European Indigenous Internet Representation: Potentials and Perils
for Sámi
Jeff Taylor, Professor of Media Analysis
University of Lapland
Department of Media
Faculty of Art and Design
Pohjolankatu 2
96101 Rovaniemi
Finland
jtaylor@ulapland.fi
office phone +358 3412354
mobile +358 407322965
fax +358 3412361
ABSTRACT
The focus of this study specifically concerns the potentials for cultural and
political empowerment of European (and other) indigenous peoples through their
representations on the internet, weighed against the perils of such representation.
Focusing on the Sámi of Finland, Sweden and Norway, the only peoples within the
European Union to be officially recognised as indigenous by the EU, the paper
considers answers to the following: Does the internet provide new and/or increased
threats to the well-being and very existence of Sámi culture, as an electronic
extension of colonialism and genocide? Or can it also provide some means to subvert
the seemingly unstoppable historical, cultural and political processes that
have so long endangered indigenous people globally? And what exactly is the state of
Nordic indigenous cyberactivism?
1
BACKGROUND
Preservation and Development
The focus of this paper is on internet cultural and political representation of European
indigenous peoples – the Sámi of Norway, Sweden and Finland, the only minority
within the European Union to be officially considered indigenous by the EU (Article
32 of the EU Constitution, Declaration on the Sámi People). These peoples, denoted
in this text by variations as Sámi, Sami, Saami, and Same, were called Lapps by their
state colonisers – a derogatory term to Sámi. Horn (2004)
One estimate finds there are between about 68,000-78,000 in these countries, with
40,000-50,000 in Norway, 17,000-20,000 in Sweden and 6-10,000 in Finland (and
2000 in Russia), although figures vary widely because ethnic origins are not recorded
for census purposes. Sametinget (2005a) In any case, these are tiny minorities among
the dominant Nordic population of these three countries, totaling some 18.7 million.
In common with other indigenous peoples worldwide, the Nordic Sámi have been
victims of earlier national policies of repression and assimilation, from the 19th
Century through World War II, including policies of eugenics. Most noteworthy of
these agents was the Institute for Race Biology of Uppsala, Sweden, founded in 19212, whose work inspired later Nazi policies of scientific racism. The Institute adopted
a social-Darwinian approach that deemed Sámi as a less-intelligent form of the
species. Sámi were among the marginal and vulnerable stigmatised groups to be
sterilized by force during the 1930s, it is claimed in Paul-Anders Simma’s 1998
documentary film Give Us Our Skeletons!:
2
In those days research into racial classification was a popular field for Scandinavian
scientists. They weighed and measured the dead and living, took photographs, and
created a system for ranking the abilities and characteristics of races. Researchers
swapped skulls like baseball cards (i.e. "two Inuit for one Sami"). Racist legislation
was justified by, and in turn reinforced this research, continuing the persecution of
the Sami well into the 20th Century.
GIVE US OUR SKELETONS! shows the evolution and nature of these racist
practices with disturbing archival footage. Many Sami were needlessly subjected to
electroshock therapy. In a present day interview with one woman survivor of this,
we learn that she was also sterilized against her will, along [with] thousands of other
women deemed inferior by Norwegian authorities. First Run Icarus Films (2005)
Sámi language, culture and economic activities were seen as counterproductive to
national social development. Nomadic living and Sámi languages were therefore
repressed so that Sámi school pupils were discouraged to speak their own language,
and Sámi identity became a stigma, driven underground or into denial, and in general
Sámi were expected to adopt the language and culture of the dominant Nordic society.
Post World War II, and especially during the last two decades, these earlier policies of
repression and assimilation have been reversed by these Nordic governments which
have all ratified the 27th article of the UN International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights of 1966 that protects minorities’ human right to practice their own
cultures, languages and religions, practices to which all three states have also given
support.
All three countries established Sámi Parliaments with varying degrees of autonomy
and powers for self-determination, a watershed breakthrough that has been a catalyst
for further promoting Sámi culture and political participation. A Sámi Council with
representation from Norway, Sweden and Finland had been established in 1956, an
NGO that came to include Russian Sámi representation after the demise of the Soviet
Union, and which sits as a non-voting member on the UN Permanent Forum on
3
Indigenous Issues as well as other international bodies. The former chair of the
Permanent Forum is himself Sámi, Ole Henrik Magga.
