Text courtesy of Tjen Folket https://tjen-folket.no/2022/02/06/ein-eigen-samisk-stat/

You can read the whole issue of Røde Fane in Norwegian here and in North Sámi here.

I may have made mistakes in this translation, so you may wish to compare and contrast with a machine translation. If there are any Norwegian or North Sámi speakers who might suggest changes to the translation, I'd be glad to hear them. I have also changed the formatting to hopefully read better.

A Sámi State of Our Own

What is the significance of the establishment of a popularly-elected Sámi parliament? Is it a recognition of Sámi rights? A step towards Sámi self-governance?

"Quite the contrary," Niillas A. Somby asserts in this interview.

— "The Sámi parliament is simply an attempt to legalize the Norwegian colonization. It's the crown at the top of the system of colonization," Niillas says, pointing to how similar institutions are now being established by many colonial powers.

Niillas A. Somby (age 37) lives in Sirbmá in Deatnu, known in Norwegian as Tana. He is a photographer and has among other things contributed to the book Finnmarksbilder (Images of Finnmark). Niillas was one of the Sámi who went on hunger strike outside the Storting [Norwegian parliament] during the Alta controversy. He later lost an arm when he and John Reier Martinsen attempted to blow up a bridge in Alta. After half a year in custody, Niillas fled to Canada where he and his family lived with Indians [Natives], until they were deported from Canada and sent back to Norway.

In the 1981 Storting election, Niillas was in second place on the Red Electoral Alliance's list in Finnmark. Today he says he wishes to focus on the struggle for Sámi liberation, rather than participate in Norwegian organizations.

Niillas: The Sámi Rights Committee is completely ass-backwards. Here we have the Norwegian government setting up a committee to determine which rights Sámi have in the part of Sápmi which is being colonized by Norway. It should instead be a Sámi committee determining what sorts of rights Norwegians have in our country. Our rights are here, it's just that we have for generations been kept from exercising them.

Interviewer: What do you expect will come out of the Sámi Rights Committee's findings?

Niillas: We'll probably get a Sámi parliament, such that the colonization can be legalized, turned into a formal system. This wouldn't be something unique to Norway. They have a Sámi parliament in Finland, in Sweden they're considering something similar. In Canada we're seeing the same process with the establishment of Indian Government [sic]. Even if the Indians in Canada have more rights than the Sámi in Norway, this will be an institution with minimal say. I expect no future political changes that will give us more say in our affairs. What we'll get is an institution to feed us crumbs of autonomy.

Interviewer: What do you think about the Sámi organizations' work in relation to the Sámi Rights Committee?

Niillas: I think they're acting on the premises of the powers that be. They're discussing the electoral system and census results without asking questions about what the Sámi parliament will actually be. I have in any case more important things to do than vote for a representative in a political sandbox. I'm worried that many Sámi with many resources to work with will end up throwing their power away for this sandbox.

Interviewer: But who should in your opinion uphold the Sámi people's rights? The Sámi parliament?

Niillas: If we Sámi are to acquire political power to rule our own lands, we must look away from the colonial power's institutions completely. We must not build Sámi institutions based on the blueprints of Norwegian institutions. I cannot give any sort of complete recipe on how our institutions should look. Their form must be determined by the Sámi people by ourselves on the basis of the Sámi democracy that existed before. The Sámi parliament cannot have power both locally and centrally, we must have Sámi institutions of power on a local level.

I think we can build on much of the old siida system. Around these parts, for example, it was the Buolbmát (or Polmak) siida and the Ohcejohka (or Utsjok) siida in the old days that determined the use of resources in this area. We must rebuild what existed of Sámi organization before the colonial powers tore these institutions down. The old siida system was built on collective property rights, on a sort of socialist foundation.

This means we must have our own Sámi legal apparatus and Sámi police. If one must go to the Norwegian courts every time a problem arises, one won't find any solutions there. The whole Norwegian legal apparatus was built up during the heyday of colonization and still serves the colonizers' ends. We Sámi must also have laws to be able to rule our own country. This is to say we need our own Sámi constitution, our own Sámi legal code.

Interviewer: But what you're saying now, that would mean a separate Sámi state, right?

Niillas: Yes, of course.

Interviewer: But what about a form of self-governance within the Norwegian state, a so-called autonomous area?

Niillas: That would be a sort of Indian reservation, something I think most in Sápmi and in Norway would distance themselves from.

Interviewer: What's being discussed right now is a Sámi parliament based on the Sámi population. But if a Sámi parliament is to steer a Sámi state, can one then build on such census figures?

