The Ukraine War Is Dividing Europe’s Arctic Indigenous People

February 1, 2024 5:53 PM

It has driven a wedge between Sámi in Russia and those in Nordic countries [Foreign Policy Magazine]

Russia’s war is splitting the indigenous Sami in two [The Economist]
posted by riruro (12 comments total)

The Economist article (archive)

War In Ukraine Poses 'Terrible Threat' For Russia's Saami People, But Solutions Are Few.
posted by clavdivs at 6:28 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]

I was afraid before reading these articles that this wedge was an ideological one as opposed to a geographical one - that it was more "The Russian Sami now have beef with their Nordic kin", rather than "they aren't allowed to travel freely" between the two areas.

The latter situation is serious, but the former would have been a travesty.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:49 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]

Before the Cold War the Chukchi and Inuit were blithely visiting each other across the Bering Strait.
posted by ocschwar at 7:51 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]

Adjacent: the wars (WWII and Ukraine) collided in a wreath-war in Kirkenes [2½m] last October. There is a monument in this far North Norwegian town to its liberation (25 Nov 1944) from the Nazis by the Red Army: disagreement about who owns the legacy.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:20 AM on February 2

I was afraid before reading these articles that this wedge was an ideological one as opposed to a geographical one - that it was more "The Russian Sami now have beef with their Nordic kin", rather than "they aren't allowed to travel freely" between the two areas.

The latter situation is serious, but the former would have been a travesty.

I'm confused by this. It seems very much ideological. From the main Foreign Policy article:

Now, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has split the Sámi again. Some leaders from the small Russian Sámi community have openly aligned with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, driving a schism with Sámi in Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

In April, the transnational Saami Council, a body that brings together Sámi leadership from all parts of Sápmi, made the decision to suspend formal relations with Russia’s two internationally recognized Sámi organizations—the Kola Sámi Association and the Association of Sámi in Murmansk Oblast (OOSMO)—after the council’s Russian vice president, Ivan Matrekhin, was pictured playing a guitar scrawled with a “Z,” a symbol used by supporters of Russia’s war.

posted by romanb at 2:37 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]

Romanb - the rest of the article suggests the Russian Sámi, whose population and lands were decimated under Stalin, face an existential risk if they aren’t seen to be supporting Putin.
posted by congen at 2:50 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how in the past couple of decades, accelerating more now, more and more borders have been transformed from largely symbolic lines on a map to steel and wire structures that are meant to keep people out (or in) by force.

The lines on the map still look the same, but now that portion of border has a very different meaning on the ground.

There are situations where the armed border wall now separates an indigenous community into two parts that now cannot easily mingle (e.g. the Sami, the Tohono O'odham -- and if the US and Canada were to harden up that border, this would affect many Tribes/First Nations. And especially with the long and fairly impenetrable fences like Finland has built, you are now creating major interruptions to the movements of animals, who could previously ignore the abstract border line.

It seems to me that there were some periods in the past where people felt compelled to build massive border walls, like Hadrians Wall and China's Great Wall, but most of the time in most place no one bothered with border walls on any large scale. We're clearly back in that moment now, and I think we will learn more and more of the negative consequences in the coming years.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:01 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]

This is 100% the Kremlin's fault, as are all the other tragedies and hardships inflicted by Putin's unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal attack on Ukraine.
posted by senor biggles at 11:05 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]

Similarly, I still think the giant steel wall across Białowieża, at 1500 square kilometres the biggest remnant of the primeval European forest, is a travesty. But we're not getting rid of it unless something on the east side in Belarus changes entirely.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:11 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]

an indigenous community into two parts that now cannot easily mingle (e.g. the Sami, the Tohono O'odham -- and if the US and Canada were to harden up that border, this would affect many Tribes/First Nations

The Mohawks have a specific carve out in Jay's Treaty allowing them to cross the border at will.
posted by ocschwar at 12:54 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

Saginaw, 1819
In the Saginaw River Valley Treaty with the Chippewas

ARTICLE 5. The stipulation contained in the treaty of Greenville, relative to the right of the Indians to hunt upon the land ceded, while it continues the property of the United States, shall apply to this treaty; and the Indians shall, for the same term, enjoy the privilege of making sugar upon the same land, committing no unnecessary waste upon the trees.
posted by clavdivs at 1:41 PM on February 2

The Mohawks have a specific carve out in Jay's Treaty allowing them to cross the border at will.

Canada doesn't recognize Jay's Treaty as binding. Canadian courts have found that Section 35 of the Constitution is where the traditional mobility rights of indigenous people are protected. In practice neither the US nor Canada honour such rights in full.
posted by senor biggles at 7:36 PM on February 2