Norway, with by far the largest Sámi population, has gone further than its neighbours
in support of Sámi cultural regeneration. Norway has a history of government
recognition of Sámi as indigenous, and so far is the only one of these three Nordic
countries to ratify the 1989 UN Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples in Independent Countries (ILO 169), that grants official indigenous status
with all the rights obligations that the Convention entails. The late Frank Horn,
professor at The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law,
University of Lapland, explains the Finnish impasse:
The Finnish Government declared in 1990 that it was not able to ratify ILO
Convention Nr. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent
Countries (1989), because Finnish legislation did not fully acknowledge the rights of
ownership and possession over the lands which the Sámi traditionally occupy.
Ratification of ILO Convention Nr. 169 is a stated goal for both the Government and
the Sámi, but there is no agreement on how the current legislative situation should be
modified to match the relevant treaty provisions. Various studies, reports and draft
bills have been prepared over the years, but owing to the conflicting views of the
parties concerned legislative projects have never been finalised and the land dispute
between the Sámi and the Finnish state remains unsettled. Horn (2004)
The recently passed Finnmark Act, however, that takes effect in 2007 ensures a semiautonomous status to the Norwegian county of Finnmark, where the Sámi population
is in majority, handing over to local government ownership and control of an area
about the size of Denmark. This legal status sets up a local administrative
government that ensures reindeer grazing rights, and rights to manage land, mineral
extraction and other natural resources generally, towards a balanced and sustainable
ecology that serves Sámi culture, economic activity and social wellbeing, as well as
the other county inhabitants and visitors.
4
Unlike other indigenous peoples as a whole, Sámi now enjoy a standard of living on a
par or only slightly below the levels of Nordic societies in general, with most
employed in non-traditional mainstream occupations, and only 10% employed
through reindeer husbandry, in earlier times the backbone of Sámi economics.
Josefsen (2003)
Despite these gains, Sámi still face issues of racism and discrimination, and allege
that state policies and public attitudes are skewed towards preservation of Sámi
culture as a historical artifact and tourist attraction, and oblivious to the reality of
Sámi culture as also a dynamic entity that has always sought development. Another
review of Simma’s Give Us Our Skeletons! notes the film’s contemporary focus on
this disturbing reversion, a reflection on the current revival in eugenics: ‘The
documentary… approaches the present-day problem of increasing racism in the Arctic
areas.’ YLE (2003) This indeed also is common to other indigenous peoples whose
perhaps well-meaning dominant nation-states focus on preservation at the expense of
21st Century development (with less benign ones focusing on extinction). They too
have identity issues as do Sámi, whose connections through blood to the dominant
cultures compete with their Sámi identity, and with cross-border Sámi connections
often stronger than national ones, since Sápmi, the joint territory that Sámi name as
comprising their nation, extends across the northern borders of these three countries,
and into northern Russia. With fewer and fewer cultural markers for the increasingly
urbanised Sámi, often far removed from traditional territory and culture, and with
language uptake dropping off among the young, there are needs for positive cultural
reinforcement, especially through the media.
5
Sámi are vastly underrepresented in the dominant states’ media, and what
representation does occur has historically been negative – bad news for the dominant
society, such as the Alta dam activism of the 1970s and early 1980s, brought on by
the Norwegian government decision to dam the River Alta for hydroelectric power
generation, or recent disputes over forestry reindeer rights in Inari, Finland. Sámi had
been for example routinely and negatively caricatured through Finnish television
entertainment and advertising prior to the 1990s. Nowadays, media representation of
Sámi is stereotyped, romanticised and exoticised, with emphasis on historical rather
than contemporary coverage that homogenises and fossilises Sámi culture and identity
– the kind of postcard image that sells tourism. Mossing (2004) Although there have
been positive legislations in all three countries towards the provision of Sámi
language television and radio broadcasts, with Norway offering the highest provision,
Sweden and Finland have yet to enact that legislation beyond radio broadcasts in
Sámi language, and a very small number of local television broadcasts. Existing
provision of Sámi mainstream media can be seen deficient on three counts attributable
to lack of resources: a) there is Sámi news for example in Sámi language, but
especially in Sweden, at the expense of cultural programmes and democratic debate;
b) broadcast provision in Sámi is monopolistic and without competition, again
especially in Sweden, raising questions of reliable representation; and c) limitations
force compromise in language provision, with North Sámi, the dominant dialect,
being the norm, and others (there are 5 active Sámi dialects in Nordic countries)
largely neglected. Mossing (2004)
6
These limitations are, to an extent, being eroded by Sámi internet interventions. Ole
Henrik Magga, recent Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, states
that ICTs, and the internet in particular, can politically empower indigenous peoples
as well as aid cultural revitalisation. He notes that, as does mainstream media
representation of Sámi, outside aid focuses on indigenous preservation rather than
development, ignoring the long indigenous history of adapting to ‘new’ technologies
in order to survive. The Sámi Chair has faith especially in the internet as a
technology that can aid indigenous people in both development and in cultural
preservation. Magga (2003)
The need is recognised for international Sámi media that conveys Sámi cultural
visions globally, to indigenous peoples and others, and for the role of the internet in
fulfilling that. Certainly this is a natural role for Sámi, who already take a lead in UN
indigenous affairs and provide an as yet incomplete, but nonetheless inspirational
model of the direction other indigenous peoples can go in terms of rights recognition,
and regeneration and development of indigenous community. Magga’s sentiments
echo the aims from groups such as NativeWeb, the most widely recognised portal on
the internet for information about Native American peoples, which states:
Our purpose is not to "preserve," in museum fashion, some vestige of the past, but to
foster communication among peoples engaged in the present and looking toward a
sustainable future for those yet unborn.
