Interview with Ulla and Thomas Cremer and Karl Selander
BROADCAST: Nov. 16, 1973 | DURATION: 01:03:10
Synopsis
Interviewing Ulla, a Finnish girl living in Stockholm; Karl Selander; and Thomas Cremer, an ombudsman for Swedish Laplanders, while Studs was in Sweden.
Transcript
Tap within the transcript to jump to that part of the audio.
Studs Terkel It's Sunday night in Stockholm and I'm at the apartment of two friends of mine, they're sudden friends and yet quite remarkable friends, Dieter Strand, who is a very popular columnist of the Aftonbladet. That's the social democratic paper in Stockholm. In fact, he is to Stockholm what Mike Royko is to Chicago. In fact, Dieter is an admirer of Mike's work, and Dieter's wife, who is a journalist, Annette Kullenberg, works for the -- for "Vi" is that right? "Vi" which is a liberal weekly, "Vi" meaning we, and I'm seated with Ulla [Karolya?]. Ulla is from Finland, and Ulla for want of a better phrase I describe you as a babysitter for Annette and for Dieter, who right now is in Israel covering the war. Now, I describe you as a babysitter, that isn't your work. You're taking care of the two little children.
Ulla Karolya Well, I was actually the whole last winter, but now Annette got the babies into the -- how do you call it -- nursery. And I have got another job in a laboratory, and I hope to get into some kind of [later on?] school by that.
Studs Terkel You have another job in the laboratory, as well as
Ulla Karolya I took this job at Annette's to learn Swedish properly.
Studs Terkel To learn Swedish? Yes.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel You're 26 now, Ulla, right? And how long ago did you leave your hometown in Finland?
Ulla Karolya I left four years ago when I was 22, and I went to England and I lived a little while in Paris working there, and took a job in England again in a hospital as a receptionist.
Studs Terkel Now, your story I know was not a typical story of a Finnish person in Stockholm. Because basically we're looking for people who are non-Swedes who live in Stockholm. Many foreign workers. There are Yugoslavs who work here, there are Greeks who work here, there are Finns who work here. So I want to come back to the beginning. Although your your personal story is something else. We're coming now to the town you lived in. What sort of town was it in Finland where you lived?
Ulla Karolya That's quite a small town, and there's a few factories. So, but, well not really nice work to get really, and well, I got bored with it, I suppose.
Studs Terkel What did your, what did your parents do? Your father.
Ulla Karolya My father is -- well, he works in a social office or something like that. With a commonman job.
Studs Terkel He was, he was a white-collar worker?
Ulla Karolya What is white-collar?
Studs Terkel White-collar. He works in an office.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel He was not a factory worker.
Ulla Karolya No.
Studs Terkel So would you describe your home as middle-class, or?
Ulla Karolya Yes, very, very middle-class. And it was quite a shock for him that I left home. He never believed it. He gave the money, but he never believed before I showed the ticket and a passport. And then the funny -- after I had been away for a month or so, my sister, who is a year older than me got that she was really wasting her time in Finland and, she left too. So there's another shock for him. And but now that I came to Sweden, that is it's quite near Finland actually he's happy.
Studs Terkel He's happier than when you were in London or in Paris.
Ulla Karolya Yeah, he was very worried while I was there.
Studs Terkel How much schooling did you have, by the way in Finland?
Ulla Karolya Well, we call it "real skoula."
Ulla Karolya I don't know. Well five years in high school if you want that, it's about three years before you will graduate in America I think. I think it was when I was 16.
Studs Terkel Well, did you do work in Finland? You were 22 when you left. Did you do some work, too?
Ulla Karolya Yes, I was working in a dental laboratory there.
Studs Terkel In a dental laboratory?
Ulla Karolya Yes. And well, in Finland before you get to any kind of school, you have to be 20 or 21. You have that many -- if you finish school when you're 16 you have so many years without, you can really start doing anything. You have to take badly-paid jobs and all that. And I suppose that's why so many leave.
Studs Terkel Where do we get that now? Say you're through school at 16 to go to work. You don't, say, finish high school. Although you did, didn't you? How old were you when you quit school?
Ulla Karolya Sixteen.
Studs Terkel You were 16. And then what did you do between 16 and 22?
Ulla Karolya Well, first I was home, at home doing nothing, and then I went through some kind of typing course, school, and then I worked in a nursery with the babies, but then I was 18 when I finished that yet, you have to be 21 to get into the school, which is quite stupid, really.
Studs Terkel Twenty-one to get into what school?
Ulla Karolya Nurse. Children's nurse.
Studs Terkel Oh,
Ulla Karolya Yes, children's nurse, I mean.
Studs Terkel Children's nurse, and you have to be 21, so you have to do all sort of low-paid work until then.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Ulla Karolya Or otherwise, if I had had any sense then that I have now, I would have gone on with the school. In the meanwhile, but in -- and then I worked in that laboratory and then that got so boring that I left home.
Studs Terkel What -- how did you learn English?
Ulla Karolya Well, I went to London and took a job in that hospital. I had learned English at school of course.
Ulla Karolya Yes. Yes, five years.
Studs Terkel What about Swedish? You learn Swedish while working here in Stockholm?
Ulla Karolya I learned Swedish at school also -- too. Four years at school, but by the time I got to Sweden I hadn't -- I had forgotten most of it.
Studs Terkel Because Finnish is so different. The language is
Ulla Karolya It's very different, yeah. Belongs to a different group completely.
Studs Terkel I want to come to yourself. You are a young Finnish woman now living in Stockholm and you have been here for how long?
Studs Terkel Two years. Now, when you first came here to Stockholm, what were you looking for?
Ulla Karolya Well, I wasn't looking for anything, I came to -- it's a very unusual story, because I came here just to visit my Swedish friends. These sort of Finnish people don't have Swedish friends when they come here.
Ulla Karolya Yes. They come to work in a factory because they didn't get the job in Finland. I came to visit a couple of friends, I have Swedish girls that I had I met in London, and one of them lived alone, and said if I want to share a flat with her, I could stay here. And I went to a school to learn Swedish and stayed with her at her place.
Studs Terkel So right now you're studying nursing here.
Ulla Karolya Never.
Ulla Karolya No, then I -- now I work in the laboratory and I hope to get into Laborant school.
Studs Terkel Laborant, Laboran.
