Being
recognized as a Sámi in Finland means that you are registered in the Sámi
Parliament’s electoral roll. This means that you are granted status as an
indigenous person i.e. Sámi status in Finland. The Sámi Parliament has, thus
far, used a strict interpretation of
the criteria for being registered as a Sámi. This has generated conflict in
Finland because part of the population of Sámi identified people’s electoral
roll applications are being denied based on this strict interpretation of the criteria. These people are Sámi, but
have essentially been excluded from the Sámi electoral roll, hence the term
non-status Sámi.
There is
ample evidence to support that the Sámi Parliament’s decisions regarding many
individual applicants’ identity and status have been arbitrary. For example,
there are families where some of the family members have been accepted into the
electoral roll, while other members have not been accepted. The reasons that
the decision-making body gives for such discrepancies are often contradictory
and baseless. Like many indigenous societies the world over, and especially in
post-colonial, Western democracies with highly variable local histories, the
group that has been left out of the electoral roll is fairly heterogeneous.
There are language revitalizers or people who have reclaimed one of the Sámi
languages, there are Sámi speakers who speak Sámi as a home language, there are
culturally competent people and people with clear and demonstrable cultural
continuity. They could be understood to be different kinds of Sámi who bring
different resources to the greater Sámi community; but what they share in
common is that all of them have a Sámi background and a living Sámi identity.
The
Criteria from 1995
In Finland, the definition of a Sámi is codified in
the Act on the Sámi Parliament and the criteria that has been
emphasized when interpreting the law is based mainly on the Sámi language. This Sámi law came into effect in
1995, and was written in collaboration with the Finnish Sámi Parliament and the
government of Finland. The basic rights of the Sámi were first legislated with
the amendment to the constitution in 1995. A self-governing body, the Sámi
Parliament, was legislated in 1995 for realising cultural self-government. In
1993, the Ministry of Justice established a working group in order to recognise
in constitutional law the Sámi status as indigenous people. The working
group had three members:
counsellor of legislation Eero J. Aarnio (Ministry of Justice), officer Paavo
Pirttimäki (Ministry of the Interior) and legal secretary Heikki J. Hyvärinen
(Sámi parliament). One of the most controversial questions at that time was how
to define who is Sámi. For example, Tuomas Magga’s opinion was that the Sámi
definition should be liberal and open, which would mean that more Sámi people
would have the right to be registered as Sámi. On the contrary, for example,
Nils-Henrik Valkeapää’s opinion was to shape a more restrictive definition,
because it was believed that after the Sámi parliament gained more power, there
might be more people interested in Sámi status. Finally, the definition was
formed with one subjective criterion and three objective criteria. The second
criteria “Sámi descent” meant that the Sámi definition would also cover those
Sámi whose ancestors had lost the language earlier due to coercive strategies
of assimilation by the state and Church. Some powerful members of the Sámi
Parliament didn’t support this open definition. Hence, they and their
supporters started to interpret the law--to some extent circumventing the law--
by ignoring the second criteria entirely. We discuss the criteria in detail
below.
Unlike the other Nordic Sámi Parliaments, the
candidates/politicians do not represent any political parties or groups with a
democratic process. Hence, the
representatives in the Finnish Sámi Parliament do not have to be held
accountable to a membership-based party or organization, where membership has a
popular vote in policy platforms and choice of candidates. The elections are
purely individual in nature, where, "Family, friends and neighbours seem
to be the electoral basis” (Eriksson 1997: 140; see also Josefsen 2007).
Another important distinction: the
Sámi Parliament election committee is the political body which interprets the
definition of who can register as a Sámi in the electoral rolls in accordance
with the Sámi Act from 1995. It is this body that processes the applications
for the electorate. The election committee has five (5) members, and they are
chosen by the Sámi Parliament. In 2014-2015, the election committee was: Janne
Näkkäläjärvi, Inga Guttorm, Birit Anni Magga, Jouni Aikio and Veikko Feodoroff.
The election committee also implements the indigenous people’s group
identification, which is mentioned for example in the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). As a result of the interpretation by the
committee, it either accepts the applicant as a Sámi or rejects them.
Since the enactment of the law in 1996, the Sámi
Parliament has habitually interpreted the criteria in a very rigid way. Here is the
current criteria, and the criteria that was upheld by the Finnish Parliament on
March 10, 2015, which has led to the political upheaval we see today. The
definition is based on the subjective criteria
that an applicant has a Sámi identity, that is, the applicant sees themselves as a Sámi. Then, the applicant must
meet one of three objective criteria in
addition to the subjective criterion:
A Sámi is a person who considers him- or herself a
Sámi, and
1) The first qualifying criterion is: has learnt Sámi as his or her first language
or has at least one parent or grandparent whose first language is Sámi, or
2)
The second
qualifying criterion is: “the person is a
descendant of someone who has been registered as a Fell, Forest or Fishing Sámi
in the land, taxation or census register.” This means that you are
considered to be Sámi if you descend from a Sámi family. In order to fulfill
the second criterion, one has to prove Sámi ancestry with
official documentation which shows lineage from an ancestor that has paid the Sámi tax and is hence
marked in official tax ledgers, or
3) (similar to the Norwegian criteria), at least one of his/her parents has or
could
have been registered to vote in the elections of the Sámi Parliament.