[and]
The shape of Indigenous social action changes as wider audiences are created and
especially as the means of creating audiences become the means by which audiences
become actors. NativeWeb (2004)
7
SÁMI CULTURE AND POLITICS ON THE WEB
The survey that informs this paper is part of a larger study into cultural and political
representation of various indigenous people through the internet.1* Anything beyond
cursory or second-hand interpretation of representations in this study is limited to
English-language sites and versions, so emphasis is on communication intended
beyond the Sámi or regional/national community to other indigenous globally and to
the world community, in particular to advocacy groups.
The Sámi Parliaments in the three countries have websites, with the Swedish
providing English information on Sámi affairs through extensive Sámi political and
cultural background information, as well as news, at time of writing, concerning the
First Sámi Parliamentarian Conference held in Jokkmokk, Sweden in February 2005,
detailing its declaration reaffirming pan-Sámi solidarity and Sámi indigenous rights.
Sametinget (2005b)
The pan-Sámi NGO, the Sámi Council, based in Utsjoki, Finnish Lapland, whose
website is documented in multiple Sámi languages, in Norwegian, Finnish, Russian
and English, provides information on the Council, latest news as well as an extensive
set of links to indigenous, Arctic, anti-racism and human rights resources.2 However,
its links to the Council’s activities in the EU, the Arctic, Human Rights and Culture
are inactive, with only Indigenous Cooperation activities of the Council as yet
provided. Its news feature at time of writing is a Council statement to Finnish
President Tarja Halonen protesting a recent decision (June 2005) of the Finnish Forest
and Park Service to resume logging in traditional reindeer pasture area in Inari, which
*
* See NOTES.
8
is claimed to be owned by the state, and thus endangering the future of herding in the
area:
The Saami Council asks the President of the Republic Tarja Halonen and Prime
Minister Matti Vanhanen if this is the exemplary policy of the Finnish Government
concerning indigenous peoples by which Finland is boasting in international forums.
Sámi Council (2005)
The protest statement ends with an invitation to all Sámi ‘organizations and actors to
a coalition to support the demands of the Saami reindeer herders in Inari.’ Not
included with this petition is a facility for local, national and global visitors,
indigenous and otherwise, to add their names to be sent to Tarja Halonen to
demonstrate their solidarity with the Council and Inari Sámi – an online petition.
Staff shortages and changes of directorship have caused especially the English aspects
of the site to fall into some neglect, according to Council member Kati Eriksen,
although she is confidant improvements will be made in the near future when an
information officer joins. For example there are many documents in English that are
not evident on the site because they are accessed only through Sámi language links,
an evolved problem that will be remedied in coming months. Eriksen (2005)
One of the most popular Sámi websites is the Swedish-based SameNet providing
news, events information, and forums for discussion in a range of languages across
Sápmi, and with 6581 login users registered at 14 October 2005.3 This non-profit site
has been up since 1997, through EU and other mainly educational sponsorship,
although its future is now unsure due to resource problems. On its homepage,
SameNet quotes the 1971 Sámi Conference proclamation: ‘We, Saami are one people,
united in our own culture, language and history, living in areas which, since time
9
immemorial and up to historical times, we alone inhabited and utilised.’ SameNet
This pan-Sámi sentiment is echoed by the description this nonprofit project gives in
stating its aims:
SameNet is the virtual Sápmi, a joint Nordic meeting place run by the Sámi and
founded on fundamental Sámi values. The vision is to create a forum where the Sámi
people will be able to obtain and give current information, educate themselves,
debate and make contact with anybody, both private persons and persons in
authority, all over Sápmi.
