This address is based on an ongoing study focussing on the Nordic Sámi Council and its relationship to the National Sámi Associations. My discussion will be brought forward to 1973, when the Nordic Sámi Institute was founded. By then, the Nordic Sámi co-operation reach a new stage, with a far stronger local mobilization. The foundation of the Nordic Sámi Institute is only one of the signs for this change.
Before I go on, just a few words of how the Sámi Council is organized. It was founded at the second Sámi Conference in Kárás~johka in 1956. The Sámi Conferences elect the Sámi Council, and the delegates to the Sámi Conferences are elected by the Sámi Parliament of Finland and by the National Sámi Associations in Russia, Sweden and Norway. Until 1992, the Sámi Conference have met every third year, and the 1996 Conference will be the 16th. From 1992 the period between the Conferences is four years.
From 1993 the Sámi Council has two members from Russia, four from Finland, four from Sweden and five from Norway. They are all Sámi.
After the establishment of the Sámi Things in Norway and Sweden, the Sámi Council has started discussions on which role it is to have in the future. The Sámi Things need some form of co-operation, and the question arises to which extent the Sámi Council may play a role in this regard.
The goal of the South Sámi was to defend the interests of the reindeer herders, whereas the North Sámi mobilized against the Norwegian state policy aiming at cultural disintegration, known as the policy of Norwegianization.
The main reasons why this movement did not survive, was that the efforts by the authorities to advice and control the Sámi leadership, and the closure in 1917 of the border trade between Norway and Russia. This had adverse effects on the economy of the North Sámi.
In the north, therefore, many of the Sámi activists joined the Labour movement during the 1920s, as the ethnopolitical movement vaned.
The Society for the Promotion of Sámi Culture established contacts in the neighbouring countries, and was a model for the support of the Sámi cause. This was explicitly stated when a corresponding Society, Same-Ätnam, was formed in Sweden in 1945. It was not so obvious when Sámiid Sær'vi was founded in Norway in 1948. But when Sámi Sær'vi was reorganized in 1951, the society's members were to the greater part the Sámi Friends.
The contacts that made it possible to found the Nordic Sámi Council, were now established. The contact network of, for instance, the Finnish Society for the Promotion of the Sámi Culture comprised both the Finnish sectoral ministries, and international journals like the Journal of Royal Anthropological Society and National Geographic Magazine. The Finnish Society for the Promotion of Sámi Culture also joined the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) in 1956. Through their contacts at the Sorbonne University in Paris, the Sámi Council was able to have their conference reports from the years 1953 to 1962 published in English.
The networks of the Sámi Friends were reflected in the lists over guests and speakers at the early conferences. The Associations of the Sámi Friends were also the ones who invited to the first Sámi Conference in 1953. This conference appointed the committee which prepared the foundation of the Nordic Sámi Council.
They immediately launched this strategy. The Sámi Council was involved in a motion raised in the Nordic Council in 1957. In the decade to follow, there was a continuous contact between these to bodies. The minutes of most of the Sámi Conferences until 1968 are, for instance, reprinted in the publications of the Nordic Council.
In 1958 the Nordic Council issued a recommendation to the Nordic countries to consider common legal rules concerning the Sámi. This led to the organizing of a conference in 1959 where the Nordic parliamentarians and legal experts took part. The outcome was meagre, as to the improvements in the legal situation of the Sámi. But the conference was very encouraging for the Sámi Council. Their cause was politically strengthened, and their self-confidence rose, as well.
Both in 1962 and 1963 the Nordic Council carried recommendations to the member countries regarding a more uniform policy towards the Sámi. At the same time there was an internal discussion within each country leading to the establishment of an inter-Nordic consultative body for reindeer herding questions. In addition, there were erected advisory bodies for Sámi questions in general both in Finland in 1961 and in Norway in 1964. Both were, however, a result of internal political discussions.
The limitations of this strategy were revealed during the negotiations leading to the reindeer grazing convention of 1972 between Norway and Sweden. The process started in 1959, but in 1961 Norway terminated the talks for a while. The Sámi Council applied to the Nordic Council. It feared that the termination of talks might threaten the progress towards a uniform legal status for the Sámi within the Nordic countries. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs interpreted this as an appeal to the Nordic Council to take sides against a member state. They also felt that the Sámi Council was supporting Swedish interests.
The negotiations are also revealing regarding the mutual strength of the Reindeer Herders Associations of Sweden and Norway. The National Sámi Association of Sweden obtained a central position in the political game (Svensson 1976). The Norwegian Reindeer Herders' Association never became any driving force for concerted action by the reindeer herders of Norway. This was due to lack of resources, in particular they lacked competence of the complicated legal issues involved in the negotiations. The reindeer herders in Sweden could rely on their own lawyer.
Even if the Sámi were not granted rights to the natural resources in their traditional areas of residence, the Sámi Council nevertheless saw some results from its political efforts. Major state investigations both in Finland, Sweden and Norway reflected to some degree the ideas of the Sámi Council (Sillanpää 1994). The commissions were often strongly influenced by the Friends of the Sámi. The Norwegian policy of disintegrating the Sámi culture was abolished in 1963. In Sweden the Sámi School system was revised. Only in Finland there seemed to be little progress, in spite of the fact that the Finnish Report on Sámi Affairs presented in 1951 became a most important document for the Sámi Council in its policy making (Aiko et al. 1994, Nickul 1952).
Mobilization of Sámi grass roots was obviously one of the main challenges they had to cope with. Another problem, as they saw it then, was that the National Sámi Associations were not laiable to adhere to the decisions of the Sámi Conferences. This is still the case, but nowadays it seems to be an acceptable state of affairs. The third main obstacle for the aspirations of the Sámi Council, was the lack of competence in particular areas of law or politics.
The goal of the reorganization process was to remedy all these weaknesses. The mobilization of grass roots may be seen in the emergence in 1969 of the National Sámi Association of Norway, and the abortive attempt to found a similar association in Finland. But in Finland they succeeded in having the Sámi Parliament elected and formally established in 1974. The most important victory of the Sámi Council was, however, the grounding of the Nordic Sámi Institute in 1973. This may also be regarded as one of the major outcomes of the preceding years of contacts with the Nordic Council.
The mid 70s, then, marks the end of an era, and the beginning of a new.
Firstly: While the first Sámi associations had a exclusively Sámi membership, after the war we find societies which are purely Sámi, but also those dominated by Sámi Friends, of whom many were either senior officials or academics. Thus the Sámi Movement gained credibility in dealings with the authorities, but was also accused for lack of representativity.
Secondly: The early mobilization came on the local level. They had difficulties in maintaining co-operation on a higher level. After 1945 the problem seems to be the opposite: Except in Sweden, the local support was weak, and the Sámi Council launched a series of conferences dealing with the challenges of the Sámi minority situation and their political participation in the majority society.
Firstly, during the 1970s the political activity among the Sámi grew, especially in Norway. Attention among the Sámi in Norway was therefore directed more to the aspirations of the National Sámi Association.
Secondly, the Sámi Council involved itself internationally, for instance in the World Council of Indigenous Peoples.
Thirdly, even if the Scandinavian countries may resemble each other, there are remarkable differences in their minority policy. This seems to have influenced even the Sámi activism in each country. But to what degree do Sámi of Finland, Sweden and Norway have different political goals?
1995 © Regnor Jernsletten
Paper presented at the Second International Congress of Arctic Social
Sciences (ICASS II), Rovaniemi, May 29 - June 6. 1995.