I am critical to separatistic movements in Tornevalley as I have written earlier about Bengt Pohjanen. In Haparandabladet 4/8-09 there is a text written by Polo, it says;" And Meänkieli shall us unite, it shall be the bottom and the base, and we all shall be etnic clean, of the Tornevalleykvän rase".
Joseph Goebbels couldn't had said it better. I am so allergic against people who says things like this, look at Bosnia, same movements there.
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I notice that somebody is interested to know more about Sweden's national minorities. Look at www.samer.se the text is in English too.
ReplyDeleteUmmikko.
I wanted to know more. I am an American, from Minnesota. My ancestors were from the Torne River Valley. I have Sami ancestors and Kven ancestors. They lived in Korpilombolo, Sattajarvi, and before that, Vittangi.
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand the poem about Meankieli being the bottom and the base and the end of the Kven race. It seems this poem is both for and against the Kvens. Perhaps the translation got lost somehow. My husband is a Finland-Swede; maybe you could add the poem in Swedish and he can explain it to me.
Are you saying Bengt Pohjanen is a separatist? I know he has written much about Laestadianism and developed the Meankieli language very much.
Looking in from the outside, this is how I see Tornio River Valley. We all are a mixed people. That would include me, as much of my ancestry is from both sides of the river in Finland and Sweden. If we were to all have our DNA looked at, some of us would come out more as Sami, some as "Finn" and some of us as "Viking" but probably most of us as Finn and Sami. The people up there are impossible to categorize. You see one person and you could swear she looks like a viking, Sophia Jannok, and she is a Sami. You see another, dark-haired and small and asiatic, and you think they're a Sami, but they adamently say they are ALL Kven. My family too claimed to be pure Finns and none of them like my family research that shows our Sami roots--and we have a lot. You can change a person's language and to some degree, their culture, but you cannot change their DNA and often elements of their DEEP culture remain. I think the Kvens to a large degree are mixed Sami and Finns and assimilated Sami. I am reading an interesting book on the assimilation of the Jukkasjarvi Lapps to Settled Life and Farming. What they found is when they did that, most of them changed their identity to that of the surrounding people--the Kvens.
Polos poem is written in purpose to lie about the attitudes of those who love Finnish, Sapmi, Meänkieli and Swedish. Why is this Signature so hateful against Bengt Pohjanen? Why does he write such things? Why under Signature? Is he some kind of stalker?
ReplyDeleteBengt Pohjanen writes in three languages. He is no separatist. It is awful to persecute him as this Sugnature does. He has done it for years. Pohjanen has always been figthing aginst the ideas of nationalism and other fundamentalistic movement like nazism and communism. The Signature of this site is a covered man.
ReplyDelete"Seskarö"
Answer to Minnesota, here is Polo's poem in Swedish
ReplyDelete"Ett kulturmanifest.
Vad är ni för ena som inte känner
och vet vad klockan är slagen?
Ni är ju bastarder bland hembygdsvänner,
som trängt er in här i hagen!
Ni tvingar er fram som en hop vandaler
och talar ett främmande språk,
och allt vad ni gör blir kulturskandaler,
och allting blir språkstrid och bråk!
Ni har ju bytt namnen på era släkter,
ett förräderi utan lika!
Ni uppför er skamligt i svenska dräkter
i kvänernas lyckorike
Vi har länge fått lida och utstå mycket
av skolans och lärarnas nit
och dignat som slavar i svenskförtrycket
och alltid behandlats som skit!
Men nu ekar ropen och frihetsskriken
helt fritt från en folkets orkester!
Och gränsen för Tornedalsrepubliken
dras skarpt och bestämt i väster!
Och meänkieli skall oss förena,
det skall vara botten och basen,
och alla skall vi vara etniskt rena
av tornedalskvänska rasen!
Men säkrast och bäst når man högsta graden
i denna kulturhierarki,
om Pajala utnämns till huvudstaden
i Kvänlandets autokrati!"
I am not the only one who is critical to Bengt Pohjanen. Maybe he is against communism and nazism, but you can't say like he does that Swedish speaking people was either communists or nazists. That is an insult.
To "Seskarö" the signature Tornedaling i försingringen wrote in Haparandabladet
"Att rota i gamla oförrätter, odla martyrskap,kräva ursäkter och så splittring ger ingen utveckling. Bengt Pohjanen må vara en talesman för ett fåtal, men inte för alla tornedalingar.