Ulla Karolya Laborant,
Studs Terkel
Ulla Karolya It's Sunday night in Stockholm and I'm at the apartment of two friends of mine, they're sudden friends and yet quite remarkable friends, Dieter Strand, who is a very popular columnist of the Aftonbladet. That's the social democratic paper in Stockholm. In fact, he is to Stockholm what Mike Royko is to Chicago. In fact, Dieter is an admirer of Mike's work, and Dieter's wife, who is a journalist, Annette Kullenberg, works for the -- for "Vi" is that right? "Vi" which is a liberal weekly, "Vi" meaning we, and I'm seated with Ulla [Karolya?]. Ulla is from Finland, and Ulla for want of a better phrase I describe you as a babysitter for Annette and for Dieter, who right now is in Israel covering the war. Now, I describe you as a babysitter, that isn't your work. You're taking care of the two little children. Well, I was actually the whole last winter, but now Annette got the babies into the -- how do you call it -- nursery. And I have got another job in a laboratory, and I hope to get into some kind of [later on?] school by that. You have another job in the laboratory, as well as I took this job at Annette's to learn Swedish properly. To learn Swedish? Yes. You're 26 now, Ulla, right? And how long ago did you leave your hometown in Finland? I left four years ago when I was 22, and I went to England and I lived a little while in Paris working there, and took a job in England again in a hospital as a receptionist. Now, your story I know was not a typical story of a Finnish person in Stockholm. Because basically we're looking for people who are non-Swedes who live in Stockholm. Many foreign workers. There are Yugoslavs who work here, there are Greeks who work here, there are Finns who work here. So I want to come back to the beginning. Although your your personal story is something else. We're coming now to the town you lived in. What sort of town was it in Finland where you lived? That's quite a small town, and there's a few factories. So, but, well not really nice work to get really, and well, I got bored with it, I suppose. What did your, what did your parents do? Your father. My father is -- well, he works in a social office or something like that. With a commonman job. He was, he was a white-collar worker? What is white-collar? White-collar. He works in an office. Yes. He was not a factory worker. No. So would you describe your home as middle-class, or? Yes, very, very middle-class. And it was quite a shock for him that I left home. He never believed it. He gave the money, but he never believed before I showed the ticket and a passport. And then the funny -- after I had been away for a month or so, my sister, who is a year older than me got that she was really wasting her time in Finland and, she left too. So there's another shock for him. And but now that I came to Sweden, that is it's quite near Finland actually he's happy. He's happier than when you were in London or in Paris. Yeah, he was very worried while I was there. How much schooling did you have, by the way in Finland? Well, we call it "real skoula." High school? I don't know. Well five years in high school if you want that, it's about three years before you will graduate in America I think. I think it was when I was 16. Well, did you do work in Finland? You were 22 when you left. Did you do some work, too? Yes, I was working in a dental laboratory there. In a dental laboratory? Yes. And well, in Finland before you get to any kind of school, you have to be 20 or 21. You have that many -- if you finish school when you're 16 you have so many years without, you can really start doing anything. You have to take badly-paid jobs and all that. And I suppose that's why so many leave. Where do we get that now? Say you're through school at 16 to go to work. You don't, say, finish high school. Although you did, didn't you? How old were you when you quit school? Sixteen. You were 16. And then what did you do between 16 and 22? Well, first I was home, at home doing nothing, and then I went through some kind of typing course, school, and then I worked in a nursery with the babies, but then I was 18 when I finished that yet, you have to be 21 to get into the school, which is quite stupid, really. Twenty-one to get into what school? Nurse. Children's nurse. Oh, Yes, children's nurse, I mean. Children's nurse, and you have to be 21, so you have to do all sort of low-paid work until then. Yes. I see. Or otherwise, if I had had any sense then that I have now, I would have gone on with the school. In the meanwhile, but in -- and then I worked in that laboratory and then that got so boring that I left home. What -- how did you learn English? Well, I went to London and took a job in that hospital. I had learned English at school of course. In Finland. Yes. Yes, five years. What about Swedish? You learn Swedish while working here in Stockholm? I learned Swedish at school also -- too. Four years at school, but by the time I got to Sweden I hadn't -- I had forgotten most of it. Because Finnish is so different. The language is -- It's very different, yeah. Belongs to a different group completely. I want to come to yourself. You are a young Finnish woman now living in Stockholm and you have been here for how long? Two years. Two years. Now, when you first came here to Stockholm, what were you looking for? Well, I wasn't looking for anything, I came to -- it's a very unusual story, because I came here just to visit my Swedish friends. These sort of Finnish people don't have Swedish friends when they come here. Is that so? Yes. They come to work in a factory because they didn't get the job in Finland. I came to visit a couple of friends, I have Swedish girls that I had I met in London, and one of them lived alone, and said if I want to share a flat with her, I could stay here. And I went to a school to learn Swedish and stayed with her at her place. So right now you're studying nursing here. Never. No, aren't you? No, then I -- now I work in the laboratory and I hope to get into Laborant school. Laborant, Laboran. Laborant, To No, Oh,
Studs Terkel Oh, is it English? No, I don't know the word laborant.
Ulla Karolya Don't you? Well, that's somebody who works in a laboratory anyway.
Studs Terkel Oh, a laboratory
Ulla Karolya Laboratory work, yes.
Studs Terkel Well, how would that differ from the work you did in Finland?
Ulla Karolya Well, there I worked in dental laboratory, and that's more -- well, you make those false teeth and those things, and that's very boring. You do the same thing all the time, but this we make those -- proofs with animals, which is why bad reputation of course. But anyway, it's interesting, [when you?] get used to it.
Studs Terkel The work that you're doing now.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel But -- could I ask you a question. You are Finnish, and this question comes up. How are Finnish people regarded by Swedish people generally?
Ulla Karolya Well, I suppose most -- they have quite a bad reputation, and many Finnish really, they don't like Swedish, but I suppose they can blame themselves.
Studs Terkel What, why do the Finns have a bad reputation?
Ulla Karolya Because I suppose it's it's many unsociable people who come here who didn't make it in Finland, and they don't make it any better here in Sweden. But then of course they -- I mean they are, they are the ones who show the most -- the drunkards and those, but then they sell lots and lots. I don't know of a few hundred thousand Finnish who work in factories and without them the Swedish factories those in SAAB and Volvo, they couldn't go on. But
Studs Terkel So these are mostly working people, manual laboring people.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Come from Finland to work, and they're looked down upon by the Swedish people to some extent, is that what you mean?
Ulla Karolya Yes, I suppose. I mean, all of the foreigners are looked down, when I was in England I was looking down upon Pakistanis and West Indians so I can't blame Swedish looking down upon Finnish.
Studs Terkel Let's talk about this some more, this is -- you've touched on something very interesting. You are -- not you, but Finnish people and there are many Yugoslavian people here and Greek people, they are looked down upon by the Swedish people. Now, you, who are blonde and Finnish, when you were in London, you were looking down upon the Pakistani and the West Indians.
Ulla Karolya Yes, because in Finland there is -- very few Finnish in England, in London. So we are kind of -- well how do you call it? Well, anyway. People are interested.
Studs Terkel How do you feel being looked down upon?
Ulla Karolya I am not looked down upon. I mean, Annette and Dieter and my friends, they are not looking down upon me, but what I need to say that, I mean I'm not usual Finnish case, but I know how they feel, how they help.
Studs Terkel Well, let's turn it around the other way. You said you don't blame the English, you don't blame the Swedish for looking down at the Finns who come here, the great many.
Ulla Karolya No, because they see only the bad Finnish.
Studs Terkel What do you mean by the bad Finnish?
Ulla Karolya Those who drink. Alcohol is quite a big problem for them. They had it in Finland I suppose as a problem, and then they come here.
Studs Terkel Swedes drink a great deal, too.
Ulla Karolya Yes, but well I suppose you can drink in your own country, but not in a foreign one.
Studs Terkel But don't most people from Finland come here because there's little work there or low-paid work, they come looking for better jobs, isn't that the real reason they come?
Ulla Karolya Yes, and that's what I said, that there is thousands of Finnish who work in factories, but they are the quiet part who never show. [That they show] who are the bad ones. And that's why I think we have quite a bad reputation here.
Studs Terkel But a moment ago you were saying that the Saab factories, the Volvo factories wouldn't get along work now for the foreign workers or there among whom are the Finns.
Ulla Karolya No, that's what I had read.
Studs Terkel So what's so bad about them?
