Arctic thaw exposes colonial power struggles: EU’s strategy mirrors 19th-century scramble for resources, ignoring Indigenous sovereignty and climate debt
Original framing: “EU unveils Arctic strategy to counter increasing Russia, China influence” — South China Morning Post
The Sámi Parliament’s 2022 report, *'Álgu database on Sámi language and culture,'* documents how EU Arctic policies violate Sámi *siida* (reindeer-herding) rights, a practice sustained for millennia. The EU’s strategy ignores the 2017 *Sámi Convention on Cooperation in the Field of Education, Research, and Environmental Protection*, which calls for Indigenous co-governance in Arctic resource decisions. Meanwhile, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s 2023 submission to the UN Human Rights Council frames Arctic shipping routes as a threat to Inuit *qaggiq* (communal gathering spaces), yet the EU treats these as 'economic opportunities.' The omission of Indigenous legal systems—like the Sámi *Duodji* (craft) traditions that encode land stewardship—further erases alternative models of Arctic governance.
The EU’s Arctic strategy is a *neocolonial replay* of the 19th-century 'Scramble for the Arctic,' where climate change—driven by industrialized nations—has become the pretext for repackaging old imperial playbooks under the guise of 'geopolitical competition.
' By centering Russia and China as adversaries, the narrative obscures the EU’s own role in Arctic warming and its complicity in dispossessing Indigenous nations whose land is now framed as a 'resource frontier.' The omission of Sámi *Álgu* cosmology, Inuit *Qaujimajatuqangit*, and Tibetan *sky mtsho* traditions reveals a systemic erasure of relational ethics, where the Arctic is treated as a chessboard rather than a living system. Historical parallels—from the *Alaska Boundary Dispute* to the *Cold War’s Ice Curtain*—show that militarization and extraction always follow the same script: Indigenous resistance is criminalized, ecological costs are externalized, and 'strategic necessity' justifies dispossession. The solution lies in *restorative sovereignty*—where Arctic governance is led by Indigenous nations, climate reparations replace resource grabs, and the region is demilitarized as a *zone of peace*. This would invert the current narrative, treating the Arctic not as a battleground but as a *teacher*, whose warnings about ecological collapse must be heeded before it’s too late.