The Silent Revolution

Sámi indigenous culture was close to disappearing thirty years ago; however,
mainly due to education, media and the Sámi Parliaments, the survival of
 this divided people is closer to reality. By Lander Arbelaitz


Outside the temperature is below 0° C and it has been dark since 13:00. Since the first day of December the sun did not rise and now there are less than two hours of light per day. In one of the two supermarkets of Kautokeino —a village with 3,000 inhabitants, in the northeastern part of Norway— some people are doing their shopping. The supermarket is not very big and in total there are ten people inside. The atmosphere is calm and quiet. Suddenly the fridge is opened and a wrinkled hand takes some yogurts. It is an elderly woman and she is wearing warm colorful clothes. Those costumes are the Sámi clothes and she is not the only one wearing them. For some people the traditional clothes are still part of their modern life and that is a sign that the Sámi culture is still alive, at least in places like Kautokeino.

In the same town, a twelve-year-old child called Henrik goes everyday to the Sámi school. At 8:45 am is dark, and often, very cold. He wears a black thick coat and he hides his sleepy face under a black hat. He says that he does not like to go to school, but he does not realize how lucky he is that he can learn everything in his native language. That was not the case for Sámi before him.

Two generations —the woman in the supermarket and Henrik—are part of the same culture. Two generations sharing time and space. One is the experience, the other the future. Two generations where one suffered from the oppression of foreign cultures, and the other is too young to understand what happened. This comparison of generations is a clear example of the transition Sámi culture is going through. Despite not having accurate statistics, it is estimated nowadays there are between 70,000 and 100,000 Sámis in Sápmi —the name of the Sámi area that stretches into Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia—. The recent years the Sámi are making big steps forward, like creating more institutions to keep their culture going, i.e. the Sámi Parliaments, schools and media in Sámi language.

Sámi Parliaments, culture’s support
There is a picture of Ole Henrik Magga, the first president of the Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi in Sámi language), wearing Sámi traditional clothes next to the King of Norway Olav V, taken in 1989. Most of the Sámi people know about this photo. It was photographed on the day the King of Norway went to Karasjok to inaugurate the Sámediggi. Today, Magga is a professor for the Sámi language at Sámi University College in Kautokeino and he also lives in the town. He remembers that day as “the happiest day” in his life, “the day the Norwegian king prayed for the Sámi people”. He thinks that day is the symbol of the Sámi people’s progress.

The Sámediggi is the highest representative body of the Sámis in Norway. There also are Sami Parliaments in Sweden and in Finland. According to Aili Keskitalo, the current, and first female president of the parliament in the Norwegian part, it has different roles on promoting the Sámi culture. The first is to prioritize and distribute the funds; and the second to network and cooperate with cultural organizations and institutions like museums, the Sámi theatre, etc. Aili has set some goals for the future of Sámi culture. “Hopefully, we will enforce the work on our language. We will put more resources, because the eldest generation that are carrying the language, is getting older and we have to make sure the children will learn it.”

Since its establishment, the indigenous’ Parliament in Norway has increasingly assumed the administrative responsibilities for Sámi matters. Since 1992, they gained further responsibilities. Today, the Sámediggi has the formal responsibility for the development and protection of the language, culture and heritage sites. They also took over the Sámi Educational Council’s functions from the Ministry of Education. Besides, The Sámediggi has the responsibility for the development of Sámi teaching aids with he allocation of an annual permanent grant for this purpose. The total budget from the Norwegian Government for 2006 was around 260 million Norwegian Kroner (around 32 million euros).

Sámi schools, ensuring future
Henrik has many friends at the school. Even though they learn everything in Sámi, they can speak Norwegian perfectly. The young Sámi people are completely trilingual, since they also learn English at school. On the walls of the class they have a map of Sápmi drawn by the students in class. They have color coded each separate area of Sápmi and also shown a representation of the different gákti —traditional Sámi clothes—. They learn what the Sámis in the Russian Kola peninsula wear or their neighbors on the Finnish side of the border.

