"We already have collaboration with Sami broadcasting, Maori broadcasting (from New Zealand) and the Aboriginal Peoples TV Network, in Canada"
ALTA, Norway (IPS) - Just weeks after giving up her post, the former president of the parliament of Norway's indigenous Sami people has lambasted Sami journalists for shoving aside their culture in the rush to get a 'scoop'.
Aili Keskitalo told an international conference organised by Sami media organisations that reporters had "violated" personal limits during her tenure, including when she was hospitalised with a brain stroke and when it was rumoured that she was pregnant. "This leads me to the question: is this Sami journalism or a bad copy (of mainstream journalism)," asked the former president, who delivered the critique with a smile as keynote speaker at the opening of the conference 'Same Voice, But Different' in northern Norway, Sami territory.
"My experience is that Sami media want to publish the most juicy and dramatic details, maybe to impress the Norwegian media," added Keskitalo, who was speaking to about 40 indigenous journalists from around the world in Alta, a town of 20,000 people above the Arctic Circle. She resigned as the first Sami woman president, after serving just two years of a four-year term, reportedly because of protracted disputes with her vice-president.
The Sami, Europe's only indigenous people, are native to what are now Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Best known as reindeer herders, about half of today's Sami population of 80,000 lives in Norway. ... Full story
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |