IGE Nordics plans of minebreaking in Rönnbacken outside Tärnaby might provide 250 jobs. 20 miljon tonnes will be broken every year wich would be the largest mine in Västerbotten history.
Sigrid Strångberg from Tärnaby in the south of Vilhelmina, Sweden.
The quotation above taken from the newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren might be written in a positive way but tis large-scale braking of the mineral nickel will affect the minority of same that live in this area. When I for the first time looked behind my back I saw that a global problem I'd been caring for in other countries is about to happen in the country that I call my own.
I've been living in Ecuador and Chile learning about the indigenous people and their struggle against international companies exploitation their land. I've also red a lot about the organisation MST in Brasil and how they by land occupations are fighting for their constitutional rights.
The world is all connected and I know that my consuming habits do affect minority's over the world. We live in a global network and caring about farmers in Latin America do make sense. What really made me feel ashame though is when I first heard about the plans of mining in Västerbotten in the north of Sweden. It was on a lecture arranged by Latinamerikagrupperna that works with indigenous people in Latin America. The'd invited Sigfrid Strångberg from Tärna in South of Vilhelmina where this miner is going to take place.
Sigfrid Strångberg is working for the rights of same and is herself identifying as a same. Her story about how the same where she lives have lost the possibility of fishing and caring reindeer really affected me. According to the law, only the families that worked with raindeers when the latest law about same was written 1971, are allowed to be called same. Only the juridical accepted same are allowed to have reindeers. That means that being a same is something that you inherit from your parents. It doesn't matter weather you culturally live like- and identify yourself as a same, you wan't have the right to work and farm as your cultural origin if you aren't a same on the paper.
Not being able to have raindeers is one of the discriminating facts that had affected the family of Sigfrid Strångberg. She also talked about how international companies had affected their area by not taking responsibility of the roads that their machines had destroyed and about the loss of fishes in the lakes because of the contamination.
With the mine industry the same in the area are about to loose everything. 250 new jobs isn't worth much if the natural and cultural multitude is being destroyed. The same in the area has given their last word in this question by appealing the construction of this big-scale mine to the authorities. Their own municipality hasn't done anything against the mine.
"A group of young people visiting us in tis part of North Sweden reacted with: Is this really Sweden?", Sigfrid Strångberg said. I told her that I identified with that reaction and that I really appreciated her lecture about minorities in my country.
Let's make the struggle global! Let's make the hope global!, is a well known quotation for those who work for indigenous rights in Latin America. In my picture of a global world I want to add my neighbors in the north. I hope that affected minorities will unite their voice and start chairing their experiences over the nations. Let's all open our eyes to include local as well as global in our conception of the world. Together we are stronger!
