Liberating Sápmi

Indigenous Resistance in Europe's Far North

Gabriel Kuhn

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781629637792
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Sámi, who have inhabited Europe's far north for thousands of years, are often referred to as the continent's "forgotten people." With Sápmi, their traditional homeland, divided between four nation-states—Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—the Sámi have experienced the profound oppression and discrimination that characterize the fate of indigenous people worldwide: their lands have been confiscated, their beliefs and values attacked, their communities and families torn apart. Yet the Sámi have shown incredible resilience, defending their identity and their territories and retaining an important social and ecological voice—even if many, progressives and leftists included, refuse to listen.

Liberating Sápmi is a stunning journey through Sápmi and includes in-depth interviews with Sámi artists, activists, and scholars boldly standing up for the rights of their people. In this beautifully illustrated work, Gabriel Kuhn, author of over a dozen books and our most fascinating interpreter of global social justice movements, aims to raise awareness of the ongoing fight of the Sámi for justice and self-determination. The first accessible English-language introduction to the history of the Sámi people and the first account that focuses on their political resistance, this provocative work gives irrefutable evidence of the important role the Sámi play in the resistance of indigenous people against an economic and political system whose power to destroy all life on earth has reached a scale unprecedented in the history of humanity.

The book contains interviews with Mari Boine, Harald Gaski, Ann-Kristin Håkansson, Aslak Holmberg, Maxida Märak, Stefan Mikaelsson, May-Britt Öhman, Synnøve Persen, Øyvind Ravna, Niillas Somby, Anders Sunna, and Suvi West.

INTERVIEWS

Synnøve Persen

Photo: Susanne Hætta

Synnøve Persen (born 1950) is a visual artist and poet who has been a pivotal figure in Norwegian cultural politics and the organization of Sámi artists. She was a member of the influential Máze Group, an active participant in the resistance against the Áltá-Guovdageaidnu dam project, and one of the hunger strikers of 1979. Synnøve has received numerous awards from Sámi and Norwegian institutions. For more information about her work, see www.synnovepersen.no. We sat down for a talk at her home in Porsáŋgu in June 2019.

It is often said that the so-called Áltá controversy instigated a new Sámi resistance movement. Is that true?

Yes, I would say that’s true. The week of the hunger strike in 1979 was one of the weeks when everything changes. Most importantly, it began to dawn on the people of Norway what was actually happening in Sápmi. They didn’t know, and the authorities didn’t want them to know. Many Norwegians hardly knew that Sámi existed outside of museums; they had no concept of us as living people. This was a week of revelation.

The protests in Áltá gathered people from around the country. The fight for Sámi rights was part of it, but the movement was bigger than that. Environmentalists, farmers, salmon fishers—many were involved. That’s what made it so special. There was a strong sense of solidarity.

The 1970s were a very different time from now. There were social movements around the world, which, of course, influenced us, too. I have said many times that I belong to the first generation of Sámi who received higher education: we got to finish primary school, move on to high school, and many of us ended up at universities. There, we got caught up in the student culture of the 1970s. We felt we belonged to a new community.

Many university students and professors were involved in the Áltá conflict. Professors came to the protest camp, which created much media attention. Everyone had to cover what was happening in Áltá. The media played a very important role in those days. This was a long time before Facebook!

Was the coverage mainly critical or sympathetic?

There were, of course, some critical voices, but most of it was sympathetic. The critical voices got drowned out quickly.

Can you tell us about the hunger strike in 1979?

We had a meeting with the prime minister. Our most important demands were a stop of the construction along the river and an investigation into Sámi rights. We gave the government a deadline—I think it was noon the next day—and said that we’d go on hunger strike if the demands weren’t met. I don’t think anyone thought that we’d actually do it. But we did.

How did you get involved in it?

I don’t exactly know, to be honest. Many things just happened at that time. I remember someone coming to Máze to discuss the idea with us. Then some people drove to Oslo through Sweden. I wasn’t able to come along, but I took a plane to Oslo a couple of days later. We had the meeting with the prime minister, and then things developed as they did. We weren’t really prepared for it. We had no experience with hunger strikes, and not in our wildest dreams did we expect so much support in Oslo. Everything happened right outside the parliament building. It was a very intense week.

There was another hunger strike two years later. Were the same people involved?

Some people were the same. The hunger strike in 1981 lasted much longer. People were harmed for life. I was asked to join but said no.

Why?

I had become a mother. It would have not only affected me but my daughter as well. I was also asked to join the group of women who ended up occupying the prime minister’s office. I had said yes at first but decided not to join them at the very last minute, after a sleepless night. I wanted to stay with my daughter.

It seems somewhat ironic that the Áltá protests are usually described as a success, when the power plant was still built.

The protests changed the country, and that was the most important thing. They made the people of Norway aware of a situation they knew nothing about before. And we had gotten so much support that it was impossible for the authorities not to react. The Norwegian government’s attitude toward the Sámi clearly changed after that.

How did the Máze Group fit into this?

Perfectly!

But its foundation was independent of the Áltá conflict …

It had nothing to do with it. We were young Sámi artists who had finished our education, and we wanted to return to Sápmi and found an arts collective. That was in 1978. A year later, the Áltá conflict came to a head. Máze played an important role, because according to the original plans for the dam from the early 1970s, the entire community would have been flooded. So, when we arrived, people were very conscious of the government’s plans. When the protests started in 1979, it was natural that we would be a part of them. Our house became a base for protesters. There were always people sleeping on the floor and so on. We weren’t able to do any art, but it was an exciting time.

