Скачать или смотреть Norway’s 2025 Plan Forgot a People

Does the Sami belong in the Norwegian "We"?

When a country writes about itself, it also writes who gets to sit by the fire.

I open the Støre Government’s plan for Norway 2025–2029, which promises community, and I search for the names that carry the North: Sami people, Sami language, Sami children, Sami industries. Are they unmentionable there? And absence is not always silence; absence can be a place already assigned.

In the schoolyard, this happens without a shout. The game runs its course. Rules are made. Some become captains, some join in, some fade away. And by the fence stands the child who was not invited. No one said: "You are unwanted." It was not necessary. It sufficed that no one said: "Come."

This is also how a "we" can be formed: not by words that repel, but by words that never arrive.

But the Constitution carries a different language. It does not say: "When it suits us." It says: "Create conditions." Article 108 is not a polite greeting; it is a duty that demands space, not ornamentation. A language to live in. A society to breathe in. Conditions that allow what is Sami to exist, without having to apologize.

And the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission stands as a witness to what happens when a people is, for a long time, made into something one can overlook. It reminds us that harm does not always begin with a blow. It can begin when a name ceases to be spoken, eventually even in the mouths of those who bore it.

Therefore, I do not ask first about strategy, unrest, or what seems wise to those who measure the country in risk and return. I point to something simpler: A "we" that cannot bear to mention the Sami, cannot bear the responsibility for it either.

A community does not grow great through grand words, but through small openings. In the schoolyard, there is one movement that changes everything: someone shifts, and the circle makes room.

If Norway wants to be a "we," it must be possible to call it by name. And the name must not freeze in the mouth.