Need and Misery in the Eastern Periphery: Nordic Sámi Media Debate on the Kola Sámi

Abstract

This article investigates Nordic Sámi discourse on the Kola (Russian) Sámi through analysis of texts from Sámi newspapers and journals 1992–2009. Among the findings are that the relationship between Nordic and Kola Sámi is frequently discussed as a donor–recipient pattern similar to that of general Western discourse on “the [global] South” and the 1990s’ “great misery discourse” on Russia. This portrayal of the Kola Sámi is here referred to as “the discourse of need”. However, the study also finds that this most divergent subgroup of the Sámi people is accepted into the border-transcending Sámi “nation” without question – it is never challenged that they are part of a larger “us”. The article also comments on some similarities between the discourse on the Kola Sámi as a “suffering” group, and certain patterns in Nordic Sámi self-representation. In comparison, a selection of non-Sámi media texts displayed less interest in the Kola Sámi; their paying attention to the group was more dependent on its members being perceived as victims of crisis and/or injustice; and they articulated the discourse of need more often. The two decades from which texts were drawn (1990s and 2000s) differed mainly by the latter period showing a general decrease in interest in the group; and by Sámi media being less dominated by the discourse of need, and containing more texts portraying the Kola Sámi as culturally and politically active.     

Commercial Liberties and Nuclear Anxieties: The US-German Feud over Brazil, 1975–7

In June 1975, Helmut Schmidt's government in West Germany sanctioned the sale of a complete nuclear fuel cycle to Brazil, including uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology. US observers in Congress, government, and the media reacted with alarm to this apparent setback to global non-proliferation efforts as spearheaded by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Using material from US, British, and German archives, this article examines how structural disparities in the US-German relationship augmented mutual suspicions and led both parties to behave uncooperatively.

Focused narrowly on commercial rivalry with the US, politicians and industry representatives in Bonn brushed aside the concerns of non-proliferation experts, who had a weak institutional base. Jimmy Carter came to office in 1977 determined to block the consummation of the Brazil deal; he also pressed the G-7 to discontinue nuclear fuel reprocessing. Carter's abrupt unilateralism offended US allies, but together the US and France put pressure on West Germany to renounce sensitive nuclear exports. Schmidt grudgingly agreed to show more caution, but few lessons were learned; many Germans came away feeling that US-led export restrictions were overbearing, hypocritical and self-serving. While cooperative within NATO and European frameworks, West Germans remained ambivalent on global problems of proliferation until the 1990s.     

Acknowledging economic realities. The CMEA policy change vis-à-vis the European Community, 1970–3

In the early 1970s, the economic consequences of European Community (EC) policies forced the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) to devise its trade policy vis-à-vis the outside world. With the implementation of its Common Commercial Policy, the EC was about to change the rules and conduct of its foreign trade. The East–West trade boom that took off in the 1960s had created significant commercial links, and substantial dependencies, across the Iron Curtain. The smaller members of the CMEA began to advocate an opening up towards the EC due to their fears of worsening trade prospects caused by the new EC policies. After reconsideration of its allies' commercial needs, the Soviet leadership was pressured to change its mind in favour of a common approach vis-à-vis the EC. This article follows the debate within the CMEA Executive Committee on the socialist countries' dependency on the Western market and on the advisability of opening up to the global market. It relies on official CMEA documents as well as Soviet and German Democratic Republic (GDR) policy-making documents. This article analyses the process of socialist integration in connection with the simultaneous developments taking place in their Western European counterparts, and thereby fills a gap in the historiography of Europe in the Cold War.