Our aim is to connect all Sámi organizations and institutions, Sámi villages, Sámi
associations, schools and individuals with SameNet. SameNet
In reality, language provision beyond Swedish and Sámi is limited, and the regular
6000+ users are mainly in Sweden and Norway, which now comprises over half the
site users, though with increasing numbers from Finland and Russia, it is claimed.
Blind (2005) Communication to a global community is missing, except to provide
links to other Sámi-related sites, but then the aim of the site is to unite Sámiland –
Sápmi. Another reality is, despite the extremely high level of internet connection
within the countries, Sámi in rural Sápmi don’t yet generally have access to
broadband, increasingly an online necessity, because of the sparse and widely
distributed population. So it is mainly urbanised and younger Sámi who are accessing
sites such as this.
Sámi Radio in Norway, part of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation based in
Karasjok (NRK Sámi Radio), has a joint news website along with SR (Swedish) Sámi
Radio4 that publishes the latest Sámi-related news in North Sámi, with minor
provision in the two other Sámi dialects prominent within its region, Lule Sámi and
South Sámi. The website has news in these three Sámi languages as well as
Norwegian, Swedish, and since 2004 also selections in English and Spanish.
10
The Sámi Radio in Finland website5, part of the Finnish national broadcasting
company YLE, provides online access to radio and television broadcasts in North
Sámi, the major dialect, but also some modest provision in Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi,
also spoken in Finnish Lapland. News emphasis is on Sámi content, according to the
website, along with providing Finnish national news and Sámi cultural offerings, both
traditional and contemporary. Television online means a 15-minute daily newscast in
Sámi (in Finland available as broadcast only in northern Lapland or via digital TV, or
on cable via Swedish SVT). Sámi television production in Norway is about 20 hours
per year, and in Sweden 10 hours, mostly children’s and current affairs programmes,
so that this increasing online provision of radio and television broadcasting makes the
most of providing access to this as yet small offering. The link to the History of Sámi
Radio in Finland and its move to independence remains as yet unconstructed in
English. Sámi Radio
A site with more global aspirations is that of the Resource Centre for the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, recently established by order of the Norwegian government in
Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino in Finnmark.6 The website reflects the Centre’s brief to
increase the provision of information about Sámi and other indigenous peoples’
rights. Provision of information on Sámi issues, several commissioned and published
by the Centre, such as reports and articles on Sámi land rights, the Finnmark Act and
reindeer husbandry rights, are focused mainly on Norwegian rather than pan-Sámi or
general indigenous studies, although in-depth coverage is given to the UN Draft
Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples and
about the state of indigenous women (the Centre’s theme for 2004). There had been a
11
Sámi women’s forum through SameNet, although its last update in English is 2003,
and in Sámi or Norwegian in 2004, and little sign of other updated activity related to
this important issue on Sámi sites visited. This is surprising given the relative
equality of women in the three countries, and the paradoxical issues of Sámi women
as home-based carriers of tradition or as career professionals earning so their partners
can maintain traditional work, for example through reindeer herding.7 Headlines on
this site call on news that is up-to-date and pan-indigenous, linking to sources
globally. Links to indigenous organizations and advocacy groups globally and to
relevant UN Forums are updated and comprehensive, although a link to an unofficial
English translation of the recently passed Finnmark Act was inoperable.
GOOGLING SÁMI
A Google search for ‘Sami’, the most common international designation, yields as its
first hit, meaning the address most often linked to, a site from Sweden titled ‘An
introduction to the Sami people’[sic].8 From my survey, this decade-old site is also
the main one in English about Sámi, the one most often linked to from other Sámi
sites as well. The site explains its ‘unofficial’ status, adopting terminology used by
Native Americans in representing their tribes, with North American Indians one of the
intended audiences for this site:
This is not one official website, but only a general presentation which was made
many years ago when there wasn’t any presentation of us the Sami people on the
Internet… So for the time being i will let this website remain here since it still
receives a decent number of visits and requests for information so that it fulfills it's
role as a source of information.