Ulla Karolya No, not about them, or work. But the ones who don't.
Studs Terkel I'm asking you something. Are you ashamed of being Finnish?
Ulla Karolya No, I'm not at all. But I know Finnish who are ashamed of being Finnish. I know Finnish who don't want to speak Finnish with you in the shops aloud, because people see that you are Finnish. But like if somebody thinks I'm Swedish, like they usually do because of my blonde hair, I always say that I am Finnish, because I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. But that's up to everybody.
Studs Terkel But you find Finnish people in Sweden ashamed of being Finnish because they're looked down upon.
Ulla Karolya Yes, I think so. The workers, and -- I don't know.
Studs Terkel Why did you look upon the Pakis-- down upon the Pakistani when you were in London?
Ulla Karolya Because I suppose it's the same thing, the Pakistanis that come to London, they are the uneducated ones. They are the ones who don't learn anything or don't want to learn anything. And of course you
Studs Terkel I thought a great many come because as in Finland, and maybe poverty or low-paid work, you were describing this earlier, and they come to a bigger city because they want to look for better opportunities.
Ulla Karolya Yes, well the only opportunity they get here is to work in a factory, they never bother to learn any Swedish. Well, of course, there is good, I mean quite Finnish here who are well-educated who are doing it well, or kind of designers and journalists and all those.
Studs Terkel What do you, what do you want to be, you, Ulla?
Ulla Karolya Me?
Studs Terkel Yes.
Ulla Karolya Well, I -- what I want to be is to marry a rich man and get about five or six children.
Studs Terkel You do want that.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Is that you're looking for, really?
Ulla Karolya Well, you can't get that in Sweden, because in Sweden women are emancipated and they work and they make a career and all that, but so that's why I'm going to become a laborant.
Studs Terkel A laboratory
Ulla Karolya Laboratory
Studs Terkel Worker.
Ulla Karolya Worker.
Studs Terkel You become a laboratory worker to do, to do what? To do what?
Ulla Karolya To do laboratory work?
Studs Terkel You want to do that to make your own living, right?
Ulla Karolya Yes, you have to do it in Sweden. Nobody -- no man is going to look
Studs Terkel Oh, that's it. So, but your, your your wish is to marry a rich man.
Ulla Karolya
Studs Terkel It's Sunday night in Stockholm and I'm at the apartment of two friends of mine, they're sudden friends and yet quite remarkable friends, Dieter Strand, who is a very popular columnist of the Aftonbladet. That's the social democratic paper in Stockholm. In fact, he is to Stockholm what Mike Royko is to Chicago. In fact, Dieter is an admirer of Mike's work, and Dieter's wife, who is a journalist, Annette Kullenberg, works for the -- for "Vi" is that right? "Vi" which is a liberal weekly, "Vi" meaning we, and I'm seated with Ulla [Karolya?]. Ulla is from Finland, and Ulla for want of a better phrase I describe you as a babysitter for Annette and for Dieter, who right now is in Israel covering the war. Now, I describe you as a babysitter, that isn't your work. You're taking care of the two little children. Well, I was actually the whole last winter, but now Annette got the babies into the -- how do you call it -- nursery. And I have got another job in a laboratory, and I hope to get into some kind of [later on?] school by that. You have another job in the laboratory, as well as I took this job at Annette's to learn Swedish properly. To learn Swedish? Yes. You're 26 now, Ulla, right? And how long ago did you leave your hometown in Finland? I left four years ago when I was 22, and I went to England and I lived a little while in Paris working there, and took a job in England again in a hospital as a receptionist. Now, your story I know was not a typical story of a Finnish person in Stockholm. Because basically we're looking for people who are non-Swedes who live in Stockholm. Many foreign workers. There are Yugoslavs who work here, there are Greeks who work here, there are Finns who work here. So I want to come back to the beginning. Although your your personal story is something else. We're coming now to the town you lived in. What sort of town was it in Finland where you lived? That's quite a small town, and there's a few factories. So, but, well not really nice work to get really, and well, I got bored with it, I suppose. What did your, what did your parents do? Your father. My father is -- well, he works in a social office or something like that. With a commonman job. He was, he was a white-collar worker? What is white-collar? White-collar. He works in an office. Yes. He was not a factory worker. No. So would you describe your home as middle-class, or? Yes, very, very middle-class. And it was quite a shock for him that I left home. He never believed it. He gave the money, but he never believed before I showed the ticket and a passport. And then the funny -- after I had been away for a month or so, my sister, who is a year older than me got that she was really wasting her time in Finland and, she left too. So there's another shock for him. And but now that I came to Sweden, that is it's quite near Finland actually he's happy. He's happier than when you were in London or in Paris. Yeah, he was very worried while I was there. How much schooling did you have, by the way in Finland? Well, we call it "real skoula." High school? I don't know. Well five years in high school if you want that, it's about three years before you will graduate in America I think. I think it was when I was 16. Well, did you do work in Finland? You were 22 when you left. Did you do some work, too? Yes, I was working in a dental laboratory there. In a dental laboratory? Yes. And well, in Finland before you get to any kind of school, you have to be 20 or 21. You have that many -- if you finish school when you're 16 you have so many years without, you can really start doing anything. You have to take badly-paid jobs and all that. And I suppose that's why so many leave. Where do we get that now? Say you're through school at 16 to go to work. You don't, say, finish high school. Although you did, didn't you? How old were you when you quit school? Sixteen. You were 16. And then what did you do between 16 and 22? Well, first I was home, at home doing nothing, and then I went through some kind of typing course, school, and then I worked in a nursery with the babies, but then I was 18 when I finished that yet, you have to be 21 to get into the school, which is quite stupid, really. Twenty-one to get into what school? Nurse. Children's nurse. Oh, Yes, children's nurse, I mean. Children's nurse, and you have to be 21, so you have to do all sort of low-paid work until then. Yes. I see. Or otherwise, if I had had any sense then that I have now, I would have gone on with the school. In the meanwhile, but in -- and then I worked in that laboratory and then that got so boring that I left home. What -- how did you learn English? Well, I went to London and took a job in that hospital. I had learned English at school of course. In Finland. Yes. Yes, five years. What about Swedish? You learn Swedish while working here in Stockholm? I learned Swedish at school also -- too. Four years at school, but by the time I got to Sweden I hadn't -- I had forgotten most of it. Because Finnish is so different. The language is -- It's very different, yeah. Belongs to a different group completely. I want to come to yourself. You are a young Finnish woman now living in Stockholm and you have been here for how long? Two years. Two years. Now, when you first came here to Stockholm, what were you looking for? Well, I wasn't looking for anything, I came to -- it's a very unusual story, because I came here just to visit my Swedish friends. These sort of Finnish people don't have Swedish friends when they come here. Is that so? Yes. They come to work in a factory because they didn't get the job in Finland. I came to visit a couple of friends, I have Swedish girls that I had I met in London, and one of them lived alone, and said if I want to share a flat with her, I could stay here. And I went to a school to learn Swedish and stayed with her at her place. So right now you're studying nursing here. Never. No, aren't you? No, then I -- now I work in the laboratory and I hope to get into Laborant school. Laborant, Laboran. Laborant, To No, Oh, is it English? No, I don't know the word laborant. Don't you? Well, that's somebody who works in a laboratory anyway. Oh, a laboratory worker. Laboratory work, yes. Well, how would that differ from the work you did in Finland? Well, there I worked in dental laboratory, and that's more -- well, you make those false teeth and those things, and that's very boring. You do the same thing all the time, but this we make those -- proofs with animals, which is