Och - för att tala med Bengt Pohjanens eget språkbruk - så kan han ta sin flagga och torka sig på lämpligt ställe"
I think that one shall be very careful when one uses the word race. Sweden was pioneer in skullmeasuring. Sameskulls are still at a museum. I am not a stalker, I just want all etnic groups to live in peace,and like Pohjanen attac children to priests, policemen, all authorites that he hates is the wrong way.
You can't choose your parents.
Poor man! Stalker!
ReplyDeleteThe poem is of course ironic meant. Poor man, you can't read a poem.
Pohjanen does not attack anybody. The middle class attacks him fysically and an old policeman, judged for violence and driving car with 2.41 % alcohol in blood, attacks Pohjanen.
He has been attackad and threatened.
Why do yoy start a blog for hate and persecution.
Isn't it an obligation for an author to seek and write the truth, for example about middleclass, who threw poor people and big families in the snow and took their houses?
Yor are stalker, nothing else.
"Ettörehuset"
Mr. Stalker,
ReplyDeleteThe flag is not Pohjanens only. Mr Wirlöf designed it. You are obviously a simple lier. The flag is very popular, an innocent symbol. How can you hate a flag? You are for etnic cleaning, not those who want everybody to speak their own languages. You want the flag in back of people. Pohjanen is for truth, freedom and democracy.
Pour Mr. Jante!
ReplyDeletePohjanen filled Haparanda with visitors this summer. 1200 every night at his Waropera!
That is one of the reasons for Your hate!
He works and You start a blog against him!
Your writings in Haparandabladet smells and stinks just old shit and Jante!
Very strong reactions indeed. I wish you had read what he has written in Haparandabladet every week and that poem is NOT ironic
ReplyDeleteBut Polo is not Bengt Pohjanen,mr. Jane, how evil are You?
ReplyDeleteI am critical to the using of the word race and etnic clean, if that is evil,there is many evil persons here. Ask the aboriginal people in USA what they think about etnic cleaning.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Wounded Knee? I suggest that you read the book Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. I am critical to Polo this time, Pohjanen has nothing to do with the poem, I hope.
You don't need to hope, because Polo is not Pohjanen. It is an old wellknown act, used by all oppression systems, to say that a person has ideas he in reality has not, when that is done, you can judge this person - though he is innocent and has nothing to do with such ideas.
ReplyDeletePohjanen is threelingual. He writes in Swedish language, he writes in Finnish and in Meänkieli.
The man behind this blog is a Jante, from bourgoisie and tries to turn the victims to oppressive power. It is in fact ugly.
Maybe the man behind this blog is Polo.
ReplyDeleteYou write "like Pohjanen attac children to priests, policemen, all authorites that he hates is the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteYou can't choose your parents."
Answer: Pohjanen has not attacked anbody. He has been attacked, physically, as you know. Why are you lying? "
Nice and calm in the pants now, folks! You don't know anything about me, you don't live here, you haven't read Haparandabladet. I don't lie about anything. You call me Jante, let's keep a civilized level of this debate.
ReplyDeleteMr Jante!
ReplyDeleteYou are the one who isn't civilized.
You are the one who isn't calm!
You are the one who isn't nice.
You are condemning.
Civilized people don't start blogs for hating,
Pohjanen wrote about how officials misused their power and this seems to have made you crazy. Who are you?
To Minnesota.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your nice and interesting comment about the Jukkasjärvi lapps, I am interested in that too, maybe your ancestor is Lasse Pajanen, Pajala's founder, many Tornedalians remain from him.
I notice that someone wants to know more. About what? I can tell you if you give a clue.
ReplyDeleteAmerican with Torne Valley roots here.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wanted to know more about what this poem was all about, I didn't realize how much controversy there is surrounding Bengt Pohjanen. I have never met Bengt, but I've e-mailed with him a little as I had some questions about his works on Laestadius. He is unfortunately, not translated into English. Learning about the Torne Valley is fascinating to me. I have never been there, but my husband taught in Gellivare for a few years before we married and he relocated to the United States. I was born and raised in a very small sect in the United States that has its roots in Laestadianism. We had no European counterpart, and the area I lived in had no other Laestadians than our group. I had not even known about Laestadius and this movement that started in Karesuando and spread to the Finnish-speaking populace in Pajala. At some point, Laestadian became a figure never-to-be named, like Voltemort, as a way to protest against other Laestadian groups whom was thought gave Laestadius too much emphasis. I was told we were 100% Finnish and the term "Lapp" only seemed like a vague descriptor for a short, dark-haired person, sort like you'd call someone a "blonde." I had no idea about the Sami people and that to a very large degree Laestadians often have Sami roots. There have been times I have told people I was Finnish and they gave me an odd look and was told I didn't look Finnish...furthermore, when people described the silent, stoic, emotionless Finn full-of-piss and sisu it didn't sound much at all like my large, loud, boisterous and extroverted family. Genetically, we are to a large degree, Sami people. Yet we've been told we're Finn, Finn, Finn. And yes, we were for many generations Finnish-speaking. It does not make us Finns any more than the nationalist Swedes living north, even if you have reached upper Middle class and been educated. If your family has been living in the Torne Valley since before the 1920's, chances are you're no Viking. You're Finn and possibly Sami. Just because another culture and language has been inflicted upon you and you've assimilated, why begrudge others the chance to be proud of their roots, and for their language to have legal status and rights? Why is that wrong and separatist? Finnish was spoken there as a dominant language until just the last two generations.
There is not so many controversy surrounding Pohjanen,
ReplyDeletethere is a little group persecuting him.
The people, thousands and thousands meet upp when he has his operas and when he tells stories.
The person behind this blog is one of them.
To American with Tornionlaakson roots.
ReplyDeleteI would like to give you a more personal answer, now I probably will get nasty comments from others. Anyway, if you have read older posts in this blog, you can see which background I have, deep workingclass, I have lived outside the Finnish speaking area, my Grandfather was West Laestadian with many children, my Grandmother gave birth to eight children before she was 29. My wife is from Finland and has roots in the same area as you. I sometimes speak Finnish, I live in Haparanda, a town with 4000 inhabitants, more than half of them come from Finland, Haparanda is so close to Tornio that you don't notice that you go over the border. My ancestor was born 1425 40 km from here, and we have lived in the area since then. About hate-blog, there are a lot of posts on this blog, maybe 2-3 of them is about Pohjanen, the others are about my life. He calls non-Finnish speaking people ummikko, I don't like that, I suppose you are all Americans in USA, you don't call people names depending of what language they speak. If you want to read about Tornevalley you can read Popularmusic by Mikael Niemi, it is translated to English, you can also watch clips from the film Populärmusik from Vittula on Youtube. If you want to know more about your roots I can help you if you tell me a name that I can search, I have two books with 15000 names here at home. Finally, I don't think it is wrong to be proud of the roots, I am proud of mine.
My most famous ancestor there was Anund Kyro, birkarl there from 1400's and is the father of many tribes, both Finn and Sami.
ReplyDeleteI am glad there exist people there still proud of their roots. But why do people have to choose just one? I have an American Norwegian friend who located to Tromso, she sees it confusing also. There can be one family, and inside that same family, one sister considers herself a Sami, one brother considers himself Norwegian, and the other brother as a Kven. Perhaps this is the problem? Why can't you have more than one? As for myself, maybe it is easier: I am Finnish, Sami, and Kven (and even a little German and Swedish-speaking-Finn from a non-Laestadian grandparent). When my husband lived in Gellivare, he says he gave up trying to categorize people as the "race-mixing" as horrible as that term was made it impossible to generalize who was Kven, who was Swede, and who was Sami. Sometimes when I say someone looks Finn or looks Sami or looks Swede, he says I am being racist. But again, he said it was living in Gellivare that taught him that things are not always what they seem.
Ask him what non-Sami people in Gällivare think about the Sami people, I know that there has been problems there when it comes to driving snowmobile in reindeer herding areas, and about hunting and fishing, they are also not allowed to build everywhere because of the reindeers. It is there that the Sami roadsigns has vanished. I have the same race mix in my family, I have a close relative that is even Mic mac (very little). I shall research for Anund Kyrö, I think the family Anundi remains from him, Anund is a Norweigan name. I just iooked at Google, Anund Anundsson Kyrö lived 1539 to 1549 at Kyrö farm in Pello. You seem to be a very wise woman.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
You know anonymous, my husband and I have very different opinions about these ethnic conflicts. He is a Finn from the Kainuu area (by Lake Oulu) and he moved to Sweden when he was 6 years old. He is a very nationalistic Swede, perhaps more like the blog owner than me. Sometimes I call him a hurri, but you know, maybe that is not so nice considering I don't even speak Finnish and I'm likely more Sami anyway. As far as my feelings toward Swedes--I like them, but they definitely have notions of racial superiority, even under their Jante mask of egalitarianism. I grew up in a community that even in the seventies was predominantly ethnically Swede, Smalanders to be exact, although I didn't know that until much later. Just across the river from the places where Moberg wrote his Emigrants series, actually. I once had a boyfriend who instructed me specifically not to tell his grandfather I was Finnish! Can you believe it? (I had one of those surnames that was pretty Americanized). Swedish Americans gave Finnish-Americans bloody hell when we got here. They got here first, and influenced a lot of bias against us, and even in 1905 tried to bar a Finnish man from American citizenship using the Asian Exclusion Act and that bullshit from the Swedish Race Biology Institute. Can you believe them? But seriously, though, with our impaired sense of geography 99% of Americans don't know the difference between Swedes and Finns, and even most Scandinavian Americans have never heard of the Sami.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Sami roadsigns, my husband said he was not surprised. He liked his Sami students when he worked at the luukio there, but as a man of science, he does not think so deeply about these cultural things. However, he was the one who inspired me to look more deeply into my Sami roots, since he noticed that so many people there resembled my family members.