So the original intention will be maintained here as well: A presentation to share
information and knowledge so that others may come to understand us. An overview
of the native Sami art, culture, current issues, history plus a few pages of recent
events presented from an indigenous perspective. We hope that this taken together
12
with the links on a separate page will give an overall picture of the Sami people and
what the contemporary life is like. An introduction to the Sami people (1996)
Produced by members of the Sámi Youth organization in Sweden in association with
the de-facto official Sámi magazine, Samefolket, this general (and by the time the
above passage was written, ‘unofficial’) educational site for the outside world
provides information about Sámi under ‘General’ links to Circumpolar Perspective,
History, Homelands, Art, Music, Politics, Reindeer, with ‘Events’ and ‘Issues’ links
(e.g. Exploitation, Landrights), as well as a general category: ‘Links’. Political
activist rhetoric and enthusiasm are evident through its sometimes rough English, for
example in dealing with ‘Swedish racism’ and what it calls Swedish progress towards
‘genocide’ and ‘ethnical cleansing’ of Sámi people – through private owners evicting
them from reindeer herding on traditional lands, an issue with which the site is also in
other places preoccupied with a particular case from the period. The Landrights
section summarises this case and trial, in which reindeer herders lost traditional land
and how the four Sámi communities faced bankruptcy to meet legal costs. The page
ends with an invitation to protest the decision through signing a petition via a link to
the Swedish Sámi Organization (SSR), the national Sámi political party.
This page has been updated (in 1998), as were a few others, the most recent being its
Swedish Sámi Parliament election results for 2001, and its Links update in 2002. Its
Links page invites readers to submit personal web pages that will be added subject to
verification of the native status of the individual. In the case of Sámi, the relatively
small scale of the Swedish Sámi community is belied by the webmaster’s parochial
statement: ‘In case you're a Sámi - just e-mail with your real name i'll figger out who
you are.’[sic] ‘An introduction to the Sami people’ (2000)
13
The brief Art and Music sections of this Swedish Sámi site feature traditional
handicrafts and Sámi joik, with an emphasis on historical tradition, although the
Music section mentions two modern Sámi interpreters whose work is still
contemporary: Mari Boine from Norway and Wimme Saari from Finland. Links
provided in these and other pages of this site are generally dead (except for its Links
page), so that one wonders why this site remains so popular. Even Google searches
for ‘Sámi art’ and ‘Sámi music’ yield this site as top of the list, although its offerings
seem now selective, modest, dated – and mainly traditional. In other words, the site
at times appears to fossilize Sámi culture – and its dated appearance doesn’t help –
and indeed its maintenance and continued linkage from other Sámi sites, despite its
obvious neglect, means in effect that Sámi are reinforcing the preservation rather than
the development role of such representation. Searchers for Sami culture are directed
to a Sámi site that is promoting what NativeWeb warns against: the preservation ‘in
museum fashion, some vestige of the past’. Even the CWIS (Center for World
Indigenous Studies) provides this site as its first of four links to Sámi. It was useful at
the time, and much of it still is, but is it not time to move on as well – preservation
and development? Is there really nothing else as first showcase to the world of Sámi
culture and politics than a decade-old time-capsule, mainly not updated, constructed
by a few enthusiastic individuals from a perspective driven by local issues of the
time? And if not, are there no resources for building on it or constructing something
new?
Interestingly, one has to look to the internet representation of Sámi descendents in
North America, of which it is claimed there are 30,000, for a more international and
14
contemporary representation of Sámi culture. Báiki (2005) The website of the Sámi
Siida of North America contains an extensive and updated Library of English
Language Sámi Links, that includes art, books, a dozen films (including Simma’s
Give Us Our Skeletons!), genealogy, history, language, music and ‘Sápmi’ links –
the most comprehensive list for English I have encountered.9 Unlike so many Sámi
sites that include an English language link, it ignores the archaic 1996 ‘Introduction to
the Sámi people’. It does, however, link to the English pages of the Sámi Youth
organization in Finland (Suoma Sámi Nuorat – SSN), which in turn provides a link to
the 1997 Exploitation of Sámi pages that form part of the old ‘An introduction to the
Sami people’ site, issues that are all still depressingly current. The North American
site would do well to include as a direct link the SSN ‘Protest against the exploitation
of Sámi Culture’ with its message to the potential 30,000 Sámi descendents in North
America, potential victims themselves to this exploitative tourism if not made aware
of the issue, but more importantly, a potential advocacy arena for petitions and other
support. Such exploitation issues for Sámi people are badly in need of a cyberspace
update.
