Article in the book Sami School History 1. Davvi Girji 2005.

Quotes from interviews with Hans Rønbeck

English translation: Svein Lund

Hans Rønbeck (1912-1994) was for many years member of the municipal council in Karasjok. Here is the municipal council 1967-71, with Rønbeck as nr. 5 from the right.
(Picture borrowed from De samiske samlinger / Sámiid vuorká-davvirat)

Through several tens of years Hans Rønbeck was one of the leading champions of the politics of Norwegianisation, both in Karasjok and on county and national level, within the Labour Party and through a lot of writings and interviews in media. We have picked some quotes which illustrates his views.

Lofotposten, 13. 07.1957, interview by Karl Robert Ertsaas

- I do not hide that I look upon it as a final aim that the Sami population will be absorbed into the Norwegian - so it will however do whatever we might wish - and that the Norwegian language gains on expense of the Sami. ...
- Here we don't talk about depriving the Samis of their mothter tongue, but we have to realize that they, forced by the circumstances, have to change into Norwegian, and I mean that the faster the prosess of Norwegianisation goes, the better for the Samis. ...

- In Karasjok is today more than 40 percent of the populations under 16 years. That says that between 50 and 70 youth yearly have to search for work outside the municipality. If they keep on living here, we will mercilessly get an increasing unemployment and underemployment and a powerty which we so seriously learnt to know in the 30's that it should have left deterrent marks. These numbers should make the alternatives clear and the choice easy: The youth must out! ...

- How should the education in the primary school best take place?
- The majority in the school board, among them the overwhelming majority are Samis, want that Sami should be used as an auxilliary language the first three years. From the 4. year is all education in Norwegian. ...

- But isn't it a solution to let Sami and Norwegian be parallell languages in the primary school?
- It will demand an enormous extra work for the pupils, and it is Norwegian which will be the looser. No, it is a solution as bad as possible.

- So we have the Sami culture which is so closely connected to the Sami language. What about that, office manager Rønbeck?
- I am fully aware that there exist some romantics - who are working for a purifying of Sami race and Sami language. But if that should be the aim, then isolation must be the means, and it will inescapeably lead to stagnation for the whole Sami population, and the Samis are fortunately aware of that themselves. Therefore they neither wish to go that way. They wish a free and natural development which necessarily leads to that the Sami lanuage dies out and the Sami population is assimilated into the Norwegian. That is however a development which has been going for a long time, and the Samis will suffer most if there is tried to stop it.

Ságat, 26.05.1990. Interview by Arne Wulff

The interview is by the newspaper presented like this:
"This interview with the former mayor of Karasjok Hans Rønbeck was done in 1976 by Arne Wulff. The interview was never presented in the newpaper, because the then editor Bjarne Store Jakobsen refused to print it. During a cleaning in Ságat's editorial archive this interview again saw the light of day. Some of the questions mentioned in the interview are still actual. In addition the interview is of historical interest. Therefore Ságat, with the acceptation of Hans Rønbeck prints the interview - 14 years after it was made. Today Rønbeck is retired and he lives in Tromsdalen."

- Mrs. bishop Wiig made the double texted Sami ABC. In 1920's there was a struggle about these handbooks, which were rejected by the vast majority. When I came to Karasjok, the attitude was that they did not want to have Sami speaking teachers, and that was also the attitude after the war.

- I remember that Lillemor Isaksen, who had further education (gymnasium), hardly got a job as a teacher, because she was Sami speaking. Also in 1949 Karasjok municipality rejected Sami as auxillary language for the first three years of school, and this was repeated in 1957.

In 1958 we got the continuation school and this was a great progress. [This is not historically correct, the continuation school (framhaldsskole)was started in Karasjok i the late 1940's, in 1958 it was closed because of the starting of compulsory secondary school (ungdsomsskole). Ed. ] The recommandation of the Sami commitee met a lot of resistance, among others in the question of school politics. In 1959 we got changes in the school law. Sami elementary education should not be compulsory. That has all the time been my view. The parents who do not want to have Sami elementary education, should be spared from that. It was here the struggle was, and I am happy that my view won.

The education offered for the reindeer herding Samis has never been as good as for the settled children. I have through all years fought against own school district for reindeer Samis, but it has not gained. The reindeer Sami children have from 27 to 32 school weeks which are consentrated into 6 months. while the children of the settled have 36 school weeks over 10 months. ...

They who have struggled for that the reindeer Sami children should be deprived of normal school offers, must have a heavy burden to carry. This discrimination of Samis is probably the worst which is done to the Samis, says Rønbeck. ...

- Contradictions between two populations will always lead to that the minority looses. I have therefore, from my youth on, tried to support the Samis in their life situation, also culturally. When De Samiske Samlinger (Sami museum) was founded in 1937, I took actively part and became member of the first board. Already then I was engaged in that Sami language and culture should be taken care of and protected If not I had of course not engaged myself. But I stood then, as I do today, on a somewhat other line than some Samis today.

Read also: A retrospective from the Karasjok Labour Party’s work 1934-83 (Not yet available in English)

More articles from Sami School History 1