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<P align="justify"> Assimilation was … <P align="justify"> Assimilation was a new policy which began to be imposed in the Nordic countries and elsewhere in Europe in the nineteenth century. Its aim was integrate minorities into the dominant culture. Behind the policy lay emergent nationalism and the building of nation-states. One manifestation of it was an intense policy of Norwegianization that began in the 1930s. The Saami and the Kvens (the Finnish-speaking people of the Norwegian province of Finnmark) were considered to be a major security risk for Norway, living as they did in the north beside the vulnerable frontier with Russia. In these northern tracts, Russian seafarers and the north Norwegians traded together, and this caused grave concern and a fear of Russia. At that time, the minorities had not yet become particularly well integrated into Norwegian society; for example, the use of the Norwegian language among them was not very widespread. Consequently, the new policy on minorities initially focused on education, language and identity. First, a local government act was passed which permitted posts in municipal organs in the coastal parishes to be filled only with Norwegian-speakers. This assimilationist policy further intensified in the second half of the century. In 1862, a regulation was issued stipulating that the language of instruction in educational districts with Norwegian-speaking majorities must be Norwegian. In 1889, an Elementary Education Act was passed imposing Norwegian as the language of teaching in schools. In regions where more than one language was spoken, the act allowed for the use of Saami and Finnish as auxiliary languages. The primary task of the schools and dormitories was defined as Norwegianization. The policy of Norwegianization continued up to the late 1940s, when the educational system began to be reformed. However, various forms of assimilation were imposed on the Saami even up to the1970s, and they continued to be highly marginalized and discriminated against as a people both socially and politically. The policy of assimilation meant for the Saami above all the fact that they did not have the right to study and learn their own mother tongue in school. Behind the policy often lay the good intention of integrating minorities quickly and efficiently into the dominant society, but the consequences were sometimes rootlessness and a lack of a full command of any language as a mother tongue. In the case of the Saami, the result was that many of them began to feel ashamed of their language, their culture and their background. </P>r culture and their background. </P> +
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