On the first day of summer 2023, the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented its report. They had collected testimonies, history and statistics about the Sami, Kven, Norwegian-Finnish and Forest-Finnish people groups in Norway. It was grim reading.
It was a story of systematic discrimination, prejudice and their painful personal consequences. Unfortunately, not much of this was new to us who belong to these minority groups. We have felt the discriminatory policy in the flesh, even though we were born many decades after it officially ended. A state that puts parts of its people above others will find that the differential treatment does not automatically disappear the day the laws are changed. It is not so easy to abolish hundreds of years of discrimination. The inherited attitudes are deeply rooted. It is easier to do damage than to repair it.
Nevertheless, despite the shocking content of the report, it did not take many hours before the Norwegian national media was done with it. There were more important things to write about. Basically, most of what happened in Norway that day was more important to write about than that particular report. The lack of curiosity was striking. Already a few hours later, the report had disappeared from the news, and once again those of us who had been looking forward to a long-awaited settlement were disappointed.
At the same time, a reading of the entire report was organized by Kvääniteatteri, Festspillene i Bergen and Nationaltheatret. A series of actors and cultural figures were invited to read parts of the text on the main stage of the National Theater in Oslo. I was one of them. I stood there in front of the empty salon, with the cameras making sure the moment was immortalized and was possible to follow on the state channel, and read a passage about how widespread the negative attitudes towards the Sami were. It became strangely symbolic.
The hall was empty because the reading was meant for the television audience. And at home in the living rooms, the members of the relevant minorities sat and followed along, while the Norwegian audience once again had more important things to do. We had been given the biggest stage, we had the microphone, the television camera and, it seemed, finally our moment. But no one was listening. It did not concern the Norwegians.
What reconciliation is possible when only the affected party comes forward?
The question is rhetorical, but I still allow myself to answer: None. One cannot reconcile as long as the oppressing party is absent. There will be no court case without the defendant. The victims stand and tell their story straight out into a big nothingness. Like in the theater salon where I stood and read out my part of the report. The truth would come out, but the party that didn't know it, still doesn't know it. Some feeble attempts to express disappointment in the paper were made by members of the commission. Not much happened.
Personally, I used the frustration of once again being sidelined and made invisible to write the novel "Sameproblemet" (2024), which was published in the fall of the following year. At the same time, it was also finally time for political consideration of the report. It ended with a majority in the Storting agreeing to give us an apology. But as you know, words are cheap.
The Commission had drawn up a list of possible measures to remedy the damage done to culture and languages, but what we got was 6 letters. For a hundred years, the Norwegian authorities had used money and great resources to take away our ethnic identity, but when they finally admitted that this policy had been harmful, all they had to say was a pitiful word.
Now that the Truth Commission for the Sami people has presented its report, I hope that the curiosity of the Swedish public is greater. This is, both in Norway and Sweden, our common history. It is unpleasant. But necessary to know for every citizen of the country. A state is not only its proudest moments; it is also the most shameful. Because as it says in "The Sami problem":
The description of violence must have its place. The abuser must listen (…) the abuser must think, digest, take it in, without formulating objections. There must be room for the listening silence for a long, long time before any reconciliation can take place. (...) Infection occurs, in the worst case, blood poisoning, in wounds that are not washed before re-plastering. We cannot gloss over hundreds of years of systematic discrimination and oppression. Give it more than an hour.
So, Sweden: Listen and digest. Give it more than an hour.