why bad reputation of course. But anyway, it's interesting, [when you?] get used to it. The work that you're doing now. Yes. But -- could I ask you a question. You are Finnish, and this question comes up. How are Finnish people regarded by Swedish people generally? Well, I suppose most -- they have quite a bad reputation, and many Finnish really, they don't like Swedish, but I suppose they can blame themselves. What, why do the Finns have a bad reputation? Because I suppose it's it's many unsociable people who come here who didn't make it in Finland, and they don't make it any better here in Sweden. But then of course they -- I mean they are, they are the ones who show the most -- the drunkards and those, but then they sell lots and lots. I don't know of a few hundred thousand Finnish who work in factories and without them the Swedish factories those in SAAB and Volvo, they couldn't go on. But -- So these are mostly working people, manual laboring people. Yes. Come from Finland to work, and they're looked down upon by the Swedish people to some extent, is that what you mean? Yes, I suppose. I mean, all of the foreigners are looked down, when I was in England I was looking down upon Pakistanis and West Indians so I can't blame Swedish looking down upon Finnish. Let's talk about this some more, this is -- you've touched on something very interesting. You are -- not you, but Finnish people and there are many Yugoslavian people here and Greek people, they are looked down upon by the Swedish people. Now, you, who are blonde and Finnish, when you were in London, you were looking down upon the Pakistani and the West Indians. Yes, because in Finland there is -- very few Finnish in England, in London. So we are kind of -- well how do you call it? Well, anyway. People are interested. Interested. How do you feel being looked down upon? I am not looked down upon. I mean, Annette and Dieter and my friends, they are not looking down upon me, but what I need to say that, I mean I'm not usual Finnish case, but I know how they feel, how they help. Well, let's turn it around the other way. You said you don't blame the English, you don't blame the Swedish for looking down at the Finns who come here, the great many. No, because they see only the bad Finnish. What do you mean by the bad Finnish? Those who drink. Alcohol is quite a big problem for them. They had it in Finland I suppose as a problem, and then they come here. Swedes drink a great deal, too. Yes, but well I suppose you can drink in your own country, but not in a foreign one. But don't most people from Finland come here because there's little work there or low-paid work, they come looking for better jobs, isn't that the real reason they come? Yes, and that's what I said, that there is thousands of Finnish who work in factories, but they are the quiet part who never show. [That they show] who are the bad ones. And that's why I think we have quite a bad reputation here. But a moment ago you were saying that the Saab factories, the Volvo factories wouldn't get along work now for the foreign workers or there among whom are the Finns. No, that's what I had read. So what's so bad about them? About what? About the Finns? No, not about them, or work. But the ones who don't. I'm asking you something. Are you ashamed of being Finnish? No, I'm not at all. But I know Finnish who are ashamed of being Finnish. I know Finnish who don't want to speak Finnish with you in the shops aloud, because people see that you are Finnish. But like if somebody thinks I'm Swedish, like they usually do because of my blonde hair, I always say that I am Finnish, because I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. But that's up to everybody. But you find Finnish people in Sweden ashamed of being Finnish because they're looked down upon. Yes, I think so. The workers, and -- I don't know. Why did you look upon the Pakis-- down upon the Pakistani when you were in London? Because I suppose it's the same thing, the Pakistanis that come to London, they are the uneducated ones. They are the ones who don't learn anything or don't want to learn anything. And of course you -- I thought a great many come because as in Finland, and maybe poverty or low-paid work, you were describing this earlier, and they come to a bigger city because they want to look for better opportunities. Yes, well the only opportunity they get here is to work in a factory, they never bother to learn any Swedish. Well, of course, there is good, I mean quite Finnish here who are well-educated who are doing it well, or kind of designers and journalists and all those. What do you, what do you want to be, you, Ulla? Me? Yes. Well, I -- what I want to be is to marry a rich man and get about five or six children. You do want that. Yes. Is that you're looking for, really? Well, you can't get that in Sweden, because in Sweden women are emancipated and they work and they make a career and all that, but so that's why I'm going to become a laborant. A laboratory -- Laboratory Worker. Worker. You become a laboratory worker to do, to do what? To do what? To do laboratory work? You want to do that to make your own living, right? Yes, you have to do it in Sweden. Nobody -- no man is going to look after Oh, that's it. So, but your, your your wish is to marry a rich man. Well, Oh,
Ulla Karolya Not really, but I mean I think America is bad -- or good in that way, that you don't have to be so horribly efficient as you have to be in Sweden. Everybody in Sweden who wants to make it really they have to be ambitious and efficient. Have you noticed it?
Studs Terkel Well, that may apply to all. I'm coming back to something else, and that's you yourself, Ulla. You mentioned the problem in Sweden among women, the emancipation is here. That is, the dream you have even though you were kidding, you know, about marrying well. How do you feel about the emancipation of women
Ulla Karolya Here you really -- well, I don't belong to any women's liberation, but I mean if -- if you're with American boy, you can be yourself and you can do what you want and they think, "Oh, she's so sweet," but if you are with Swedish boy, you have to all the time you have to be so damn clever. You have to say clever things and show and show that you know what you want and all that.
Studs Terkel Is that, is that really so? In what way, what way does a Swedish boy react to a girl different than an American boy? What way?
Ulla Karolya Well, that's what I said, that with Swedish boy, Swedish boy is always thinking that you have to be so ambitious and clever and all that, an American boy think that it's enough that you are feminine and pretty and you do what they say.
Studs Terkel So, what are your thoughts about this
Ulla Karolya Well, I think it's easier to be with American or English boys just for that, because I'm not especially ambitious. I mean, otherwise I wouldn't be 26 and I haven't got a career. Career?
Studs Terkel Career is right, I'm just -- now I'm interested in your thoughts, so the emancipation of Swedish women in itself does not attract you too much.
Studs Terkel Are you thinking of being in Stockholm indefinitely? Or do you have other things in mind?
Ulla Karolya I suppose I stay here. I don't -- I can't really think of going farther away from Finland. Not while my parents are living. And I don't like to live in Finland, either. So this is quite nice.
Studs Terkel Was where you live near Helsinki?
Ulla Karolya [Piernovori?].
Studs Terkel Is that near Helsinki?
Ulla Karolya No, that's north from Helsinki. I don't know, it takes two hours by bus.
Studs Terkel But it was a middle-sized town.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Did you find life
Ulla Karolya Very boring. There is a few factories. And that's -- this docks. How do you call it? Harbor. Yeah. So there is not so nice people around there.
Studs Terkel You say they're not so nice people 'cause it's near the docks. Is that what you mean, you mean the sailors?
Ulla Karolya I mean, yes. Not the people I think
Studs Terkel Well, that's -- now we have to come to a question, because this, we're leading up to this. Who do you think are nice people?
Ulla Karolya People that I don't have to be scared for. I mean, in a town where there is foreign sailors and all that. You can't go out alone.
Studs Terkel Is this the way Swedish people look upon foreign people in Stockholm?
Studs Terkel As being dangerous?
Ulla Karolya Well, it's different. Like Annette and Dieter here. They think that Finnish are needed, they are nice, and all the foreigners they are needed and they have the same rights as Swedish, and then Swedish workers of course are scared that they, foreigners take their jobs, and they get salaries down because they are ready to work for quite small salaries, salaries, which they are used to in their own countries. And the middle class really, they are the worst I suppose. They really hate foreigners. They are scared for the especially colored ones.
