Protest songs can be unappealing when people find themselves to be implicated as culprits. For this reason, many songs thematising environmental issues avoid calling out political opponents, focusing instead on the psychological conflict of people who know that they are part of the problem and struggle to deal with their own complicity. Norwegian environmental songs are often ambivalent because artists and their audiences all benefit from the privileges of a welfare state that is largely built on an oil economy.⁵Moddi's ‘En sang om fly’, Marthe Wulff's ‘Verden er stor’, and Sløtface's ‘Sink or Swim’ are examples of ambiguous songs. Jon Olav's ‘Hei Erna’ and Lars Vaular's ‘Våken’ are examples of more confrontational protest songs.

Norwegian society demonstrates similar ambivalence towards other issues. Most Norwegians today embrace the Sámi culture as a valuable part of their society and uphold the virtues of this indigenous culture while bracketing off the mistreatment its population has suffered under oppressive ‘Norwegianization’ policies since the 1700s.

The systematic oppression of Sámi culture continued until the 1980s,⁶https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegianization and encroachments on traditionally Sámi land and culture continue even today.⁷https://www.ballade.no/folkemusikk/med-sorg-og-motivasjon-i-hjertet-artister-til-kamp-i-repparfjord/, https://www.nrk.no/nordland/magnus-_5_-gledet-seg-til-17.-mai-_-ble-mott-med-hets-i-barnehagetoget-1.15970389 Yet it is easy for Norwegians to deny any complicity in these injustices. Most Norwegians have never been in a position in which they could directly impact the life of a Sámi person, and everyone born since the 1980s has always known the Sámi flag, the gákti (samekofte), and the yoik, the Sámi traditional form of song. The recognition of these items came after a struggle at the hands of activists in the 1960s and 70s, notably the Sámi poet and artist Nils-Aslak Valkepää.⁸https://radio.nrk.no/serie/norgeshistorie/KMTE87005121?fbclid=IwAR0asXBE9l_ytUI2LPZ5J1W3vmKgLaBWaM5rnvS9SnGYlF3bn445Jl8DBKM

The struggle against Norwegianization is taught in Norwegian schools. However, compared to a more pressing problem like climate change, the struggle for Sámi rights is treated more as a distinctly historical issue, the responsibility for which can easily be consigned to collective memory.

The parallels between environmental and Sámi protest songs are themselves notable, but more interestingly the two topics often overlap in Norwegian consciousness. Some of the most successful protest songs combine environmental concern with Sámi representation. The song that truly put Sámi culture on the map for a national audience was the Norwegian entry to the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, ‘Sámiid ædnan’, performed by Sverre Kjeldsberg and Mattis Hætta.

The song emerged from a prolonged protest against plans to construct a hydro-electric power station on the Alta-Kautokeino River that would disrupt reindeer and salmon migration routes, the original proposal for which included the flooding of a Sámi village. The protest engaged both environmentalists and Sámi activists during the 1970s and 1980s. ‘Sámiid ædnan’ was based on a yoik performed by Hætta during a hunger strike in front of Norway’s parliament building in 1979. Accompanying the yoik, Kjeldsberg sings in Norwegian:

Yoik is more powerful than gunpowder. Sámiid ædnan.
Because a yoik never ends. Sámiid ædnan.¹³Freely translated from Norwegian.

This was the first time many Norwegians were confronted with how Sámi people were systematically marginalised by the Norwegian government.¹⁴https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1270885?programid=4540

Before the yoik becomes the main melodic and rhythmic drive of the second half of the song, the voice of the Sámi people is already the thematic heart of the lyrics:

Can a demand get any softer?
Sámiid ædnan. Sameland.
It grew from breeze to storm.
From breeze to storm. Sameland.

In front of the parliament, where they sat
Sámiid ædnan. Sámiid ædnan.
The yoik was heard day and night.
Sámiid ædnan.¹⁵Freely translated from Norwegian.

Kjeldsberg marries the vocal expression with romantic descriptions of the natural landscape. The voice growing from a quiet breeze to a roaring storm is the natural equivalent of the Sámi people emerging as a political force. The title of the song translates to ‘Sámi land’ or ‘Sami soil’, indicating a connection between the rightful ownership of the land and the natural essence of the landscape itself. The word ‘Sameland’, which I have chosen not to change in the translation, adds contrast to the repeated phrase Sámiid ædnan, highlighting the two meanings of the phrase and directing the listener’s mind to imagine a vast natural landscape that is the historical home of the Sámi people.