As well as the established and internationally-known ‘neotraditionalists’ Mari Boine
and Wimme Saari, the site links to other innovative Nordic Sámi hybrids that refer to
Sámi traditional joik (singing) such as the world-music Transjoik10 and the ‘joikrock’ Sancuari11. Another link is to a young Inari Sámi joik singer’s project to
combine tradition and innovation – preservation and development – the artist, Mikkal
Morottaja, who calls himself Amoc and raps in Inari Sámi language, of which there
are only 3-400 speakers. And unlike American male hip-hop and gangsta rap,
15
Amoc’s message is not the current misogynist one, about which the sister site of the
Black American women’s magazine Essence warns:
More rappers are moving from lyrics and videos to booming new business ventures.
But too many have figured out the quickest route to riches is pimping “hos” and
“bitches.” Take Back The Music (2005)
According to the Helsingin Sanomat Amoc’s rapper defiance is more concerned with
mythological themes, like golden axes and demons of fire. Laitinen (2005) Legal free
downloads of Amoc are available.12
SÁMI CYBERACTIVISM(?)
Kenneth Deer, Mohawk independent editor of the Eastern Star in Montreal, notes:
When you are born Indigenous, you are born political. Your very birth is a political
act, because we are not supposed to be here. You always have to struggle. That is our
destiny. The moment you stop struggling, that's when you disappear. Deer (2003)
Youth and activism are a natural and dynamic combination, but with most people
when youth passes, so does activism. Sámi youth in all three countries have official
websites to represent themselves, although only the Finnish one has English
provision.13 It provides links to the other youth websites, as well as to the three Sámi
parliaments and Sámi studies centres. Its first link appears activist, provocatively
called Protest Against Exploitation of Sámi Culture, which directs to a page in
English that this Finnish Sámi youth organization (SSN) had produced as part of the
Swedish Sámi site, ‘An introduction to the Sámi people’, discussed earlier. The page
documents various exploitations of Sámi culture and people for commercial tourism
purposes at the local Santa Claus Village located on the Arctic Circle a few
16
kilometers north of Rovaniemi, home to SSN. For example, the page reveals how
tourists are offered what portends to be a shamanistic Sámi ceremony on crossing the
Arctic Circle (Sámi have no such ceremony and the Arctic Circle is regarded as an
arbitrary line). Racist postcards and playing cards are displayed that depict Sámi
(referred to as ‘Lapps’) in a highly offensive way meant to ridicule, and which are
sold at the Village, along with culturally derogatory and degrading dolls that borrow
Sámi costume.
This page, which also yields the number one hit for a search for the words ‘Sami
exploitation’, was published by this youth group (SSN) in 1997, with only an
addendum added in 1998. But what effect has it had to be number one? None
locally. The derogatory and racist playing cards mocking Sámi and the offensive
‘Sámi’ dolls are still for sale at Santa Claus Village, where the protest was aimed, and
even at the toy store in the shopping basement of Santa Claus Hotel in Rovaniemi.
The ceremony is still for sale (as I can attest), and as further part of the tourism
package, my non-Sámi Finnish students working part-time in tourism are still
required to dress up as Sámi to greet tourists on arrival for their Christmas visit to
Lapland and Santa.
Where is the web equivalent of the 1998 ‘Govadas’14, a Sámi-produced CD-Rom that
blended contemporary Sámi art, as opposed to ‘traditional’ handicraft, with
contemporary Sámi music (Wimme again) in ‘Dolby Surround’ audio and a hypertext
of Sámi activist history? And why is there no web version of the audiovisual
production Postcards from Lapland, a dual-dissolve projection of the touristic
caricature of Sámi culture through Finnish postcards and its impact on Sámi
17
identity?15 And where are the websites galvanising international public outcry at the
revelations of pervading racism and persecution of Sámi documented in Paul Anders
Simma’s film Give Us Our Skeletons!?16
Why are the links to contemporary Sámi culture on an American website, with Sámi
websites themselves linking in English mainly to historical culture, traditional joik,
only, or an outdated website – but not seeking to represent themselves as also
dynamic, urban and techno-savvy, yet retaining Sámi identity and cultural values?