Studs Terkel You know, you [said something?], [other than?] there are too many colored foreigners here, are there, in Stockholm.
Ulla Karolya Well, I really think of colors, all who has got darker color than me. I mean, Arabs and.
Studs Terkel And I suppose Yugoslavs too, in a sense. In that sense.
Ulla Karolya Yes they have very different temperament I suppose from Scandinavians.
Studs Terkel I'm thinking about you, which is interesting to me, Ulla, you said the middle class are the worst. Middle-class Swedes are the worst in looking down upon foreign people. A moment ago you were saying you don't blame Swedes for looking down on foreign people as you looked down upon
Ulla Karolya I know, I am middle class. That's what I said. I was middle-class when I went to England. I can't say I'm that anymore. I'm a foreign of course now.
Studs Terkel That's very interesting. You were middle-class then, and you're a foreigner now.
Ulla Karolya Yes, and I belong to a young conservative at home and now I call myself as quite on the left side.
Studs Terkel Really?
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Could you talk a little about
Ulla Karolya Well, when you see a world and where you start to think, when you start to use your own brain and don't just think what your father has teach-taught you, well I suppose when you start thinking really and don't think of your own interests, you become leftish.
Studs Terkel Your father was right-wing
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel So you were a young conservative when -- before you left Finland.
Ulla Karolya Yes, I belonged to the club or group. Yes.
Studs Terkel What is it that led you to change?
Ulla Karolya Because I saw more world, I saw that it's not -- not everybody has it so horribly [weird] as I have. It's not -- but everybody is born to have it so hor-- so [weird?] as I have.
Studs Terkel At the same time you spoke of those people who were not so nice. You see? You see, you don't mind my saying this. You still have a little hangover, don't you?
Ulla Karolya Yes, I have hangover that [unintelligible] I still don't vote for any party, but I suppose when I get -- more or, more leftish than I am now, I will start vote for communist or something.
Studs Terkel Are you interested in politics?
Ulla Karolya I got interested about it more here, by Dieter and Annette.
Studs Terkel I should point out the course you are working here and you're acquainted with Dieter Strand and with Annette Kuhlenberg, who are very conversant with politics in Sweden, so that played a role,
Ulla Karolya But they haven't brainwashed me. I got my own thought before that. But anyway.
Studs Terkel What about the friends you have? Your friends. You have friends here?
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel How do they think?
Ulla Karolya Well, all my friends the girls, they are on very right of course, and I don't try to talk to them anything. I mean, it's their business who they
Studs Terkel Could we talk about this, 'cause this to me, second time this happened today on the Sunday. We were on that boat going to -- Bloxhome [sic
Ulla Karolya Vaxholm.
Studs Terkel Vaxholm on the way back. We met two young couples, two guys with their wives and little children. One voted for the Liberal Party, one voted for Hermansson and the Communist Party, and they're both very close friends, but they never talk politics, and the first time that talked about it was then, so they have other things in common. This is the way it is with you and your girlfriends, or your friends, girl or boyfriends.
Ulla Karolya And politics aren't so important that you have to break your friendship with everybody who hasn't got the same opinion as you, and you don't have to start trying turn everybody into the -- to think the way you think. Can still be friends with them.
Studs Terkel So -- I'm sorry, keep going, you
Studs Terkel Politics then is hardly discussed among your friends. Politics then is hardly discussed.
Ulla Karolya Well can, everybody knows what -- I know what they think and they don't know what I think. But -- and we even talk about it sometimes, but I don't think as if you really start to talk about it seriously you probably lose your friends.
Studs Terkel What do you talk about?
Ulla Karolya What we talk about? The friends who have babies, we talk about babies. Friends who have -- well, about work of course, and about the kind of things that are going on. I mean, about the war in the -- east, I mean
Ulla Karolya The Arabs, yes, and Israel and, of course you say your opinion and I say my opinion but you don't start to fight about it.
Studs Terkel What is your day like? Your day? When you get up in the morning to when you go to sleep? What's your day like?
Ulla Karolya First I'd have it very hard to get up and then I take the bus and the tube to work. And it's very liberal in my work place compared to England. We have that clock, clocking card system.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Punch
Ulla Karolya We had that in London, and if you were in London, if you were late one minute, you missed a quarter in salary. But here we have that flex time.
Studs Terkel Flexibility.
Ulla Karolya Yes. That you can start any time you want to between six and nine, finish between three-thirty and six, so it's no panic in the mornings and anyway you can -- even if you are late, it's just looked through the fingers and then you can -- we have lunch 35 minutes, but we have it as long as we have time to, and sometimes when we have a lot of, lot to do we don't have lunch at all really, which is much nicer.
Studs Terkel Many of your friends -- your friends, those you know, some of them work with you?
Ulla Karolya No, I have only worked in that, three weeks in that new job. So all the people I worked with are new now for me. They're all Swedish -- one German, yes, and very, very nice. There's not -- I mean usually when there's a lot of women working together in England, there was always some witch -- with it that made your life difficult. And nowadays eight women, mostly middle-aged, and they all are nice and tolerant.
Studs Terkel Let's talk about this a minute. In England working with women there's more difficult for you. Is it -- that you were a young girl and there were older women there.
Ulla Karolya Yes, I found it very
Studs Terkel Now, what's the difference between that and Stockholm?
Ulla Karolya 'Cause I suppose Swedish women don't have -- don't get all those complexes about getting old. They're still happy and they are happy at having a happy family life and all that, even if they're middle-aged, so they don't have to start showing the -- angry feelings against young ones.
Studs Terkel Do you think this has something to do with what you called earlier the emancipation?
Ulla Karolya I think that's it, that you don't think that you are out forever just because you get 40 or so. You still have a lot of nice life.
Studs Terkel You find this difference, but yet this emancipation bothers you a little.
Ulla Karolya Well, I don't know. I can't say what I feel like when I'm 40 of course, but anyway I think it's -- I mean if I lived in England the rest of my life I would become the same kind of witch as they are.
Studs Terkel Witch.
Studs Terkel Of the three cities, four cities, the -- well, you told me about your hometown, you found it boring. London, Paris, and Stockholm. Where have you felt -- of course you were younger then, you're 26, you had different experiences. Where do you feel the most comfortable?
Ulla Karolya Stockholm definitely. Paris -- in Paris I was out of money of course like everybody is, and in Paris all the official things are very hard. It's such a bad -- bureaugraphy [sic]. How do you call it? Bureaugraphy?
Studs Terkel Bureaucracy.
Ulla Karolya Yeah. And you have to really fight for your existence. And in London it was as it was bad air and [angry?] women.
Studs Terkel When I say the United States to you, what's your first reaction?
Ulla Karolya Nixon and the Vietnam war and Chile. I know that.
Studs Terkel That's your first reaction.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Nixon, the Vietnam War, and Chile. Here you made three political comments just then.
Ulla Karolya Politics are what I saw. I look at it as a -- from a human point really.
Studs Terkel Are you interested in visiting the United States?
Ulla Karolya I would, really. I'm going to sometime when I get money for it. Not to live there, but to stay -- I would like to stay there enough to see it all, not just to see New York or something. But to travel around in those Greyhound buses and all that. To see the poor people and the rich people, and.