How did this affect you as an arts collective? Would the artistic development of the group have been different had none of this happened?

That’s hard to say. You can always talk about ifs and whens, but what’s the point? You can’t live several lives at once. We happened to be there at the time of the Áltá conflict. That’s our history.

The Máze Group dissolved in 1983. Why?

We were always struggling economically. What we did was an entirely new thing for Finnmark. We were dependent on funds, but no group like us had ever asked for funding. Before we came, there were maybe three professional artists in the whole county, and now seven of us arrived at once. We were a long way from anywhere. There was no market for art, and no infrastructure. The odds were stacked against us, but we felt strong as a group. However, when an application for financial support from Norway’s Regional Development Fund was rejected in 1983, we gave up. Little did we know at the time how much influence our efforts would have on the development of Sámi art in general. That only became obvious years later.

You’ve been very involved in the development of Sámi art, cofounding several organizations for Sámi artists. Would this have been such a significant part of your biography without the Máze Group?

In one way or another, I would have gotten involved in cultural politics regardless. To strengthen the position of Sámi artists has always been very important to me. In 1974, my uncle, the composer John Persen, led protests by artists in Norway demanding better working conditions. This inspired me very much.

You are known both as a painter and a poet. Sámi artists often express themselves in various ways. How do you explain this?

To have more than one leg to stand on has always been part of our culture. Specialization was a luxury we couldn’t afford. If you’re up in the mountains in the middle of winter and all you know is math, you will die. You need to be able to fix things. There is no one else to do it. All of my uncles were fantastic handymen, able to fix anything. The basis of Sámi culture is survival, and in order to survive you need to do many things.

It also seems near impossible to separate art from politics in Sápmi.

Traditionally, there was no word for art in the Sámi language. There was duodji for handicraft, and dáidu for knowledge. Today, the word dáidda is used for art, but it was only introduced with the Máze Group. This proves how closely art is tied into Sámi life. When a new word enters a language, it tells you that something important is happening.

In recent years, a new generation of Sámi artists including Anders Sunna, Máret Ánne Sara, and the Suohpanterror collective has received much attention. The political element in their art is very obvious. In yours, it is not. Does that mean that your art is less political, or is it political in a different way?

I decided very early on that I was not going to do propagandist art. I am a modernist, and I find the language of abstract painting very strong. I have been asked many times why I wasn’t a “political artist,” and my usual response is that I am a Sámi artist. Being a Sámi artist is very political; you don’t need to propagate anything.

But there is no problem with Sámi artists who do?

No, that’s fantastic! When we talk about Anders Sunna and Máret Ánne Sara, for example, it has so much to do with their lives and their families as well.

Please tell us about the Sámi flag.

When I was a student at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, we went on a trip to the Faroe Islands in 1977. Faroe artists were very interested in Sámi artists, because the Faroe Islands were also colonized, by Denmark. That part was great. What was not so great was that I got so seasick on the way there that I couldn’t imagine returning by boat.

As I was sitting on the flight from Tórshavn to Copenhagen, looking at the Scandinavian landmass underneath, I realized that my country had no colors. A flag appeared in my mind and, upon my return, I sat down to sew a prototype: red, yellow, and blue in vertical stripes, very similar to the flag that was made Sápmi’s official flag by the Sámi Council in 1986. It was important to me not to have a cross in it. All Scandinavian flags do.

The prototype is now in Norway’s National Museum. For twenty-five years, I had no idea where it was. But then someone brought it back to me, and the museum bought it in 2017.

When the Sámi Council asked for proposals for a Sámi flag in 1986, you didn’t send in yours. Why?

I felt I had done my part. The flag was widely used during the Áltá conflict. It had caused more controversy than I ever imagined.

In what way?

I think it was seen as provoking conflict. As if I was advocating a separate Sámi state, with a possible civil war as a consequence. Even relatives thought I had gone too far. World War II had had a terrible impact on Finnmark, and people were very afraid of that. For me, these fears were far-fetched and I was caught completely by surprise. But then things changed with the Áltá conflict, and the flag turned into a symbol of Sámi pride. It always flew at the protest camp and sent a clear message to the police: “This is our land. It is not Norway.”

You described the movement against the Áltá dam as a broad solidarity movement that the Sámi were part of. Is there much solidarity with Sámi struggles today?

In certain contexts, yes. For example, with regard to wind power, which has become a big issue. I’m not as involved today as I was during the Áltá conflict, but the Sámi aren’t alone in fighting the construction of wind farms in reindeer-herding areas and islands along the coast. Many people are concerned about the impact on local wildlife and on natural diversity, all of which is threatened by artificial elements like wind turbines being planted in the landscape. These are positive developments.

What else gives you hope?

Porsáŋgu, which is my home, was always multicultural. There are Sámi, Kven, and Norwegians. We all have our own languages, and today this is officially recognized. It is important to acknowledge that our society is not one-dimensional, because the world is not one-dimensional. We meet more and more different cultures in our immediate environment because of migration caused by poverty and war. For us, meeting other cultures is nothing unusual; we have done it for hundreds of years. We also know what it’s like to be oppressed, discriminated against, and made invisible—and not by strangers, but by your own neighbors. It is no coincidence that many refugees have found new homes in Finnmark.

The Sámi Parliament is also important with regard to multiculturalism. It is true that is has no political power, but it is not a purely symbolic institution either. It maintains close relations to indigenous peoples around the world, which is very...