Scandia debate: Truth and Reconciliation Commission

A Reflection on the Historical Consciousness of Our Time

Abstract

The Swedish Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset operated between 2020 and 2024 to scrutinize the injustices and wrongs committed by the Swedish state and the Swedish Church against these ethnic minorities in a prolonged assimilation process. A loss of language and culture characterized Tornedalian lives and society during the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the year 2000, the Tornedalians, with their linguistic variety of Finnish called Meänkieli, have the status of an official national minority in Sweden. This article, written by one of the commission members, accounts for some problems identified during the commission work and in the final report. One is the encounter between the “big” history told by the commission based on traditional scholarly notions and a great number of “small” oral histories, told by Tornedalians during in-depth interviews carried out by the members of the commission secretariate. These two kinds of history seldom have a stimulating, synergizing or correcting effect on one another but rather tend to live separate lives, which is not particularly satisfactory. Another problem concerns the practice of evaluating historical phenomena from a current perspective, attributing responsibility and guilt to historical state or church agents for actions taken against the Tornedalians and considered unrighteous and reprehensible by posterity. Should current politicians and church potentates apologize for the wrongdoings of their predecessors? A final reflection is based on the observation that this kind of commission work, not the result of transitional justice processes following large-scale crimes against humanity but rather the need and interest of a solid liberal-democratic state to manage internal ethnic and moral inquiries, has been carried out not only in Sweden but simultaneously in neighboring Norway and Finland as well. The conclusion is that truth and reconciliation commissions mirror the historical consciousness of the 2020s and relate what is considered historical abuses and injuries to historical interpretations, albeit essentially to portray a better future.