Studs Terkel You want to travel the way Olof Palme did, in a way, he did you know back in 1948, he hitchhiked his way.
Ulla Karolya Did he hitchhike?
Studs Terkel Palme did, yes. But there's you something you said now, and I start thinking something you said earlier. You were kidding me then in the beginning when you said your hope was to marry a rich man and really have five or six children.
Ulla Karolya Yes.
Studs Terkel Or do you really mean that?
Ulla Karolya Well, I think that would be nice, because I'm not looking for any great career, and I love children, but I don't want to look after other people's children the whole rest of my life. Now it's just that Karl and Ulrike who are so horribly important for me.
Studs Terkel Now I should point out you pointed at two little children of Dieter Strand and of Annette Kullenberg, the two children who you know very well. But generally you -- so a good deal of your life has been looking after other children. Other people's children.
Ulla Karolya Well, I don't know. I don't want to look after other people's children all my life. And if you become as a nurse, real children's nurse, then you -- I mean, and then you get your own children. You probably haven't got an interest for all of them, for your own and the other ones.
Studs Terkel Do you have friends -- you mentioned Swedish friends whom you have who don't think as you do politically, but they're friends of yours because you have social things in common, personal things in common. Do you have Finnish friends here?
Ulla Karolya Yes, I know a few families who invite me for dinner every now and then. Or I invite myself when I haven't got the money to buy food. They usually quite well-off, Finnish who are here, I mean they save and they get home and a car and the color television and all that.
Studs Terkel These are the quiet
Ulla Karolya Yes. Because workers are well-paid in Sweden.
Studs Terkel Are they? What about -- how do you look upon the the darker people here. They would be the Yugoslavs and the Greeks, wouldn't they? Who else work here? Spanish and Turks?
Ulla Karolya Turks and Italians even too, I think.
Studs Terkel How do you look upon them?
Ulla Karolya Well, I haven't got anything to do with them really. I don't know any. But I don't look down upon anybody anymore, really. But I wouldn't go to those pubs or discotheques that I know that are for colored people.
Studs Terkel Funny, you use the word "colored" about the Yugoslavs and the Greeks. That's interesting.
Ulla Karolya Because no, it's not -- I suppose like my sister gets on with them well because she hasn't got blonde hair. It's their own fault that when they see blonde hair they say "Aha, I think [unintelligible]" and then they don't take you as a person.
Studs Terkel [Unintelligible] mean a Swedish girl.
Ulla Karolya Yes, and "Oh, I like,
Studs Terkel They can have a good time with.
Ulla Karolya Yes, and I think it's fault that they think -- I mean, they must know that to be friends with Scandinavian girls they have to take them as -- a person. Not
Studs Terkel And so your sister has dark hair.
Ulla Karolya Well, brown, yes.
Studs Terkel Brown hair. And she doesn't look upon them the same way you do.
Ulla Karolya Well, she's not treated the same way by them.
Studs Terkel That's interesting. You think, you think your blondeness plays a role here.
Ulla Karolya Well, that's what they are doing. That's what they saying.
Studs Terkel What other thoughts come to your mind as we're seated here on the Sunday evening in this Stockholm apartment talking to Ulla? What thoughts come to your mind about Sweden? Which way would you like to see Sweden go?
Ulla Karolya Well, I hope they they can have the Social Democrat government of course. 'Cause it's good for us who don't -- who haven't got any capital, I know that. Most of people are like that, of course. And -- well, that's
Studs Terkel What kind of -- well, last question. You're 26 and you're -- just to describe you, you're very beautiful, but how would you like to view old age? You do. Would you fear old age?
Ulla Karolya No. I think I'm going to be a charming old woman.
Studs Terkel Ulla. Thank you very much. Ulla Karolya. Karolya.
Ulla Karolya Karolya.
Ulla Karolya Tak.
Studs Terkel "Tak" means "thank you," doesn't it? Tak. I can't say "froo" it means "Miss." Tak Frokel [sic].
Ulla Karolya Froken.
Studs Terkel Froken. Oh, froken. Young woman. Or even better, tak, Ulla. And good luck.
Studs Terkel I'll be heading soon for Kiruna to the north of Sweden. These are where the iron mines are perhaps the largest deposit in the world. It's also where the Lapp people are. We hear the phrase in school, in American schools, get to Lapland, Lapland, and Thomas Cremer, who is here in Stockholm perhaps knows more about the Lapp people and their culture and their condition today and Sweden than anyone around, and Mr. Cremer, how would I describe your work? What is your -- what would be your your your job?
Thomas Cremer Well, you see the Lapps have an organization, a kind of union which organizes all the Lapp villages. We have 44 of them, and all the reindeer breeders must belong to these Lapp villages which have enormous territories for reindeer breeding and for pastures, and they have lots of problems with the land and water issues, just like the Indians in the United States and Canada. And I am employed by this organization for taking care of the land and water issues. So, I sue the crown of Sweden for getting judgments on these land and water issues, and we will get one decision now on the first on November, which is the result of legal proceedings where I've been on since 1966.
Studs Terkel You are not then like a member of say of the American Bureau of Indian Affairs in America.
Thomas Cremer No.
Studs Terkel You are not employed by the Swedish government.
Thomas Cremer No, I'm employed by the Lapps themselves as an ombudsman or lawyer for the Lapps, and it has been very difficult for the Lapps to get the Crown of Sweden to tell exactly what rights the Crown will say the Lapps have. So it has been necessary to sue the Crown in order to get to know.
Studs Terkel The Lapp people, suppose we talk about the culture of the Lapp and the condition of them now, and I see now you are in the nature of ombudsmen. In a sense you're -- even though this deals with a people's matter, a cultural matter, a minority group rather than -- rather than technological matters, you're not too removed from a guy like Ralph Nader in the United States. Though it concerns himself with a certain group of people rather than the general environmental matter.
Thomas Cremer Yes, but of course of course this -- our environmental issue has very much to do with my job, too. We are for instance now trying to stop a big road that they want to build between Kiruna and Narvik in Norway.
Studs Terkel Suppose you did -- tell me for the listeners where Kiruna is, the the the area I'm going to visit very shortly.
Thomas Cremer Yes, Kiruna is a mining town very far to the north in Sweden in the middle of the reindeer pastures. So the Lapps used to put their tepees on the mountain, Kiirunavaara, where the mine is now, and they have suffered very much from the mine and from the railroad to Norway, and they would suffer very much if an ordinary automobile road was now built over to Norway. They would get invasions of people and hunting and going around with their snow scooters and so on, and the Kiruna mine is in the mountain of Kiirunavaara, but they there are also other mines which make damages to the Lapps, and we have always difficulties with these mines in order to get compensation or try to stop some things they want to do there, which will take away the winter pastures especially. Also the forestry is very dangerous. They cut off all the trees and then the lichen that the reindeer eat in wintertime will disappear. So there are lots of problems.
Studs Terkel That sounds so much like the strip-mining situation in Appalachia, in Kentucky and West Virginia and Tennessee in the United States.
Thomas Cremer Oh yes, I have studied the strip mining in Arizona in the Navajo reservation. The Four Corners power plant and the black [mills?] and all that. And it is not so far from that. We have many problems and one of the worst, worst problems is that the mines in Kiruna are owned by the state, the Crown, and the Crown is the worst adversary you can have, for the Crown has so much money, so many lawyers, so much power.
