A radio and TV executive from Norway said in southeastern Taiwan yesterday that he wants to follow Taiwan in establishing a TV channel that speaks for his own indigenous tribe. “You have Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV). We do not have our own Sami television channel yet, ” Nils Johan Heatta, director of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s (NRK’s) Sami Radio, told the Central News Agency (CNA) on the sidelines of the World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Conference (WITBC).
Mr Heatta is scheduled to take over the chairmanship of the WITBC in 2012. “One of my dreams is to be able to launch a TV channel for the Sami people,” he added. Norway has a Sami population of 40,000. Other regions with significant Sami populations include Sweden, Finland and Russia.
Me Heatta also noted that a Norwegian policy has unexpectedly raised the Sami people’s awareness of their own identity at a time when the government is working to assimilate the tribe. “There has been a very strong assimilation policy from the governments in Sweden, Norway and Finland to assimilate the Sami, ” Heatta said, adding that “it was forbidden to speak the Sami language at school in these countries up until 1958.”
Although Sami Radio, which is part of the Norwegian government-owned NRK, started broadcasting in 1946, it was part of the Norwegian government’s efforts to bring Norwegian news and Norwegian society to the Sami, who did not understand Norwegian, he noted. “But the effect was the opposite to the one desired,” he went on. “The Sami people suddenly could hear their own language on the radio and it told them that yes, our language is usable and useful in media, ” Mr Heatta said.
(Source: CNA via Focus Taiwan)
