Sweden has long been known in international organizations, including the UN, for violations of rights and racist practices against the Sámi, the country’s indigenous population, who have lived here since the post-glacial period.

In 2020, the Green Party initiated a change in the name of Lappstan, the district of the large Sámi settlement of Jokkmokk, which humiliates the dignity of the Sámi people being formed from the derogatory Swedish word Lapp (Sámi) and “-stan”, the word of Persian origin which means in effect “a poor backward country” (e.g. Afganistan).

The name Lappstan was given to the Jokkmokk area in the 1960s, at the height of the Swedish government’s anti-Sámi policy aimed at the Swedishization, or assimilation, of the Swedish Sámi.

It took five years to overcome resistance to the Swedish bureaucracy, so that the initiative of local politicians was incorporated into the decision to rename Lappstan to a name of Sámi origin.

Another small step has been taken in the fight against Sweden’s discrimination and degrading treatment of the Sámi.

In June 2020 the Green Party in Jokkmokk has submitted a motion to the municipal council demanding that the name “Lappstan” for a residential area in the community be removed from the municipality’s detailed plan. The Green Party claimed that the name does not follow good place-name practice according to the consideration clause in the Cultural Environment Act and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

We thought it was strange that we now, in 2020, should use such an outdated name that is also not at all connected to the Sámi people. The area already has a Sámi name, Gielas, and we believe that name should be used. The L-word is also quite derogatory, says Henrik Blind.

It’s not just about changing the name of an area, how do you plan to move forward?

“I hope that other parties will support our proposal and that the municipality will start working to replace those names on the detailed plan, such as Lappstavägen, which is also a rather strange name. It would have been nice if we had a Sámi name for that road.”

Henrik Blind did not know what the cost of a name change could be and he is not focused on what it might cost.

“It is so important to show that Jokkmokk is a Sámi place and the Sámi place names should be visible and used, and therefore such a job should not be stopped by money,” said Henrik Blind.

Now the name of Lappstan is changing: “Fantastic”

After five years of struggle, the Green Party gets its way and the derogatory L-word is replaced with the Sámi Gielas.

The feeling is fantastic, says municipal councilor Henrik Blind.

It has been five years since the Green Party in Jokkmokk first submitted its motion to the city council.

“The L-word is very derogatory,” Henrik Blind stated at the time.

He argued that the Sámi had been in Jokkmokk long before the municipality was established. And that the place would then have a Swedish and also derogatory name felt unreasonable.

The year after, the motion was voted through in Jokkmokk’s municipal council. But since then, it has taken five years until Lantmäteriet has now formally approved the name change to Gielas.

“The feeling is fantastic. It feels like we are taking back part of the history of this area,” says Henrik Blind now.

Gielas is the original Sámi name for the place and means roughly “slightly hilly pine heath”.

The name change is something bigger than just what a place should be called, says Blind. For him, it is also about future generations having the right to their shared cultural heritage and history.

The names came about in the 1960s

Blind is not surprised that the process took so long.

“I think it is about the fact that the majority have never had to think about the fact that places can have older names than the ones they themselves have given. And this process with Lantmäteriet shows that. That it took almost five years for the authority to understand that Gielas had a significantly longer history than the recent name”.

The name Lappstan only came about in the 1960s. Which played a role in the name change. At the same time, there are still many places and areas that contain the L-word. Not least Lapland takes up a large part of the Swedish map.

“It is a concept in many different contexts and it is about working step by step and showing that there are other names,” says Henrik Blind.

“It is not about removing words”

Even among the Sámi, however, opinions differ on whether a place name like Lappstan is truly derogatory or not. But for Blind, it is not just about the word being derogatory.

How do you reason about that?

“I don’t think it is about removing words, but about putting back traditional names,” says Henrik Blind.

Source:

• Vill få bort namnet “Lappstan” / SVT (in Swedish)
• Nu ändras namnet på Lappstan: “Fantastiskt” / SVT (in Swedish)