Studs Terkel With a social democratic government here under Olof Palme, before him Tage Erlander, wouldn't there have been reforms occurring?
Thomas Cremer Well, you might think so. But the problem is that the local politicians up there are adversaries to the Lapps. If Mr. Palme was in a position to decide this by himself, I think it would be much easier for the Lapps. But he has a not so strong position now in parliament, and the local people up there can have too much influence.
Studs Terkel How would you -- suppose we speak now -- the Lapps themselves. How would they be described as a people? Say, in contrast to the Swedish people, Lapps culturally.
Studs Terkel Ethnically.
Thomas Cremer The Lapps are the oldest inhabitants of the regions where they are now. Their land was much bigger before, but the Swedes have invaded the country with settlers, agriculture, just like in the United States, and
Studs Terkel The United States you mean the white man and the Indian.
Thomas Cremer Yes.
Studs Terkel But how long ago, when was this?
Thomas Cremer Oh, you see, the whole story is about the same story as with the American Indian, but that story is pressed into maybe two centuries, whereas the story between the Swedes and the Lapps is started in 1320. So it's the same story, but your story is much more pressed into a narrow space of time.
Studs Terkel So, the Lapp people then, how could they be described? What are they -- Oriental? Are they, you know -- anthropologically how would they be described?
Thomas Cremer I think no learned men know exactly where the Lapps come from, but most think that the Lapps have come from the East, and their language is acquainted with the Finnish language and several languages in the northern parts of Russia, where you have lots of people different peoples, Yakuts, Mordrines, Syrians and other peoples who also deal with reindeer breeding, and the reindeer-breeding terminology in the Lappish language is very elaborate, and it goes very much in detail, which shows that the Lapps must have done this reindeer breeding for a thousand years or more. Now, in the Lappish districts which we have today, the Swedes can be described as immigrants. And now this land and water issue, is a little bit controversial. We hope to get judgment to put more light into these questions.
Studs Terkel Rein-Reindeer breeding. I wasn't aware this was, this is the prime source of income for the Lapp people?
Thomas Cremer Yes, for the reindeer breeders. The whole Lappish population in the world is about 50,000 persons. Most of them live in Norway and they are farmers and fisherman and reindeer breeders. There are about 35,000 in Norway, in Sweden have about 10,000 and about 3,000 of them are reindeer breeders. But from the cultural point of view, the reindeer breeding is -- has a very central position. The Lappish culture is attached to the reindeer breeding and what belongs to that. It's a nice lean culture, if you see what I mean. They had in old times to carry their things with them. Things must be light, easy to carry, easy to pack on the backs of the reindeer. This culture, this Lappish culture has been the source of an enormous literature. Very, very much is written about the Lapps, and this is taught more or less with Latin-Roman author Tacitus, who wrote about the
Studs Terkel So Tacitus wrote about the Lapps. Well, was there -- did the Romans -- they never reached that far north,
Thomas Cremer No, the Romans had their [legioness?]. They were in Belgium and Holland maybe, but they were never in Sweden. But Tacitus in his book "Germania" writes about countries where the Romans were not, and he writes not so little about the Lapps, too.
Studs Terkel But the Lapps, do they have, then you're implying they have a rich culture, a culture that is rich. As far as literature, you see.
Thomas Cremer Well, not in literature, but more in making things and
Studs Terkel -- [Unintelligible].
Thomas Cremer Yes.
Studs Terkel In handicraft.
Thomas Cremer Yes, handicrafts.
Studs Terkel As
Thomas Cremer Yes, yes, and customs. You know, reindeer breeding is very complicated. The Swedes never have succeeded in making it, so you have to have a certain feeling for that animal and how it behaves and how to do the whole thing, and this also is described in this really enormous literature on the Lapps. They have always interested people. When the Swedes were around in Europe during the 17th century making big wars and the Swedes were a big power, the German-Austrian Emperor accused the Swedes of winning their wars by using sorcery. Lappish sorcery, and the Lapps were heathens at that time, they had their drums, and made a lot of such things. So the first really elaborate more or less scientific book was published in 1673 by a Swedish professor, Schefferus, and this book was in a way inspired by the King wanting to kill these rumors about sorcerers.
Studs Terkel What's interesting as you're talking now in the year 1973, where Thomas Cremer who represents, ombudsman, for the Lapp people, but there are few in number relatively, we think of Sweden, a very enlightened Western government relatively and once upon a time it was a superpower, it was number one, and I suppose the very thought of being number one, as you know obsesses the country I come from, you know, and I suppose when one is no longer number one, it's possible to be maybe broader outlook. Your thoughts about that. It's not unrelated to your particular challenge as representing the Lapp peoples.
Thomas Cremer Well, do you mean that when you have been a number one and no longer is a number one, you might have some kind of broader thinking? Well, maybe this works in a way, but I'm not so sure it will -- it works today. When the Swedes and the Swedish government thinks about the Lapps. There is more or less an idea in Sweden that everyone who lives in Sweden ought to be a Swede. We have now many Finns, Turks, Yugoslavs, Greek people working in Sweden. But the pluralistic cultural idea has no good soil in Sweden. And this goes for the Lapps also. It's very difficult to get the Swedish government for instance to create a chair for a professor in Lappish language and culture. It's difficult for the Lapps to get higher education in their own language and done by themselves, so this broadening of the thinking, well I'm not so sure it exists.
Studs Terkel Now this, what you say of course is a little startling, you know it's somehow the feeling you have is that a pluralistic culture would be a natural here. You would think because of what appears to be the outlook in other matters and matters of family or child care. I know the great need for that, or man/woman relationship. Sweden seems to be at least to the outside world advanced in this respect, you see.
Thomas Cremer Yes, I realize that, but I'm sorry to say that this doesn't work too well for the Lapps.
Studs Terkel Is there a Lapp -- I'll be heading up there. I wish you were coming along with me. Is there a Lapp music? Are there songs?
Thomas Cremer Yes. Yes. That's one of the principal parts of the Lappish culture, the Yoik songs, which are looked upon as being very ancient and a very fine kind of singing. So in that respect the Lapps have a very fine and very old culture all their own.
Studs Terkel Will I be hearing some of those songs up there? Possibly?
Thomas Cremer Well, you see, the Lapps were heathens for a long time and were Christianized rather late in history. After that, some kind of religious sect spread among the Lapps, the Laestadianism, which is
Thomas Cremer It's called "Lestadianism," it's called after a man whose name was Lars Levi Laestadius, and this religious belief forbids singing the yoik songs. So it is difficult, especially in the Kiruna area to hear it. The Lapps do it when they are alone, but it is not considered. It's a little bit considered to be against religion.
Studs Terkel I see the same the world over. So here we have a case of missionary, Christian missionary in a way inhibiting a culture of a people. Inhibiting the natural, the natural outpourings of people's lyricism.
Thomas Cremer That's one of the great parallels between Indians in the United States and Lapps, that the Christian religion has been the spearhead of destroying the culture of the original inhabitants.
Studs Terkel Mr. Cremer, I know you have many thoughts on many subjects involving Sweden and the world, yourself. So Lapps could be called, and I [realize?] it's not considered by Swedish people as though too big a problem here, is it?
Thomas Cremer No, because what they, what we the Swedes are taught at school is that the Lapps are so happy, their life is smiling, idyl and no problems. For instance, the land and water issues and the competition between Lapps and Swedes on land and water questions is silenced in our schools. So the Swedes know much more about the problems with the Blacks in the United States than about minority problems in their own country.