The song’s success can be attributed in large part to the mobilisation of activists to civil disobedience in 1979. In the year following ‘Samiid ædnan’, more than one thousand protesters had to be forcibly removed from the construction site, an intervention which deployed 10% of the entire Norwegian police force to Alta.¹⁶https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_controversy For its length and cultural impact, the Alta controversy provided lasting attention to both environmentalist and Sámi causes.

It is tempting to assume that neither cause would have seen the impact it did were it not for the combined efforts of both environmentalists and Sámi activists. Such speculation leads us to several questions:

• Was each cause too small to gain traction on its own?
• Was the indigenous cause not important enough to mobilise a mass audience without the association with environmental destruction?
• Did the majority of Norwegians care more about the natural environment than about indigenous people? Or is it the other way around?
• Do people care little about the environment unless human welfare is implicated in its destruction?
• Must different causes align to reach a mass public with protest songs, or is there some innate connection between indigenous peoples and the natural world?

Certainly, as a nomadic group with a distinct spiritual religious tradition, the Sámi people have a particular relationship to the natural environment. It is not difficult to see that in music with ties to such a culture, environmental questions are more fundamental than simple politics.

The disparity between Sámi and Norwegian conceptions of nature is aptly portrayed in the song ‘Suola ja noaidi’ (‘The Shaman and the Thief’), performed by Moddi and Mari Boine on the 2016 album Unsongs (an album in which Moddi interprets previously banned songs from around the world). The song is performed as a dialogue between a Sámi Shaman – a noaidi – and a Christian priest. The encounter emphasises the mysterious beliefs of the shaman that (s)he has a special connection with the elements, and the priest’s rejection of such a relationship to nature. The shaman’s message is clear:

You don't understand
What it means to be of this land.

Originally a Sámi song written down by the priest Jacob Fellman in the early 19^th century, the lyrics allude to the Norwegian colonisation of Sámi land.¹⁹https://www.unsongs.com/the-shaman-and-the-thief/ In the 2016 version, the final words of the shaman are layered on top of a muted yoik which continues to the end of the song, underscoring a warning to the trespassers:

But thief beware:
My song will linger here
And in time you will be sorry you came.

Mari Boine, who performs the role of the shaman in this version, is perhaps the most recognized Sámi artist of all and has written and featured on several songs connecting the Sámi culture with eco-conscious way of living.²⁰Examples include her breakthrough ‘Gula Gula’, and more recently her collaboration with Sarah Ajnnak on ‘Wake Up Sleepwalker’. Other artists have taken up the mantle in recent years, notably Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen and her band ISÁK, who combine yoik in a contemporary pop setting with environmental activism. Furthermore, the connection between environmental and Sámi themes is not only highlighted by Sámi artists. It has been recently featured in one of the world’s biggest movie franchises, when Disney’s Frozen II alludes to Samí culture and the Alta controversy in its central plot.

In the movie, the fictional Northuldra people are modelled on the Sámi, and Sámi religion features heavily in the movie’s symbolism. In this enchanted landscape, elemental spirits have been thrown into disarray following the building of a dam. Its destruction is eventually realised as the solution to the disharmony of the elemental spirits, as well as to the internal conflicts of the main characters. Norwegian pop artist and outspoken environmentalist Aurora contributed to the soundtrack as ‘the voice’ in many of the movie’s key scenes, further demonstrating the link between the thematic allusions to Sámi culture and environmentalism.

Considering the cultural appropriation Disney performs in their productions, the songs in the movie can hardly be called protest songs. But they do contribute to an overall theme in which environmentalism and Sámi people are promoted collectively.

It is not a coincidence that a focus on environmental concerns and threats to traditional cultures continue to coincide. Pollution on both local and global scales have consequences for traditional ways of life that are unknown to the majority population. We must learn from those who live close to the issue, and who are usually the first to experience environmental changes. Ultimately it will be not only the Sámi but people in all places who are affected by the problems facing our natural environment.