PART OF A LARGER SOCIETY
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Assimilation policy or Norwegianization
Image credit: Jamie Taylor, Unplash
Part of a larger society
During the mid 19th century, the Norwegian government adopted new policies in order to assimilate each of the native populations of Norway (the Sami and the Kven), not speaking the national language. However, it turns out that the public authorities want to put in place a nationalist policy animated by their fear of “foreing nationalities” and the willing to an “etnically and culturally uniform Norwegian population”.
The Norwegianization or assimilation policy is improving and encouraged through the country. The authorities insist that the language of instruction must be the national language, Norwegian.
All Sami children have to leave their families and attend boarding schools. They can’t speak their own Sami languages at the cost of the majority languages (Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian or Russian).
Seeing as reindeer husbandry is specifically a Sami activity, the Lapps children do not have the opportunity to study it in schools. Indeed, this activity is very practical and children learn it with their parents in most cases. And, due to the children being sent away in boarding schools, the traditions as well as the Sami languages are not passed along to the next generation.
In the meantime, opinions are varying: some people support this policy and others are on the contrary and totally against it. This assimilation policy was not fully agreed to by the Lapps considering that it indirectly forced them to forget their own idendity to become Norwegians.
Once the process is put in place, directors have to report the effectiveness of the assimilation policy in their schools. As Geir Grenersen, associate professor at the Arctic University of Norway wrote in “the Role of the Libraries in the Norwegianization Policy 1880-1905”, in 1887 Jens Killengreen, school director in Norway, travelled around the country to study the Norwegianization. After visiting 12 libraries, he concluded that the minorities (Sami and Kven) were not visiting libraries frequently, but thought that it would improve with time seeing due to the increased learning of Norwegian.
Teachers receive extra wages to apply this policy and all books are now bi-lingual (Sami-Norwegian for the Sami or Finnish-Norwegian for the Kven) in libraries and schools. For example, most of the teachers who followed the policy received the Lap Fund extra grant (30-35% of their total wages) . To do so, they had to apply for it every year and give a feedback on the functioning of the process.
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As Grenersen wrote “Many applications read: ‘the Norwegianization works well,’ with no further explanation”. She adds “Many teachers told the school inspectors what they wanted to hear, and formulated their applications in such a way that the extra grant would be given them.’’ Unfortunately, this led to speculation as to whether the teachers could be trusted or not and, consequently, if the Norwegianization process was really working well or not.
According to what Isabelle Guissard, charged with the Research Section at the University of Tromsø, wrote in her thesis about the Sami people, the assimilation process was not completely approved by the minorities because it was forcing them to give up on their own identity.
Guissard states that in 1939, the pastor of Karasjok, Alf Wiig, complained about the Storting (Supreme Legislature of Norway) as it met difficulties in teaching Norwegian. The Sami children were unmotivated and had no interest learning Norwegian. His wife, Margrethe Wiig, also a teacher, then put forward a proposal to the government to create an alphabet primer in Sami to help them assimilate Norwegian and Sami. After submitting her project to the Bishop of Tromsø, it was eventually refused. As a result, Sami children continued to encounter difficulties in learning Norwegian.
But because the Sami people suffered from it, the assimilation process was interrupted in the 80s. Reparations were given to the Sami parliaments and other programs related to the tribe. Also, HM King Harald V, King of Norway, spoke for the government in 1997 and apologized officially to the Lapps who endured this process. He stated:
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"The state of Norway was founded on the territory of two peoples - the Sámi people and the Norwegians. Sámi history is closely intertwined with Norwegian history. Today, we express our regret on behalf of the state for the injustice committed against the Sámi people through its harsh policy of Norwegianization."
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Lieuwe Jan Hettema, studying Media and Indigenous People at the University of Tromsø explains:
“The whole idea of the assimilation/modernization/norwegianization was to improve the lives of the Sámi, just as with the Christianization. They believed it would be better for the Sámi if they would follow their way of thinking, their way of solving problems”.
Today, the Sami culture is suffering from many little impacts. Traditions are fading away in favour of modernity and new technology or infrastructure. In The Age Of Social Democracy, 2011, Francis Sejersted wrote « In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Sami language disappeared as a language used in the schools ; the Sami were to be integrated into the national culture. »
Video made by Lucie Jung