Perhaps, in fifty years, Henrik and his friends will remember their school in a positive way. That does not count for the Sámi who had to go to Norwegian —or Swedish, Finnish and Russian— schools and be discriminated because they did not speak any other language but the one they learned at home. The researcher Tove Johansen made a collection of interviews with the Sámis who went to Norwegian schools, and as stated in his collection, to talk about school with elder Sámi people, is mainly, to talk about cultural repression and humiliation. In those times, some Sámis decided they should not teach their mother tongue to their children, to avoid problems. Still is common to find some people who changed their original family name and invented a new one more similar to Norwegian. This way, they could hide their Sáminess in order to be accepted and at one stage, buy land. The children did not learn anything about their historic past, soon lost their identity and became completely Norwegian; especially those living in the coastal areas.

The school situation today is different to the fifty years ago. The status of Sámi education has been determined in different ways in the legislation on compulsory schooling in Norway, Sweden and Finland. Now Sámi schools are one of the important engines for the revitalization of the culture and its survival. “Its really important that our children learn in Sámi, because we have to make sure our language will survive”, says Kirsten A. G. Buyo, one of the teachers at the school in Kautokeino. There are many schools in the four states where the whole teaching is done in Sámi language and statistics show every year the number of children matriculated in those schools is rising. Nevertheless, to provide a good education, teacher Kirsten thinks they would need more school material in Sámi language.


Media, normalizing the language
Near the cashier’s desk, in the same supermarket where women are wearing traditional clothes, there are three different newspapers for sale. They inform about the news in Sápmi. On the one hand, Ságat —the biggest with 2,300 copies per edition— is in Norwegian and it is published twice a week. On the other hand, Min Áigi and Ássu are entirely in Sámi language and they are published once a week 1,150 and 1,050 copies per edition, respectively. They are weekly newspapers due to the relatively small number of Sámis who are able to read in their own language. Actually, the readership is not large enough to maintain Sámi language newspaper solely through subscription and single-copy sales.
    
Nevertheless, those who were not allowed to be educated in their language have other alternatives to be informed about their issues. Since the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish national Brodcasting Companies signed a treaty, for 15 daily minutes, the latest news in Sámi politics or other issues are broadcasted on TV. The news starts at 17:05 and focus on the whole Sápmi area. Since it is entirely in Sámi, subtitles are available in Norwegian, Swedish or Finnish, depending on which side of the border the viewer is located. “Our investigations say that we have about 70.000 viewers every day all over the year”, confirms Nils Johan Heatta, the director and main editor of Sámi Radio. They are planning to present children’s programs every day during five years from 2007 on and they are preparing to start with programs for youth.

The Sámi language is also a radiophonic language. It was heard on radio for the first time in 1946, 15 minutes every week. It was the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s (NBC) decision. Nowadays, after 60 years, 30 hours weekly are available in the indigenous language and a NBC Sámi Radio Section is situated in Karajosk. Moreover, eight local stations are around the country.

Two newspapers, a national Sámi radio and Sámi news on TV are notable signs that the Sámi language —and culture, at the same time— is in the process of normalizing. In addition, Heatta thinks the role as independent media “is very important in building up and developing the rather young Sámi democracy”.



The young Henrik and the women in the supermarket are part of an indigenous culture that was traditionally connected to exotic reindeer herding, gákti-s —Sámi traditional clothes—, joik-s —Sámi chanting style—, handicraft and midnight sun. Nevertheless, after having spent almost a century under oppression makes them look at the world from another point of view. The smallness and the satisfaction they have by knowing that they are doing well in their way, makes them strong. That could be one of the reasons why both Ole Henrik Magga and Aili Keskitalo —the former president and the actual president— see future positively. Without making much noise, they are building up their culture and gaining the rights, which belonged to them long time ago. Some Sámi say this is a “silent revolution”.