Niillas: I cannot think of any state established on an ethnic basis. That would be a sort of racial segregation like in South Africa. If the Sámi parliament is just for divvying up stipends and money for cultural purposes, then that's fine to restrict voting rights to just the Sámi population. But in a Sámi state or autonomous region, anyone living in Sápmi must be able to demand and receive the rights of citizenship.

Interviewer: Do you then see no advantage to establishing a Sámi parliament?

Niillas: Well, it's clear that it can be useful to have a popularly elected Sámi institution. Today just about anybody at all can claim to represent the Sámi. When we went down to Oslo and set up lavvus in front of the Storting back in 1979, we said we represented the Sámi. Meanwhile the Labor Party mayors of the Sámi municipalities came down and said that they represented the Sámi.

Rights and duties

Niillas: You're only asking about Sámi people's rights. Everybody's talking about Sámi people's rights, but not about our duties. I find that it goes without saying that one must also have obligations or duties owed to the society one lives in. The greatest of these duties we have is to take care of our land and water and natural resources. Here we see that indigenous peoples have a common foundational attitude. We understand humans as a part of nature. We must make use of nature, not overexploit it. When one overexploits nature one will end up with nowhere to go. So now that we're seeing environmental catastrophies like Chernobyl, I'd say it's high time that we revise our attitudes on who is civilized and who isn't.

Between east and west

Niillas: Something the Sámi Rights Committee hasn't dared to consider is the military aspects of the situation. Sápmi is split between four countries, and on each side of each border, Sámi youths are forced into militaries that aren't our own, and which have no background in Sámi culture whatsoever. Our people is divided between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. We know that Finland can be pulled to the Soviet Union's side in a war. We don't want to fight a war against those on the other side of the river.

From the Somby family's kitchen window, we can see Deatnu — the Tana River — and over to its opposite bank. On both sides of the river the same Sámi dialect is spoken, and many Sámi have relatives on the opposite side of the river, yet there the Finnish state holds sway. It is then perhaps not too strange that not everyone on Norway's side of the border feels very Norwegian.

Niillas: But Norwegian nationalism has influenced the people here as well. The war was especially influential. That's when we got a whole generation who became more Norwegian than any Norwegian. Everyone was in the same boat against the Germans. The burnings and evacuations very effectively hastened the Norwegianization process. The only ones who were spared were those who lived in the mountains and had with them enough to take care of their reindeer herds. They saw everyone as an enemy, whether it was Norwegian rulers or the German occupation. The war also Norwegianized those among the Sámi who became Nazis. Today they are, as a rule, supporters of Norwegianization and the SLF (Sámi National Association / Samenes Landsforbund). This phenomenon is as always about hiding behind the great power — a desire to be the rich man's servant.

The special position of reindeer herding?

Interviewer: The reindeer herders are now demanding their own representation in the Sámi parliament because of their industry's special role as a bearer of Sámi culture and rights. Do you believe it's right to say that reindeer herding has this sort of special position?

Niillas: It's always been the state's policy to restrict Sámi people's rights to participate in reindeer herding. In that way they pit the reindeer herders and the non-herding Sámi against each other. Those who don't have reindeer are then not seen as really Sámi. If one has gotten through this [?], then it's just a matter of killing the reindeer herding [practice], then the state's got rid of its whole Sámi problem. Through that lens, Chernobyl came exactly as ordered. I'm afraid forces in the reindeer herding industry are playing into this division. I'm almost unsure if I dare to assert this, but the reindeer herding industry has in large part sold itself to the state. They get money from the state through their agreements with it. As a result they've found themselves facing new restrictions from the state through the new law on reindeer herding — among other restrictions, herders' cooperatives must now be approved by politically appointed regional councils. Such a system is completely contrary to Sámi tradition. The right to participate in reindeer herding isn't something we got from the state, but something we've always had. The same applies to other rights which have been taken from us. The right to land and water are something we have as people, one industry or source of sustenance isn't better than the other.

The Sámi authorities

Niillas: Before it was dážat (Norwegians) who were the typical authorities in the Sámi municipalities — mayors were as a rule teachers from the south. For hundreds of years we've been taught that those who know what they're talking about are those with a gray suit and tie. Now it's a new type [of authority] which has taken over: the Sámi bureaucrats. They're often more bureaucratic than their Norwegian counterparts, in the same way as Sámi Christians are more Christian than the Pope himself. We see the same happen in other indigenous communities. The Sámi authorities today are people with a good education from a Norwegian university. It's clear that although they wish to serve Sámi interests, that they can't avoid being colored by the system. I don't think one could manage to stay in school for many years, if one didn't believe any of what one was learning. I worry it'll be these types who will come to dominate the Sámi parliament.