The Storting has adopted an apology for the Norwegianization policy

The voting went as expected.

The background for the Storting’s apology is the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which came in June, and which dealt with the Norwegianization policy and the injustice committed against the Sami, Kven/Norwegian Finns and Skog Finns.

Norsification is the term for the assimilation policy that the Norwegian authorities pursued towards the Sami and later also the Kven and the Norwegian Finns. Norwegianization already started in the 18th century and became a stated policy from 1851.

Parts of the policy were phased out in the 1960s, but in practice much of the Norwegianization policy was continued until the mid-1980s.

– It has been a day with many emotions. It is strong to experience that the Storting is apologizing and acknowledging responsibility for the Norwegianization policy. Today I send a thought to those who have suffered, who lost both language and culture, and who have deep wounds. Today there is hope for reconciliation, says Sámi Parliament President Silje Karine Muotka in a press release.

The Progress Party was the only one to vote against the apology.

– It is difficult for us in the FRP to have to apologize for something that was done long before we were established, says representative Bengt Rune Strifeldt for the FRP from Finnmark.

FRP was established in 1973.