When the
election commission rejects a person’s application, the person has the right to
appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) of Finland.
(http://www.kho.fi/en/)
Rejections
What has consistently been the case since 1995, is
that if someone applies for the Sámi electoral roll according to the
second criterion, without exception, one always gets rejected. The commission
interprets the law such that only the language criterion is valid. This is a
paradox because of the assimilation history of the Sámi: the State and Church
aimed to weed out the Sámi language, and pressure the Sámi to give up Sámi in favour
of Finnish. Further, there are highly variable local histories in Finland, many
of which involved land dispossession, profound pressure to assimilate, and even
cases involving violence. Now, rather than recognizing this harsh past, the
Sámi Parliament itself has deliberately excluded people with the demands of the
3rd generation having the Sámi mother tongue language. Crucially, the families
where the language shift has occurred earlier, are left outside even though
they have cultural continuity and Sámi identity. Further, many of the people
who meet the second criterion have reclaimed one of the Sámi languages and are
actively working to save and develop them.
Even though
the Sámi Parliament electoral roll can be seen as only an expression of
political identity, it does have both practical and symbolic significance due
to power and collective recognition. Consequently, Sámi status legitimates
individuals’ indigenous identity, political recognition and sometimes access to
resources and services.
Sámi Parliament’s Demand for a new
Sámi Definition (the Sámi Law)
In 2011,
four (4) Sámi people applied to be in the Sámi electoral roll. The Sámi
Parliament rejected those applications, as they have consistently done with all
applications that do not meet their strict
interpretation of the Sámi status. However, these four applicants, some of
whom came from Inari, made appeals to the Supreme Administrative Court
(henceforth SAC). As a result of the strict interpretation used by the Sámi
Parliament on these four applications, SAC expanded the interpretation of a
definition of a Sámi for the electoral roll in its 2011 decisions. Namely, the Supreme
Administrative Court decided that the Sámi Parliament had to accept the four
Sámi applicants into the Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll, which the Sámi
Parliament’s election commission and the government of the Sámi Parliament had
previously rejected. When SAC was making their decision, they emphasized the
following three criteria: (1) Sámi family lineage, (2) Sámi identity, (3) Sámi
cultural competence. This meant that they interpreted the second criterion as
needing these additional factors to be valid.
The SAC
decision led to strong, fear-based reactions within four Sámi organizations:
the Finnish Sámi Parliament, the Sámi Council (Sámiráđđi), Finnish Sámi Center Association (Suoma Sámiid Guovddášsearvi) and the Sámi Youth Council (Suoma Sámi Nuorat). They made statements
such as “indigenous peoples should have the right to decide for themselves who
belongs to indigenous peoples and who doesn’t.” The organizations were afraid
that the SAC decision would be a precedent. They made numerous, unreasonable
and exaggerated claims that because SAC ruled that these four Sámi people were
accepted into the rolls, that suddenly 100,000 non-Sámi people would flood the
Sámi parliament with applications in a concerted effort or conspiracy to take over
all of Finnish Sámiland. (There were many such statements made in both official
and unofficial discourse, especially in social media). Those four applications
and the SAC decision was the impetus for the Sámi Parliament to start working
towards a renewed, stricter, Sámi Act in order to prevent a possible new
liberal interpretation of the Sámi definition (Aarnio 2012).
However,
according to recent news, when the Sámi Parliament opened up for new
applications, approximately 800 people applied, a far cry from the baseless and
exaggerated feared 100, 000 applicants. The committee accepted 483 people into the
roll, in which 295 people were children of people who are registered in the roll and
who had turned 18 years old. In total, 450 applications were rejected;
of which as many as 150 applications were rejected outright with the questionable claim that
they were received in the mail ‘too late’ to be considered, according to
committee president Janne Näkkäläjärvi (YLE SÁPMI 4.3.2015.) This rather
small number of applicants raises the question as to why the Sámi Parliament
felt the need to make drastic statements referring to “100 000 aggressive
non-Sámi applicants seeking Sámi status for exploitative reasons” and four
years of intensive work and lobbying for a stricter definition.
One example
is telling. There is an applicant who has recently applied according to the
subjective criteria and the second objective criteria, the “Sámi descent
criteria.” In addition, like many non-status Sámi in Finland, the applicant has
reclaimed the Sámi language, Sámi cultural competence, and has a Sámi identity.
This applicant also included a detailed account of their cultural connection,
knowledge and continuity. The application was rejected by the electoral
committee, and the applicant received fourteen (14) pages of argumentation as
to why the applicant “was not a Sámi.” In addition, many applicants who meet
the strict language criteria are still being rejected. Even one of the children
of the four applicants that the SAC ordered had to be admitted was also
recently rejected. The Sámi Parliament election commission is clearly violating
the human rights of legitimate members of an Indigenous society.
