Language Act is designed to promote equality between Sami and Norwegian as the administrative language of six municipalities in northern Troms and Finnmark. This means that the municipal administration should be able to communicate with the population in both languages, and that public signs should be bilingual. Such regulations have caused considerable conflict in areas where the Norwegianisation process has lasted longest. Signposts are being destroyed and petitions against the use of Sami are presented regularly. The proposal by the Sami Rights Committee that the Sami should have more influence over the management of State land in Finnmark has become political dynamite in Finnmark. In several municipalities, a new ‘Sami national curriculum’ led to school strikes and vigorous protests from parents who did not want their children to ‘become Sami’. Local life in many parishes is strongly marked by these conflicts, and upholding Sami views in such circumstances might have a high price.
The concept of Indigenous peoples might be regarded very differently in Geneva and a small Finnmark community like Tana Bru. But the Sami national community is gradually taking shape. Sápmi is today a political and cultural reality, a result of the struggle between, on the one hand, a Sami wish to be Sami without being ‘either better or worse than other peoples in the world’, and, on the other, a growing awareness on the part of Norwegian authorities that Norway has to live up its obligations under international law. What form this co-existence should take within the Norwegian State is a question which will affect Norwegian and Sami politics for many years to come.
Note
* English translation is by Anniken Telnes Iversen. Copyright is held by Tromsø University Museum. The AILR reproduces this article with their permission.
[1] Eidheim H and Storm D (eds) ‘En nasjon blir til’ 2000(4) Ottar 232.
[2] Dahl T E Samene i dag — og i morgen Gyldendal Norsk Forlag 1970.
[3] Fokstad P Litt om samisk kunst/Saamelaisesta taiteesta Nordisk konferens i samiska nærings: och kulturfrågor (1953) Jokkmokk Sámiid dilit Oslo 1957.