"Truth and reconciliation commissions test the Nordic ideal"

 As a follow-up to my last post about the Swedish Truth Commission, the Barents Observer has published an excellent article by Laurel Colless, "Truth and reconciliation commissions test the Nordic ideal." The article highlights a roundtable held recently in Copenhagen among members of the truth and reconciliation commissions from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. They included researchers and members of the different historical minority groups in the Nordic countries--though, in the case of Greenland and Denmark, the Greenlanders are the majority in their country. 

Members of Finnish TRC

The article is worth reading for its succinct exploration of what comes next for the Nordic countries in terms of recognition and implementation of necessary changes. As the journalist Colless notes: "Now, with reports on Sámi relations delivered in Norway and Finland and the final report of the Swedish Truth Commission for the Sámi People expected in October, attention is turning to how the investigations were carried out, the challenges encountered and perhaps the most difficult question of all: whether the findings will lead to meaningful change." 

One aspect I found interesting is how the Nordic states are grappling with how to accept a difficult history that has been self-evident to groups such as the Sami and the Inuit for many decades. For minority groups there has never been a Nordic ideal, at least one that they could be part of. 

The issue of how to speak of these difficult and complicated histories in ways that are both narrative and document-based is also challenging. Colless writes, quoting several participants:

"At the core of the discussion was a recognition of the challenge related to documenting and describing these past injustices. As Andersen observed, “Part of the role of the commissions has been seeking to find a shared language in which to understand and speak about injustices committed in the Nordic states.”

"But even as the commissions work towards a shared language, they are not necessarily working towards a single version of the truth. Much of the work rests on gathering lived experiences, including personal testimonies that don’t always align neatly with official records or even from one to another, making it difficult to reconcile.

"As Swedish commissioner Krister Stoor put it, this raises a fundamental question: “How can you build the truth on narratives or stories? Whose truth is it? It is the people who are telling their stories, and it is their truth.”

"This tension runs through many of the processes, with truth commissions on one level, seeking to verify events, but also tasked with giving space to memory and emotion. “These individual accounts cannot simply be dismissed,” said Norwegian commissioner Ketil Zachariassen. “This is what happened for them, and that’s important to have in mind.”

"For commissions, in practice, this means acknowledging that different experiences of the same government policies can coexist. For example, children taken from their homes and placed in school homes – often far from their families and unable to understand the language of the classroom – experienced these policies in different ways. In their testimonials, some recall this as an opportunity that led to education or employment. Others remember only pain and loss.

"'There are different voices and different experiences, and we need to acknowledge that,' Arvidsson said. 'But even when experiences differ, we can still understand them as part of a broader assimilation policy and its long-term consequences.'