Historical transformation in the
political situation of the Sámi in Finland
The Finnish Sámi Parliament has been fighting for four
(2011–2015) years to achieve changes to the Sámi definition. Apparently, this
was their most important political goal within this election period. However,
at the same time there have been powerful Sámi identity and revitalization
movements in Finland, which are aiming to gain acceptance in the already
codified Sámi definition in Finland (f. ex. Vuovde-,
guolásteaddji- ja duottarsámit rs).
Yesterday (10.3.2015) was the final day of the Sámi
Parliament's efforts to get the group identification into the law. However, the
Finnish Parliament voted to uphold the current definition, which can be
described as a more liberal definition
which takes into account the complicated, polyvocal, history of Finland and
diversity of Sámi identity and experience. The vote had an overwhelming
majority in favor of upholding the current definition, 162-28. This meant, that
the Finnish Sámi Parliament didn’t succeed in its four (4) years of work to get
a more restricted Sámi definition in Finland. When the media only hears the
views of members of the Sámi parliament who support the stricter definition,
the rest of Sapmi is not hearing the voices of the entire Sámi population in
Finland. In short, there is a one-sided view that does not account for the
multiple voices of all Sámi society in Finland. It should also be stated that
not all members of the Finnish Sámi Parliament are in agreement with the
definition, there are current members who support the liberal definition and
the decision by the Finnish Parliament to keep the liberal definition.
Members of the Finnish Parliament have concluded and
stated publicly that the reason they voted to uphold the original definition is
because they question the validity of a stricter definition in the rubric of
human rights. In other words, they view a strict definition of Sámi status as a
violation of the human rights of part of the Sámi population in Finland. They
also state that they want to see a constructive solution to the conflict
surrounding the definition of a Sámi in Finland. This challenges the consistent
discourse of “the univocal victimized Sámi parliament” versus the “oppressive
Finnish regime.” Legal scholars have stated that most governments seek to
restrict the numbers of Indigenous peoples in their borders as it is not in the
state’s interest to have indigenous peoples in their territories who might make
land and resource claims. It should be regarded as revealing when a
conservative government, presented with evidence and arguments from various
opinions on the matter, engages in questions of the human rights of members of
the Indigenous population. In other words, rather than taking a highly
romanticized view of the Sámi people, they took the time to use their critical
judgement. This is an example of a statement by a member of the Finnish
Parliament:
“Nyt tapahtui
historiaa. – Tämä luo toivoa sille,
ettei vähemmistöjen vähemmistöä enää sorrettaisi ja kaikki saamelaisuuden
kriteerit täyttävät pääsisivät vaalirekisteriin ja tulisivat siten
tunnustetuksi saamelaisiksi.”
“Now we made history. – This (referring to voting
result) creates hope that minorities within the minority will no longer be
oppressed and all the Sámi that meet the criteria will gain access to the electoral
roll and would thus be recognized as Sámi.” (Markus Lohi, Centre Party
10.3.2015 Public Facebook Page.)
Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi played with high stakes when he
combined the ratification of the ILO 169 convention with seeking approval to
have a more restricted Sámi definition. He lost the battle and there was
nothing else that he could do but to resign as the president of the Sámi
president. The background for this is
that Näkkäläjärvi had certain conditions he wanted to see fulfilled before the
ratification of ILO 169. According to his conditions: if the Sámi definition gets
restricted, than he would support the ratification of ILO 169. But if the state
were to keep the current definition, then he would not support ratifying ILO
169. On March 10th, the state decided to keep the current definition, so that
meant that Näkkäläjärvi did not support ratification anymore. However, part of
the representatives of the Sámi Parliament continued to support ratification,
so Näkkäläjärvi did not have the support anymore within the Sámi Parliament. In
other words, he lost power. He was met with two significant defeats within one
day: the failed mission of restricting the definition and loss of support
within the Sámi Parliament.
On behalf of this organization, we want Sápmi to know
that we are not a threat, but a resource to Sámi society. Our dream is that we
can move forward and all work together to build a more healthy, inclusive Sámi
society. This includes to a great extent, the work of revitalizing and
developing the Sámi language(s) and culture and to protect the human rights of
ALL Indigenous people. We have the inherent right -- as legitimate bearers of
our ancestors’ indigenous culture -- to be fully accepted for what we are: we are Sámi.
Vuovde-,
guolástaddji- ja duottarsámit rs. Metsä-, kalastaja- ja tunturisaamelaiset ry.
Forest-,
Fishing- and Mountain Sámi Association
References
Eriksson, J.
1997. Partition and Redemption, A Machiavellian Analysis of Sámi and Basque
Patriotism, Umeå University, Sweden.
Josefsen, E.
2007. The Saami and the National Parliaments – Channels for Political
Influence. Gáldu Čála – Journal of Indigenous Peoples Rights No. 2/2007. Gáldu
- Resource Centre for Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino.
http://www.galdu.org/govat/doc/national_parlaments.pdf
Lehtola,
V.-P. 2005. Saamelaisten parlamentti. Suomen saamelaisvaltuuskunta 1973- 1995
ja Saamelaiskäräjät 1996-2003. Inari: Saamelaiskäräjät.
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