Fighting life in the margins (fwd)

[Phil CashCash]

Fighting life in the margins

By Samantha Santa Maria
Medill News Service
http://www.norway.org/newsofnorway/news.cfm?id=675

For centuries, the Samis of Norway were seen as reindeer herders
nomadically wandering the frozen northern lands of Finnmark, surviving
in their tepees during winter’s polar nights and summer’s midnight
suns.

But Norway’s largest ethnic group is no longer a people stuck in time.
About 90 percent of the 40,000-strong population lives in the cities.
Many of those still in the north have given up the nomadic life and are
locked in a decades-old struggle to decide how they can put their land
to use.

What has made Norway wake up to these new realities is the Sami media
that many in the community and country credit for the recent resurgence
in Sami culture and language.

Unlike most indigenous media -- such as Native American radio and
newspapers -- the Samis have gone even further, transforming their
alternative voice into a powerful political lobby group. Despite being
heavily subsidized by the government, they remain critical advocates
for Sami rights.

Dissimilarities

However, the initial use of this media was to coerce a persecuted ethnic
group to shun its heritage and history and to become more Norwegian.

Sociologist Dr. Mariann Lien of the University of Oslo theorizes that
the rise of the pro-eugenics Labor Party in the 1950s capitalized on
Norwegians’ tendency to avoid racial and culture dissimilarities.

As a result, Sami children were taken away from their parents and sent
to Norwegian-language schools; a law directed toward the Samis was
passed prohibiting the sale of land to anyone who couldn’t speak
Norwegian. In 1946, Sami radio was inaugurated but used mainly as a
propaganda device.

Media's role

“Radio programs often told Samis to forget who they were, including
their language, to become more Norwegian,” said Nils Johan Heatta, the
current head of Sami Broadcasting. “But that backfired; the people
rebelled and listened to the radio to remind themselves of their
language and culture.”

Today, Sami media have been credited in helping the community set up its
own parliament. Its dogged support of Sami land rights for over 20
years will soon see the motion get the nod of the Norwegian government
later this year, officials said.

Struggling newspapers

But despite these successes, Sami media, particularly the three biweekly
newspapers, face the same problem seen by the Native American media
here: funding. And the complaints about how mainstream media cover
their issues are many.

Despite government subsidies, the three Sami newspapers are struggling.
Their small readerships – averaging circulations of about 2,000 – make
it a tough sell for advertisers.

Low salaries have forced many journalists out of Sami newsrooms. One of
them is Torkel Rasmussen, who was with “Min Aigi” (“Our Time”).

“I was fed up working for a poor company where we hardly ever had
resources to do good enough journalistic work,” Rasmussen said.

"Bored"

But if the Native American experience is anything to go by, mainstream
media hasn’t proved to be the better alternative.

“You get thrown into this great blender of journalism and often you, and
your interests, get marginalized,” said Mary Annette Pember, executive
director of the Native American Journalists’ Association.

She speaks from experience. “I was unhappy in the mainstream media,
spiritually deprived and extremely bored,” Pember added.

Having to choose between poor-paying jobs at indigenous media, or market
rates at mainstream media, both young Samis and Native Americans are
choosing the former.

Rasmussen, now a teacher with the new Sami journalism school in
Kautokeino, said there are 15 students graduating this year and most
are bound for Sami radio and television production jobs.

Small numbers

In the U.S., Pember said, young Native Americans prefer tribal
newspapers and radio because they are interested in their own people
and culture.

However, this has given rise to another problem: under-representation in
mainstream media newsrooms.

Last year, the American Society of Newspaper Editors polled two-thirds
of the nation's daily newspapers and found only 307 of 54,414 newsroom
employees – a 0.5 percent penetration rate in a population where 1
percent are Native Americans -- were Native American.

There are no corresponding numbers in Norway but a check in the Oslo
newsroom of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation – the country’s
largest broadcaster – found a few Vietnamese and even an
African-American woman, but not a single Sami.

"Biased media"

Rasmussen sees this as a major problem. “Norwegian media are biased,” he
said. “In most of their stories there is a clear ‘We vs. Them’ view.”

“Norwegian media is mostly concerned with conflicts, sensational stories
or curiosities in their coverage of Sami issues,” Rasmussen added.

But help may be on the way – at least in Norway. Anders Eira, state
secretary at the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development,
is working to increase the government subsidies for the three
newspapers so that by 2005, they become full-fledged dailies.

A Sami from a traditional reindeer herding family in Karajsok, Eira
wants to build upon the contributions Sami media has made, believing
that the more frequently Sami voices are heard, the greater the
importance that is attached to them.

Visibility

For radio and television, expansion is in the cards. Heatta said Sami
programming would be given more airtime next year. He is especially
targeting children and teenagers, with children’s television programs
and radio programs where teenagers can send in their dedications via
text messaging.


“One of the challenges of a minority culture is to make themselves
visible,” Eira said. “Sami media has done that. Now the task is to not
lose, but gain ground.”