Why are there no activist Sámi sites trying to turn international audiences into actors
concerning the current issue of logging in Inari? It is left up to Greenpeace to take the
initiative. Greenpeace (2005)
Is it because Sámi Nordic society has been so thoroughly assimilated into the
dominant cultures, co-opted and seduced into complacency by legal instruments such
as the Sámi Parliament, or even the Finnmark Act? Metaphorically taking a stand,
speaking out, is not a Nordic cultural currency within these countries. A (Finnish)
joke defines a Finnish extrovert as someone who looks at your shoes rather than his
own on the rare occasion that s/he is addressing you. This is a scathing stereotype, of
course, but activism, cyber or otherwise, is not part of the national character in any of
the three countries. Search for ‘Finnish protest’, and your first hit, yet again, will be
the 1997 Exploitation at Santa Claus Village. Search for ‘Sámi protest’ and, no
surprises, you reach the site’s decade-old Landrights petition page. The second hit for
‘Finnish Protest’ is, ironically, a mass petition against Czarist repression, signed by
473,363 out of a 2.5m Finnish population, published in an article by Lenin in 1901.
Lenin (1901) Perhaps it could be a model for Sámi to use to petition the Finnish
18
government to address the impasse and ratify convention ILO 169 and officially
recognise Sámi as indigenous, as does the European Union.
The first relevant link presented through a search for ‘Swedish protest’ brings up a
piece about the 20,000-strong 1935 protest by Swedish women against war.
Andersson (2003) But ‘Norwegian protest’ yields more recent activism: the 2005
action by the Norwegian Farmers’ Association who traveled to Geneva to march in
protest at WTO policy that threatens their traditional livelihood. Sylte (2005)
Here then is another activist example for Sámi. As an indication of the impact of
cyberactivism, the Norwegian Nobel Institute responded to an online petition by over
43,000 internationally to reject the nomination of George W. Bush and Tony Blair for
the 2002 Peace Prize, a decision a year before the invasion of Iraq that may not have
seemed as obvious as appears in retrospect.17
Not only farmers in Norway, but Sámi, too, have been historically more active, and
share an important defining moment in the regeneration of culture – the proposed
damming of the River Alta that resulted in Sámi protest beginning in 1970 and lasting
through 1982. The colonial push for assimilation by the respective dominant cultures
– Norway, Sweden and Finland – that took over Sápmi, and by the much more
ruthless Soviet Union, drove Sámi identity underground or into denial. But the
political struggle brought on by the proposed damming of the the River Alta for
hydroelectric power generation, though unsuccessful in stopping a project that
endangered local Sámi traditional livelihood, served to activate Sámi generally
towards regeneration of their culture, and the eventual establishment in 1989 of the
first Sámi Parliament, in Norway:
19
This first protest - which eventually developed into the largest and most intense
struggle for Sami rights of this century - was one of the early expressions where
Sami advocated a view of themselves, which opened up for the growing selfunderstanding among Sami - like many other indigenous groups elsewhere during
these years - that they shared destiny with other indigenous peoples. Brantenberg and
Minde (1995)
If the Alta dam project were being planned now, how would the internet be used?
Would Sámi launch activist sites to galvanise the level of support achieved by the
Zapatistas in 1994 cyberspace in fending off police action to protect indigenous
rights? Or have the days of activism passed, online and off? The Sámi Youth
Organization in Finland (SSN) that documented various exploitations of Sámi culture
through Finnish tourism, included on its page coverage of a protest by Sámi against
this exploitation at Santa Claus Village during Christmas 1996. There have been no
further protests by Sámi at Santa Claus Village, Rovaniemi, since 1996.
