Beware of Islamic oppression of the Samis!

Anyone following the Norwegian news the last couple of weeks could not have escaped to notice the debate about whether or not to allow the hijab in the police force. Some arguments in favor of allowing it has been presented, and many good ones against. The blogger Knut Johannessen is presenting some of them in two postings on his blog Voxpopuli, titled Tilslørte politipiker and It's not the hijab, stupid!. On Wednesday this week one of the most bizarre arguments in this debate was heard.

In the February 18 issue of the local newspaper Finnmarken, the Sami politician Jánoš Trosten claims that allowing the hijab will lead to a renewed oppression of the Sami people. As much as I agree with mr Trosten not to allow wearing the hijab with a police uniform (or with an army or any kind of official uniform for that matter), his reasoning must be one of the most ridiculous ever. According to him, the hijab must be prohibited for the reason that the Sami community will not be able to handle the islamification this would inevitably lead to. Foreign customs like this are a grave threat to "an already weakened culture," which is still suffering from the Norwegianification processes in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Seriously, even in the case that his premises were true - how many female muslim cops does mr Trosten think would find their way up to Kautokeino and Karasjok in the case of an acceptance of the hijab in the police force?!? What would make us believe that the Sapmi area suddenly would experience a massive influx of hijab wearing female police officers? It beats me, but mr Trosten apparently believes that would be a probably scenario..

Mr Trosten, whom I mentioned in my post of 19 March 2008 titled Separatism in Norway, pt 2, is known to be among the more extreme of Sami politicians, if not the most extreme. Upliftingly, he seems to be quite alone in his fear that the hijab poses a large threat to the Samis and their culture. Several other notable politicians, such as president and vice presidents of the Sami parliament mr Egil Olli and mrs Marianne Balto, as well as former president of the Parliament mrs Aili Keskitalo, do not have any such fear.

As for mr Trosten's claims that the Sami culture is under any kind of threat in Norway, anyone living in Finnmark would take that with more than one grain of salt. The Norwegian policies towards Samis basically up to the mid-20th century were unfortunate and inexcusable. But with the massive revival of Sami culture and increased political power especially after the 1980s, you could not correctly claim that the Sami culture today is in any way weakened or threatened. As you could read into the post Separatism in Norway, pt. 2, some would say almost on the contrary.