Cultural enrichment - political inconvenience

Gjennomgang av politikken overfor nasjonale minoriteter 2000–2019

Cultural enrichment - political inconvenience

Review of policies towards national minorities 2000-2019

ABSTRACT

National minorities are ethnic, linguistic, cultural and/or religious minorities with a long-standing attachment to the country in which they live. In Norway, the Kvens/Norwegian Finns, Forest Finns, Romani people/Tater, Roma and Jews have the status of national minorities. It is how an individual self-identifies that determines who belongs to a national minority.

The national minorities currently find themselves in a political climate that – particularly if one takes history into account – may be said to be developing positively. However, there is still insufficient knowledge about the national minorities in the majority population, and many of the minorities continue to experience discrimination and racism. The national minorities thereby find themselves in a state of continual tension. On the one hand, as a group they are protected by international rights and conventions, which in turn are followed up by national policies. On the other hand, as individuals they are exposed to ignorance and prejudice in their encounters with fellow citizens and the general public.

It is the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation (KMD) that is responsible for coordinating government policies that affect national minorities. KMD shall work towards consistency and coherence in policies, across sectors and administrative levels, thereby having the main responsibility for government policies that affect national minorities. Each ministry is responsible for following up the government policy in its sector. This report is a review of this policy. The overall objective is to describe how the policy has developed in the last 20 years and outline how the government can contribute to strengthen the national minorities’ language, culture and situation in Norwegian society in the future. The review therefore answers the following general question: Does KMD’s coordination responsibility in the field of national minorities in Norway provide incentives and effects in line with the government’s targets? The empirical material in this study consists of both quantitative and qualitative data from three main sources: Qualitative in-depth interviews with a total of 43 informants, quantitative data describing the grant schemes, and document studies.

The protection of minorities is an important element of human rights, and is based on the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination. The status of national minority thereby gives the minorities certain rights. In Norway, the work of securing special rights for national minorities is based on international obligations, and Norway has ratified two international agreements that explicitly strengthen the rights of the national minorities: The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. These provide an extremely important foundation for Norwegian policies in this field. Using these as a basis, we have developed a programme theory for policies towards national minorities in Norway. Programme theory is a theory or model that describes and analyses how an intervention (programme, initiative, policy, strategy etc.) contributes to a chain of results and intended or observed effects. One of the main aims of the programme theory for the field of minorities is compliance with international obligations. It is particular important to protect the minorities’ culture and ensure their co-determination when developing any policies that affect them. It is also important to make reparations to any minorities that historically to a greater or lesser degree have, as a group, been subject to injustice by the state. Finally, it is important to ensure that the minorities effectively participate in Norwegian society. The most important instruments of KMD are securing good dialogue with the minorities, providing financial grants and coordinating central government on issues concerning minority policy.

In terms of dialogue between the authorities and the minorities, the review made the following main findings:

• The arenas for dialogue are not perceived as relevant by the minorities.
• The dialogue is insufficiently tailored to the individual minority, and lacks goals for dialogue with each minority.
• There needs to be more co-determination to achieve effective participation.
• The authorities need to have more of an outreach approach.

In terms of grants for the minorities, the review made the following main findings:

• For those minorities with the weakest organisation, the minorities want/need measures that improve their ability to organise as a group.
• Grants to national minorities have increased significantly between the year 2000 and the present, but their distribution between the minorities varies.
• The discontinuation of the Romani People’s Fund Foundation had a negative impact here.
• The minorities have not been involved in allocating the grants.

In terms of KMD’s coordination responsibility, the review made the following main findings:

• The ministries within the sector are positive towards KMD as the coordinating ministry.
• KMD appears to be struggling to balance top-down administration and front-line practice.
• There are differing expectations of the coordination responsibility, particularly outside the organisation of the Ministry.
• The minorities have consistently had different expectations of the KMD’s coordination responsibility than the Ministry itself.

One final, consistent finding in the review is how important symbolism and use of language is in this field. Political commitment and consideration are highly valued by the minorities, for example in the matter of the state’s official apologies to the national minorities. Correspondingly, reparation policy that is not followed up or that is administered unwisely achieves a negative significance. The Ministry’s handling of the Romani People’s Fund is a good example of this. The establishment of the fund was presented as a collective reparation, which had a strong symbolic power. When the measure was changed to become a grant scheme, this was perceived as a fundamental break from the original ambition. Although the grant scheme would fund much of the same work as before, its symbolic value was much weaker.

On the basis of the findings, we recommend the following:

• That the establishment of a directorate for the national minorities is considered.
• That specific targets are developed for the policy towards each minority.
• That the threshold to seek out to the minorities’ own institutions and representatives must be lowered.
• The contact forum in its current form should be discontinued and replaced by
• bilateral meetings between KMD and representatives/organisations within the individual minorities,
• funding for an arena in which the five organisations can develop a dialogue on shared opportunities and challenges,
• an annual information meeting, in which minority representatives/organisations are invited to receive thematised information from the public administration.
• That a project to establish the level of knowledge about national minorities in the municipalities and county authorities is initiated, with the aim of putting long-term measures in place in order to follow up the obligations of the municipality.