The Sámi people living in the territory of four countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia celebrated a joint Sámi National Day on February 6.
The background to the holiday is the first Nordic Sámi meeting, which was held in Trondheim, Norway, in 1917.
The day is one of the Sámi flag-raising days. In addition, the authorities of Finland, Sweden and Norway recommend universal flag-raising.
The Sámi people are the only recognized indigenous people of the European Union. There are approximately 10,000 Sámi people living in Finland.
National Day celebrations have traditionally been organized in various parts of the Sámi region and beyond.
Norway, Sweden and Finland have a long history of oppression and forced assimilation of the Sámi, the indigenous people who have inhabited the northern regions of these countries since ancient times. The Sámi national identity has been shaped over the last hundred years, since 1917. This year, the Sámi national movement, which has a transnational character, turned 108 years old.
The governments of the three Nordic countries, which are in bad standing with the UN for numerous violations of the rights of the only indigenous people in Europe, are reluctantly forced by global public opinion to improve legislation and change social patterns in relation to the Sámi. Part of this work is the work of The Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which operates in Finland.
The Sámi youth organisation Sáminuorra first wrote a letter in 2008 to the responsible minister at the time, demanding that the Government establish a truth commission.
In 2019, the Sámi Parliament submitted a petition to the Ministry of Culture for the central government to fund the process of establishing an independent truth commission. By that time, the Sámi Parliament had long been working on this issue.
In 2020, it received a commission from the Government to prepare and solidify the work in the Sámi society. The Sámi Parliament’s report on this work is available here. [Link to the report in Swedish.] In November 2021, the Government decided to appoint a truth commission for the Sámi People. Its members were appointed in June 2022.
By now The Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission published 11 reports on various aspects of Sámi people’s situation, two of them on the recent history of the legal status of the Sámi were released on February 5, the day before The National Day of the Sámi people.
Two men in Sámi costumes, Veli-Pekka Lehtola and Juha Guttorm, sit side by side at a curved table.
The state's efforts to improve the rights and social status of the Sámi people through various pieces of legislation in the 1990s caused strong opposition from certain groups. Doctor of Law Juha Guttorm has compiled a separate report on these events and their effects for the Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
On Wednesday, February 5, the Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission published two new separate reports on the recent history of the legal status of the Sámi people. One of them is a report by Emeritus Professor Veli-Pekka Lehtola on the Finnish state's Sámi policy during independence.
The reports provide background information on the historical events that have led to the controversy that is currently taking place around the reform of the Sámi Parliament Act.
This controversy cannot be understood if you do not know the history that happened in the 1990s, says Guttorm.
At the heart of the dispute is the question of who is a Sámi. Veli-Pekka Lehtola is concerned about how it will affect the lives of Sámi children and young people.
Young people have grown up in this contradiction. It is not good for the Finnish state either, when the UN constantly criticizes it.
People gathered around a round table in the parliament hall of the Sámi Cultural Centre Sajos. The chairwoman of the Sámi Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Hannele Pokka, stands at the podium. The commission's circular logo, which is blue, light blue, yellow and pink, is projected onto a white screen.
In his report to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Juha Guttorm reveals how the situation developed in the 1990s and what factors contributed to the emergence of resistance to improving the legal status of the Sámi.
Guttorm has used, among other sources, newspaper articles and documents from the time, such as meeting minutes and statements.
The opponents’ intention was to stop legislative projects aimed at improving the legal status of the Sámi.
As an example, Guttorm cites the opposition that arose from the Sámi Act published in 1990 and the preparation of the Lapland regional plan in 1989–1990. The regional plan aimed to take better account of the needs and rights of the Sámi culture and, in particular, traditional livelihoods.
It sparked fierce opposition, especially in Enontekiö. The Sámi people and the then Regional Planning Association officials were directly threatened, says Guttorm.
Fears related to land use rights fueled resistance
In 1994, a bill was submitted to the Finnish Parliament on the cultural self-government of the Sámi people and the establishment of a Sámi Parliament. According to the report, this was widely opposed among the majority population in the Sámi area, and especially at the highest level in the municipalities of Inari and Enontekiö.
According to Guttorm, the majority population feared that their land use rights would be tightened and that they would completely lose their rights to, for example, reindeer herding.
However, that was not the goal of that package of laws in any way, but that is how it was interpreted, says Juha Guttorm.
In connection with this discussion, in 1995, people began to talk about who is a Sámi.
For example, in Enontekiö, the majority population claimed that the Sámi are a language group that, according to them, came from abroad, and that they are the actual Sámi who were called Lapps.
When the Sámi Parliament Act was approved and came into force in 1996, the opponents changed their strategy.
The report reveals that the opponents began to claim that they were also Sámi, because they were descendants of people who had once been registered as Lapps, and demanded to be included in the electoral roll of the Sámi Parliament. This was made possible by the addition of the so-called Lapp clause to the Sámi definition of the Sámi Parliament Act.
This clause will no longer be included in the new Sámi Parliament Bill.
In his report, Emeritus Professor of Sámi Culture Veli-Pekka Lehtola analyses the relations between the state and the Sámi from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The study compares the development of Sámi issues over the years based on five Sámi Committee reports from 1905, 1938, 1952, 1973 and 1990.
Although Finland did not have an official state integration policy like Norway and Sweden, Sámi rights were not implemented at the time either.
According to Lehtola, Finland's idea of equality and non-discrimination had been distorted. The Finnish authorities saw it as if all Finnish citizens were given the same basic rights, then everything would be fine.
They did not take into account that the rights were in Finnish and in line with Finnish values. The fact was that the Sámi rights were not implemented. It was very typical that the Finns defined the needs and solutions of the Sámi, says Lehtola.
However, the situation improved in the 1970s when the Sámi Committee proposed the establishment of a Sámi delegation, which was the first democratic Sámi body in the entire Nordic countries. The Sámi movement that was formed around the same time began to flourish, until resistance arose in the 1990s.
In the portrait photo, Veli-Pekka Lehtola, dressed in Sámi clothing and wearing glasses, looks towards and smiles.
In his report, Veli-Pekka Lehtola also considers the starting points from which the state has treated the Sámi and what attitudes and roles have influenced how Sámi issues have been discussed and decisions have been made.
For example, according to Lehtola, the demand for Sámi unanimity still influences decision-making.
The idea that the Sámi must agree on everything that has existed before, and if any Sámi is against a proposal, then it cannot be implemented. The idea still exists that the Sámi and the rest of the population of the Lapland region must agree.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has previously published several separate reports on various topics, such as reindeer husbandry, Sámi experiences with social services, the life of the Inari Sámi, and the language and education situation of the Skolt Sámi.
The separate reports are part of the commission's final report, which describes the current situation of the Sámi people and the reasons that led to it, and provides recommendations for the future.
I expect that state officials at different levels will read the reports and at least the summaries of the separate reports, so that they can reach a situation where reconciliation would progress, says Juha Guttorm.
The reports are available on the commission's website
Based on:
Näin saamelaisoikeuksien vastainen liike syntyi 1990-luvulla – saamelaisten totuus- ja sovintokomission selvitykset avaavat historiaa / Yle (05.02.2025, in Finnish)
Tänään vietetään saamelaisten kansallispäivää / Yle (06.02.2025, in Finnish)
The Truth Commission for the Sami People / Yle
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