Yesterday I received my poll card for the Sami council. That’s all fine, apart from the fact that I’m not Sami. I was a little bit drunk when I opened the envelope, and I couldn’t figure why I’d gotten it. This morning I’m sober and it seems even more mysterious. I can think of three different scenarios…

1. There is another Elin Unnes out there who actually is Sami. And
instead of doing the proper thing, which is to go by a person’s social
security number and get their legal address from the tax authorities,
someone at the Sami council electoral register just googled “Elin
Unnes” and I popped up. If this is the case, can the Sami Elin Unnes
please stand up? I’ve got some really important papers for you. This
is quite likely—Unnes is a Sami name (it means “the puny one;” most Sami
names are slightly insulting and mean stuff like “the cheapskate” or
“the one with crooked legs”). But this scenario is odd because my full
name, Elin Cecilia Unnes, was on the envelope. Only the tax authorities
(and maybe the police) have that name registered. So have parallel
universes collided and there’s a Sami Elin Unnes who also happens to
have the middle name Cecilia? And does she have big feet, listen to
Girlschool a lot, and do everything I do but with her left hand and
during the night instead of during the day?

2. Someone has been reading how I’ve been banging on about Sami
rights in Scandinavia and assumed I must be Sami in order to give a
hoot. In that case, I’m expecting a poll card for the Inuit council too!

3. I am Sami. With point one (the Sami last name) and point two (me
caring about Sami rights) it’s not completely unlikely. Maybe it’s like
a dark family secret! I’ve always wanted one of those.

So here I am, with a paper that allows me to vote in a council that may
or may not be an attempt by the Swedish government to give the Sami
population a fake sense of actual influence on the decisions being made
about their future rights. Does anyone have any idea what’s up with this?

ELIN UNNES