DN Opinion. The sami people must have the right to define who is thesame

in principle, agrees sameting has decided to turn to the government to strengthen sami self-determination in connection with the elections to the sami parliament, among other things, by the appeal of the electoral roll will be handled by a nordic sami valprövningsorgan instead of the county board.

It is surprising that a decision of The sámi parliament plenary can be misinterpreted as serious by Ronny Svarto, who himself participated in the decision. Svarto describes in a letter to the editor on the DN View is that it is an alleged “högerblock” that is pushed through the proposal when in fact it is all the members in the sami parliament that has given consent for it, except he himself.

is therefore quite agree that it is not up to the state to decide who is a sami,. It is our own democratically elected institutions, who will do it.

the Proposal does not, Svarto claim, that the possibility of appeal should be removed. Instead, appeals are processed by a common valprövningsorgan appointed by the three the sámi parliaments in the nordic countries. It is fundamentally important is that we become the sami people through our own institutions decide who will be considered as the same, even when it comes to the appeal to the supreme court.

It is also important that we have the opportunity to correct the electoral register, which the Swedish parliament decided in 2004 (parliamentary protocol 2003/04:110), in the case of non-sami people unjustly adopted in the electoral roll, both because there are people who wrongly admitted to the electoral roll and to an inaccurate electoral register, undermining the confidence of the sami parliament as the elected body for the sami people.

from 2012, in contrast to what Svarto indicate that, properly processed by the sami parliament. Request to change the parliament's decision from 2004 was submitted, but the government found no grounds to pursue the matter.

It was the state that from the 1800s and well into the 1900 century by the motto “lapp shall be lapp” was a policy where only the reindeer-herding sami were considered to be sami. On the basis of the policy, based on the then prevailing racist argues, would the reindeer-herding sami people held to what they could best, the reindeer.

This would be achieved by, for example, limit their opportunities for further studies. As late as the 50's it was still forbidden for the reindeer-herding sámi to settle in the house with straight walls, they would live in teepees.

the pressure was the opposite. They would be assimilated, forced to avlära their sami culture and their native language. The story is now riksbekant, inter alia, by Amanda Kernells movie “Sameblod”, Linnea axelsson's epic “Aednan” and Britta Marakatt-cannot be predicted within reason broderikonst.

The wound that the state policy created in both the individual sami and the sami society as a whole is still wide open.

the Story is dark for us sami when it comes to the state's decision on who may and may not be the same. We sami want to for once get the right to decide about it. The state has long ago lost our confidence in the responsibility.