About restrictions regarding the reindeers--in the 1980's when the Ojibwe people here started getting special rights to hunt, fish, and harvest that others didn't get, there was a heavy outcry from the local sportsmen. There were even a few incidences of mild violence and protests. As far as I can see, all of that has died down. I hardly hear about it anymore. One of our huge lakes, Red Lake, became almost fished out from spearing within a year or two. The Indians had to learn to educate themselves on how to manage these natural resources with some help from the state, and I scarcely hear anything about it anymore.
Dear Anonymous from Moberg-land. Is it Chisago Falls?. You have written about how people look like here, look at my post about the living pikes, there is a youtube clip there, those girls are my cousin's daughters. About your ancestor, the Birkarl, he was one of the richest in the region in that time. Birkarls had special trade and administration privilegies until the Swedish State had full control over the area.
ReplyDeleteI grew up across the river from Chisago Lakes/Taylor's Falls, in a bordering county that belongs to the state of Wisconsin. The county I grew up had the per-capita highest concentration of Swedes in the U.S. Which means by percentage it was almost homogeneously Swedish, and by the time I grew up, it was still mostly Swedish. Me and the Indians were the darkest haired people.
ReplyDeleteI will probably bet you cousin's daughters are as blonde as can be. I maybe was being a bit stereotypical about people from up there, there is I am sure variety.
The birkarl I am sure was a rich son-of-a-you-know-what. They say he was a Finnish man, but I don't know why he had a Norwegian first name. I have this somewhere but he was the father of many Sami families to this day, and many Kven families. Apparently he did do some crime and lost his birkarl priviledges and spent time in jail. Or maybe it was his son. Birkarls remind me a lot of the voyageurs here. They were French men who married Indian women and had control of trading areas from Minnesota to vast portions of Canada. Where I grew up, over half of the Indians had French surnames. In Canada, there is a special tribe of natives called the metis, and they are basically French and Indian mixed who retained elements of both cultures long enough that they became their own "thing." There is a "new" phenomenon of the last 100 years when the Finnish moved into the Lake Superior region. There are at least 30,000 "Finndians" or people with Finnish and Indian descent. There is one tribe in Upper Michigan in which 70% of the members have Finnish surnames. There is a huge Finnish festival every year in the U.S., Finn-Fest, and there is usually a lot of participation and even funding from the tribes because they recognize the Finnish community as "family" here. Finns and Indians have generally gotten along and been good friends and often drinking buddies.
I know about the metis, I have Canadian friends, but the Finndians is new information for me. I also know a little about the early French colonization of Canada. I think this conversation is very nice, you can call me Nils, it feels better than being totally anonymous now when we are mailing regularly. A man here in Haparanda visited Minnesota and wrote in Haparanda that the Indians spoke Finnish, i didn't believe it, but when you say this, I believe it. They shall say How! not Terve! I know some Same people too, the nearest Sameby is 60 km from here. A Sameby is an Economic Community for reindeerherding, A Koncession Sameby is if ordinary Swedes own reindeers they must be looked after by a Same. there are no wild reindeers in Sweden, all are marked in the ear by their owner. They cut off a piece of the ear when they are newborn. I use to go out in the forest for blueberries these days, but now two girls has met a bear near here, it doesn't feel good to go out with bears two km from here. About Finnish drinking buddies, drinking is the most common cause of death in Finland.
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you Nils! You can call me Jenni. And yes, its true about the Finndians. My Torniolaaksoan grandmother (born in America but all her roots were in the valley) used to get a visit from a young Ojibway man who spoke fluent Finnish. He had an Indian father and a Finnish mother, and his grandmother who lived with them didn't speak any English so he learned it very well. Most people under 60 do not speak Finnish in America anymore unless they received formal training.
