From the Winds of Chernobyl ...
For over 30 years, Agneta Granström has campaigned tirelessly on behalf of her Sámi people in her home county of Norrbotten in Sweden. She talks DEAN MUSCAT through her journey from provincial nurse to pioneering politician, and explains why her Azure X membership has proved both liberating and self-empowering.
The vast, subartic Norrbotten region in northernmost Sweden has been home to the indigenous Sámi people since the Middle Ages. For thousands of years, the Sámi lived a semi-nomadic existence here, shepherding reindeer to and from the Bothnian coast and the Lapland mountains that fringe the Arctic Circle. Settling into small municipalities, they continued to live off of nature’s bounty: lean elk meat, freshwater whitefish, and plump cloudberries that grow vitamin-rich under the unsleeping eye of Scandinavia’s midnight sun.
In many ways Norrbotten was a Nordic Eden. Then the winds from Chernobyl came.
‘The accident of Chernobyl was awful,’ Agneta says, recalling the nuclear power plant accident that shook Ukraine, and the rest of the world, in 1986.
On that fateful April day, Agneta together with her husband and three young daughters gathered around the TV to watch the news coverage of the unfolding horrors. The concerned mother was only reassured by the fact that this was all happening in another country, far, far away. Her family, her community, was safe.
But the nuclear ramifications would soon catch up with Norrbotten. Northerly winds carried radiation from the Chernobyl disaster zone across some 1400 miles to reach Agneta’s hometown. The rains made matters worse. Harmful becquerel seeped into the land and contaminated all things bright and beautiful.
‘We couldn’t eat the reindeer meat because it was contaminated with becquerel. And suddenly, they were slaughtering reindeer because we couldn’t take care of them. The elks, nobody could eat them. The fish, the mushrooms …’ Agneta trails off, still in disbelief. ‘We couldn’t eat the berries in our own gardens.’
Faced with such an unprecedented crisis, Agneta realised she had reached a crossroads in her life: she could either continue to look on helpless or she could try to be a force for change.
‘That was the starting point for me to be active,’ she explains. ‘I joined the Green Party because we work for peace, for women’s rights, for the environment, for stopping the development of nuclear power and so on. This was also the choice of my husband. We did it together.’
Agneta, a fulltime nurse at the time, began her political journey by turning her focus on matters close to her heart.
‘After years of working in Norrbotten’s rural areas, I realised it was extremely hard for people to contact their nearest hospitals, which were sometimes 250 or 300 km away. The internet connection was bad. There were no mobile connections at the time. We only had radio contact with the ambulance. I wanted for the Sámi people to remain living in their rural homes but still have a good life and good services. That was when I started developing eHealth processes.’
Several years of political moonlighting inspired Agneta to run for regional parliament. Her bid was successful and as an elected Council Commissioner she continued to fight on behalf of her community and the Norrbotten environment, home to the world’s largest iron ore mine, in a rapidly changing and increasingly industrialised Sweden. She also went on to become President of the eHealth network within the Assembly of European Regions.
But her crowning achievement was arguably the introduction of free and easier access to contraception for more women in Norrbotten. Her game changing policy was such a resounding success resulting in widespread positive impact throughout the region, that Agneta’s peers nominated her for the prestigious Innovation in Politics Award in 2018.
‘To come from my region, to be a Sámi person, to have the chance to be a governor, and to have the chance to be recognised for an international prize, well ...’ Agneta is momentarily speechless. The honour evidently means a lot to her. ‘Even a little stone in the shoe can do something. You need to take it off. You need to see why it hurts. I was one of those little stones, and I am so glad about that.’
While there seems to be little chance of Agneta slowing down, the last few years have seen her dedicate more time to herself. When her husband passed away five years ago, Agneta was suddenly a single woman for the first time in a very long time. The thought of travelling solo seemed daunting. But a chance holiday invitation from her younger sister introduced Agneta to the Golden Sands Resort & Spa in Malta, where she found herself falling in love with gorgeous Golden Bay and the endless possibilities that an Azure X membership could offer her.
‘I feel very comfortable with Azure X,’ she explains. ‘I can go to resorts around the world and feel safe to go alone. You really feel well taken care of.’
It’s not just the hotels Agneta is keen on.
‘I’ve been out on the boats,’ she says of Azure X’s fantastic Sunseeker charters. ‘What a luxury to have your own captain, to be served food and champagne. You feel like royalty.’
But does she manage to switch off while abroad or does her activist mind keep ticking away?
‘When I’m on holiday I really relax. I enjoy the spa treatments at the hotel. I enjoy swimming in the Mediterranean sea. Last year we were at Malta’s Isle of MTV concert and it was so good.’
From buzzing pop festivals to yacht journeys around Sicily, Agneta is clearly experiencing a new lease of life. With our time coming to an end, I ask her if she has any message she wishes to relay to readers.
‘I really hope that other women in my situation take the chance to look into Azure X so they no longer feel afraid of travelling alone,’ she says, eschewing benign platitudes to make a serious point. ‘All of us women who have family, we invest in the children and our grandchildren, but seldom do we invest in ourselves. Take this chance to invest in yourself.’
This article originally appeared in Living Wow magazine issue 3.