Studs Terkel That's very interesting. Isn't that amazing? "Banjo on your knee," you know the impression of a Black in school books years ago, smiling, happy Blacks and so smiling, happy Lapps with riding astride the reindeer. So we come to that question, don't we, about a people not knowing about minority groups, though in their own land. This is the continuous problem, isn't it?
Thomas Cremer Yes. And that "Banjo on the knee," we have it in a very widespread book called "Elle Licari," which describes a little Lappish girl and her life is kissing some little white reindeer calves on a summer flowering field up in the high mountains. That's what our children learn at school about the Lapps.
Studs Terkel We call that "Little Black Sambo."
Thomas Cremer Yes, it's exactly the same idea.
Studs Terkel But hasn't, haven't the school books altered in that respect?
Thomas Cremer No. No. We in our organization are making a campaign just now against that lying.
Studs Terkel Well, you see, what you're touching, obviously Mr. Cremer, is one of the international universal problems, haven't we? People, no matter how enlightened they may seem, not recognizing a put-upon people within their own domain.
Thomas Cremer Yes, that is so. And now in Copenhagen in November, there will be a meeting between Indians, Eskimos, and Lapps by their organizations, which will try to put together
Studs Terkel You say Indians, you mean American Indians.
Thomas Cremer American Indians, yes, which will try to put together the grassroot people from these groups and try to put more light on these problems, which are in common. And if some kind of union between the Arctic and sub-Arctic minorities all over the globe could be made, maybe that could be affiliated to the United Nations and do some good for some groups which are in a very pitiful state today. That is, I think of the Indians in South America.
Studs Terkel So that is a possibility, then. A possible United Nations entity.
Thomas Cremer Yes, we hope so. When I was in the United States and Canada in May '73, I was also in the United Nations, and they are now making some investigations on this problem. So I think there might be a possibility.
Studs Terkel One of the aspects I'll -- of course, I'll discover I hope as I -- as we come to Kiruna, Kiruna and the miners, the relationship of the miners and the Lapps. Who, who do the mining? Who have been doing the iron mining in those vast bowels of the
Thomas Cremer There are Finns or Finnish-speaking Swedes and ordinary Swedes, Lapps, many kinds of people, and they are very interested in hunting and fishing. So I think in Kiruna we have something of the conflict between white people and the Indians on hunting and shooting questions. Here in Stockholm, people are very happy to be able to go -- walk about in the countryside, around the city, but they do not dream of hunting and fishing. That's for the private owners of the land, whereas in Kiruna the attitude is the opposite. They do not respect that the Lapps are the owners of the hunting and fishing rights. So there are serious conflicts on this.
Studs Terkel Of course, the para-- I know you're aware of this, Mr. Cremer, the parallel is astonishing between the American -- United States hunter I should say, and the American Indian, and what happens to land rights of a people who've been there long, long before. The parallels of course are quite remarkable.
Thomas Cremer Yes. Yes, they are. And I have had often discussions with a friend of mine who is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and he has written about the Indian hunting and fishing rights, so I know a little about
Studs Terkel You know it's interesting. Perhaps before I know you have engagements tonight, [unintelligible] before that. I know this is much too brief a conversation, we had met before, earlier in the day and I was much taken with your thoughts. These are men -- I'm talking now about the white men or the Swedes and the Finns who are to some extent looked down upon by the Swedes. Being in this area looking down upon them, the Blacks I was about to say. The Lapps -- it's almost an anagram for Black.
Thomas Cremer Yes.
Studs Terkel They were involved in their own battles for some dignity and survival, there was a strike there by the miners not too long ago. They don't see the connection.
Thomas Cremer No. And this is the old pattern, you know, my servant has also a servant. If you are looked down upon by somebody else, you want to get someone to look down for and you'll look down to on -- in your turn. And this works -- this evil pattern works all too well in the Lappish question.
Studs Terkel Where does this leave us at this moment?
Thomas Cremer Well, you have to go up to Kiruna and look for yourself, but these problems are not so easy to see and get in contact with on the spot, for the Lapps are not so eager to talk about it. They feel that if they say too much, the revenge will come.
Studs Terkel So I'll have a problem, won't I?
Studs Terkel A fear of -- I'd be -- I realize it'll be through an interpreter, you know. The Lapp language being considered different than Swedish, you know.
Thomas Cremer Yes.
Studs Terkel I'll be able to talk through interpreter naturally with one of the, some of the Swedish miners or Finnish miners, but it'll involve a Lapp interpreting, and the Lapp may also be representing the Swedish government possibly as the interpreter.
Thomas Cremer Yes, that might be so. And even if the Lapps speak Swedish, it's very important to look at the role of the interpreter of course. And well, the pressure up there against the Lapps is so strong that I think it will be really difficult for an English-speaking person to get in contact with the real problems. Well, the Swedish television has made some programs on this which give a good idea about it. They have made some real investigations.
Studs Terkel Will there be, is there a possibility looking at the the sorrowful side of it, is there a possibility that the Lapp people may eventually, what with the oppressive nature of circumstance disappear?
Thomas Cremer Well, you see I think some people do believe this will happen, but if maybe somebody would like this to happen, I'm not so sure it will happen in spite of all that. For all we know from history shows that groups like this remain and whatever you do, they they are still there. Look at the American Indian. He's still there. And I think then that you have to have in Sweden or in the United States a good minority policy, for if you don't get that, you will have enormous problems with a more or less slum population which is unhappy and has problems, but still it produces children, and the problem, you never get rid of it.
Studs Terkel So that's the way it stands at this moment. Mr. Thomas Cremer, thank you very much. Any thought, many thoughts we haven't expressed concerning this and related problems, before we say goodbye for now.
Thomas Cremer Well, I think that this cooperation between these indigenous minorities is a great hope for the future. And my impression is that for instance the Indians in Canada now really can do something. They get some support from their government and they have a rather strong organization which has played a great role in organizing that Copenhagen meeting I was telling you about. So I think there is much hope in that.
Studs Terkel Thank you. Is there a Lapp, is there a Lapp representative in the Riksdag?
Thomas Cremer No.
Thomas Cremer There is not. And we are not so sure we would like to have one. You know, a seat in Parliament in Sweden costs about 30,000, 40,000 votes, whereas the Lapps are only 10,000. And the Greenlanders, the Eskimos have two seats in the Parliament of Denmark. But these seats are also cheaper when it comes to voting power. And so the other MPs tell the Eskimos that "You shouldn't vote so much in our Danish questions, for your seats are cheaper than ours." Now for the moment the Eskimos hold the decisive vote in that Parliament, so I
Thomas Cremer Yes, so I have a friend there who is an Eskimo, and he says, "Well, I think I'll let the government sit for a while," for he can turn it out whenever he likes. And of course he has a lot of power then according to that position. Well, in the next election maybe he has no decisive power anymore, and nobody will care about him. So today when we have a deadlock in the Swedish Parliament, 175 against 175, a Lapp MP would have a decisive vote, and we are not so happy about that.
Studs Terkel You mean just, you say we, you mean
Thomas Cremer The Lapps, yes, yes. If the Lapps today had a seat in Parliament, they would have the decisive vote, and this would be a very strong position, but a weak one because it can disappear in the next election.
Studs Terkel Therefore, this way you can keep the issue alive as it is now.