ReplyDeleteFor a while I have began to think of myself as a metis. The whole idea of Lapland and Northern Ostrobothnia, the home of my gene pool--is a little like the metis. Like it or not, there is a good chance that the pranksters stealing those Sami language signs are of partial, or perhaps even predominantly--Sami heritage. Perhaps I began to identify more as Sami when I saw how much they look like me and my people. See, I always thought that the Sami were nearly as dark as Eskimos and as short as the stereotypical Chinese. And its true, some are--but most of them look like me and my family and like some of the people I grew up with in the religious community I was raised in. However, no one ever admitted to being a Sami. It perplexed me. Then I started reading about Sami genealogy and found out many of the surnames in my family were Sami surnames. I thought they were Finnish. The one time I tried to ask my grandmother about it she actually got angry with me; I had never seen her so annoyed. I belong to a Sami-Amrican cultural community and with most of the members, the stories are similar. Only a couple have known they were Sami all their lives. The others actually didn't discover it until they--or someone close to them--became immersed in genealogy. Sometimes their church papers designated their families as Sami. Now, another interesting thing has been happening. Finnish-Americans (Kvens and Finnish-speaking Swedes always call themselves Finnish-Americans) are starting to have their DNA analyzed. They are finding their DNA shows their Sami roots. It is ironic, considering how we have been enculturated to find out we are not as Finnish as we think we are, but very much Sami. Some have contacted their relatives in Finnmark and North Sweden and Finland and wanted to talk about this discovery, only to have the lines of communication cut on the subject. It perplexes us Americans, especially us younger Americans. We have seen attitudes like my grandmas from the older folks, and from the Europeans...and it does not make any sense to us. Perhaps because we were born before the civil rights movement? Recently I found out that my uncle (through marriage) had a grandfather who used to joik for people after services...joik in North America! I tried to get him to talk about it, but he wouldn't. It became very obvious that his Sami heritage made him ashamed. Maybe I am a rebel and maybe I think too much, but I decided it was time right now to claim my full heritage, not just the heritage I was told to be proud of, but all of it.
Jenni Amerikkalainen
Hi Jenni.
ReplyDeleteI think you need some Same-connections here. I know a very famous Same silversmith, jewelry designer. Her name is Erica Huuva, she was born here in Haparanda and lives now in Idivuoma south of Karesuando. She has learnt Sami after she left Haparanda. Her husband, Aslak Simma, I have talked to him, is a joiker and storyteller. You find Erica at Google or at Facebook,erica@ericahuuva.se there you find a lot of other Samis. Last night it was -5 C, and today I shall go and see the Royal family, they are visiting the border. There are a lot of Samis in Stockholm too, maybe 3000. A famous Same is the NHL legend from Toronto Börje Salming. Many people don't want to say that they are Sami, because the will be called lappjävel,fucking lapp. I have tried to find out if I have Sami roots, two of my children have it, their Grandmother always said that she was part Sami.
Best wishes Nils
Nils:
ReplyDeleteWhere do you live now? In Haparanda or in Stockholm?
I understand why people don't want to be Sami. It is the same why people don't want to be Indian. My son's dad, my first husband, was probably a quarter Indian, enough to have "Indian goodies" as my Finnish-Sami grandmother used to call it disparangely. I am not sure exactly how beneficial the Indian goodies are, but if you have them, you can go through the university free and probably get a lot of scholarships too. If you own a business, you can probably get a lot of start-up grants. My ex-husband wanted nothing to do with being an Indian. His dad's side of the family was metis, and his mom's pure Anglo southern redneck and a little Cherokee. And the fact is, he really took after the French side of the family, although his two brothers look quite metis. Our son is a contradiction! He looks like a viking! Blond hair, blue eyes, tall and lean. That is the beauty of humanity: recessive genes can come out of nowhere!
I'll let you in on a secret. I desire to write a book that starts in the Tornio valley and ends in the United States, following one family with Sami roots (who assimilate to a Kven identity through marriage) and who immigrate to the United States. Of course they are Laestadians too. A bit like my family, and inspired by my family, but not my family. I have a degree in writing, but I have never attempted anything like this before. I am reading and compiling research and have a plot outline. I know a lot about pioneer life in Finnish communities, but it is the Torniolaakso region I am trying to fill in details.
Thanks for the information on Erica. I am on Facebook, and I'd like to befriend her. You too, if I could, but I don't want to put my name here. Maybe you can e-mail me and I'll tell you who I am and add you as a facebook friend? My e-mail is jenni_tytto (at sign) hotmail.com
ReplyDelete