This lack of cyber and other activism is not just a Sámi phenomenon, however, but
shared by other indigenous peoples, and many for good reason. The War on
Terrorism does not discriminate among those ‘against’ certain policies of state and
global powers that infringe their human rights, those who would previously have been
called freedom fighters but can now be deemed terrorists. This is especially true of
regimes that have been part of the US-led Coalition of the Willing in the War in Iraq,
whose suppression of indigenous minorities would earlier be threatened by US
scrutiny. The US is likely to turn a blind eye to such injustices, as part of the package
given to such countries’ for their support. As outspoken analyst and attorney Elaine
Cassel writes, ‘Terrorism is whatever the government wants it to be. It is a moving
and morphing construct.’ Cassel (2004) What anthropologist Dr David Price noted a
year after 9/11 still rings true: ‘America’s war on terrorism is drifting into a
20
generalised war on indigenous nations…’ CWIS (2002) Naomi Klein confirms this
for South America: ‘… [T]here are attempts across the continent to paint the
indigenous-inspired movements as terrorist. Not surprisingly, Washington is offering
both military and ideological assistance.’ (2005)
Cyberspace seems no longer the safe and free activist refuge, when every petition you
sign, every book you order, every website you visit, every email you send, is at risk of
being tapped, not to mention every virtual sit-in you organize. The virtual sit-in is the
potential electronic equivalent of the non-violent direct action and civil disobedience
that Rosa Parks practiced when she sat in the front of the bus, and sparked the civil
rights movement – only still legal, for some. A virtual sit-in might involve motivating
and coordinating hundreds of people to simultaneously and repetitively attempt to
access a target website, causing its server to slow down or crash (a DDoS –
distributed denial of service). It is the tactic the Electronic Disturbance Theatre has
used in support of the Zapatistas against, for example, the website of the Mexican
president – a virtual protest demonstration the Norwegian farmers might wish to
consider. The Reporters Sàns Frontieres Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
recently published online provides a comprehensive account of possibilities.18
However, there are disturbing signs of a blurring of the distinction by governments
between cyberactivism and cyberterrorism, with the virtual sit-ins of ‘hactivism’
equal to insurgency in some countries. The lack of activism – of cyberactivism –
reflects heads-down caution and self-censorship in many countries that is paralleled
in traditional (print and broadcast) media since 9/11. An Alta-type river damming
project might today proceed without protest. Any cyberactive participation in a
21
Zapatista-style freedom campaign of the level of 1994 would be avoided online and
off. The romance of supporting Subcomandante Marcos operating from the jungle
with his laptop and pick-up truck lost its media charm when contaminated by images
of Osama operating similarly.
Having said all of that, Nordic Sámi are more privileged than any other indigenous
peoples in yet a further way: Their Nordic countries are represented by the most free
media and by the least corrupt governments globally. In the Freedom of the Press
2005 survey (conducted by Freedom House), Finland, Sweden and Iceland are tied for
first place, with Norway and Denmark tied for fourth. The United States is tied for
24th place with the former Soviets Estonia and Latvia, down from 15th in 2004,
whereas they are on the rise from 28th place. Freedom House (2005) Similarly,
Norway, Sweden and Finland are all in the top 10 least corrupt countries, according to
the 2005 Transparency International survey, that puts Finland as number 2, Sweden as
7 and Norway as 8. Transparency International (2005)
If any indigenous people are in a position to risk cyberactivism, with the least
threatening governments, it is the Nordic Sámi. It may be that Sámi no longer have
need for activism for themselves, relying on their official political representatives
instead, or subcontracting to Greenpeace. But it can be posited that Nordic Sámi still
have a responsibility, as arguably the most privileged indigenous people, to provide a
model not only for cultural and political empowerment, but for galvanising activism
to aid other indigenous peoples, in nearby Sámi in Russia and beyond. Who will
write the Handbook of Indigenous Cyberactivism? Cyberspace is waiting. The
22
indigenous clock is ticking.
23
NOTES
1
Taylor, Jeff, ‘Tanssia paholaisen kanssa’ in J. Kupianen and K.Laitenen, eds.
Kulttuurinen Sisältötuotanto?, Edita, Helsinki, 2004; also monograph under
construction for Peter Lang Publishers.
2
http://www.saamicouncil.net/?deptid=1113
3
http://www.same.net/
4
http://www.saamiweb.org/
5
www.yle.fi/samiradio/
6
http://www.galdu.org/
7
http://www.same.net/~sami.nissonforum/
8
http://www.itv.se/boreale/samieng.htm
9
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Earran4/siida/index.htm
10
http://www.transjoik.com/
11
http://www.sancuari.com/
12
http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=21483
13
http://www.same.net/~ssn/)
14
http://www.puntsi.fi/govadas.htm
15
Production by Jorma Lehtola and Jukka Suvilehto, Provincial Museum of Lapland,
Rovaniemi, 1996
16
A project that will make films such as this available online is currently in planning
through the Lapland Arts Council as part of the Creative Lapland project.
17
Petition is available via http://www.eskimo.com/~cwj2/actions/bushblairnobel.html
18
Download available from: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542
24
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27