Greenlandic author: Trump has introduced us nearer collectively | EUROtoday

Trump’s super curiosity in our nation has reached a painful peak. I’ve bother sleeping and abruptly burst into tears. Our nerves are on edge and I want to simply press the pause button. I examine the information in the midst of the night time and the following shock awaits me within the morning. In all of this, I attempt to maintain observe of the political state of affairs my household is presently in.

It hits us Greenlanders proper the place we’re most susceptible: our kids. Can we stand up to the division and preserve solidarity among the many inhabitants? As mother and father, grandparents, and lecturers, we face the large job of explaining this disaster to our kids who’re asking whether or not battle is coming. We can not enable ourselves inside disputes now. In the Folketing, the Danish folks’s meeting, politicians from all events unanimously reward the federal government. Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt is welcomed on the airport with applause and flags.

Donald Trump is making an attempt to divide the Danes and Greenlanders. If he manages to drive a wedge between us, we’ll be straightforward prey. Our strongest weapon is solidarity. Then we converse a language that Trump would not perceive. That’s why no piece of paper can match between us now. Will we make errors? Yes, however then you will need to forgive one another and proceed the work that has been initiated at authorities stage. Also on the European stage. The help of our European associates as of late warms our hearts. It isn’t solely essential for our governments in Nuuk and Copenhagen. This power enhance can be essential for us as a inhabitants.

There is loads of battle between Greenland and Denmark due to the legacy of the colonial period. In my novel “The Greenland Experiment,” which is being revealed in Germany this 12 months, I wrote, amongst different issues, in regards to the IUD scandal: 1000’s of Greenlandic ladies had an IUD inserted in opposition to their will within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies – on behalf of the Danish authorities.

I used to dwell in Hamburg for just a few years and my son-in-law is German. Before this disaster got here to a head, I at all times stated that there was no worse nation to be a Greenlander than Denmark. And that I want I might expertise the curiosity that Germans have in my Greenlandic roots, as a substitute of – as Greenlanders in Denmark usually really feel – at all times being perceived as an issue and a recipient of subsidies. Hopefully we come out of this in a single piece and be taught one thing from historical past.

We Danes and Greenlanders should acknowledge that there are variations of opinion. As lengthy as it’s our If there’s disagreement, it’s a signal of energy to confess one another’s variations. But if we do not stick collectively, our disunity is only a reward to Trump. The disaster is weighing closely on us and paralyzing our spirit of resistance. We could have grown up sturdy Inuit on the sting of the world, however we turn out to be incapacitated after we are afraid and our kids’s future is threatened.

The previous few weeks specifically have proven that each misstep on our half, regardless of how small, is exploited by the media within the USA. And it isn’t like we do not have skeletons within the closet. In current years, one scandal after one other has come to gentle. There’s lots of faux information about who has a “right” to Greenland, to recollections of Denmark’s previous as an evil colonial energy. Every phrase we Greenlanders say is circled in our mouths. And we’re disadvantaged of the chance to form the reconciliation course of ourselves.

As if that wasn’t sufficient, there’s extra explosive lurking in Denmark. When I joined the talk about “rigsfællesskabet” – the neighborhood of the Danish-Faroese-Greenlandic Kingdom – I discovered that it’s usually fueled by the Danish aspect. This is what Greenlandic and Faroese college students informed me about their time learning in Denmark, and it was additionally my very own expertise. Many Greenlanders set off for Denmark as supporters of “rigsfællesskabet” and are ardent freedom fighters once they return. Because there’s nonetheless racism, Greenlandic kids being taken into care by the youth welfare workplace and an unwillingness to let Greenlanders converse on their very own behalf in Denmark.

Even after Inatsisartut, the Greenlandic parliament, determined to ask Greenlanders in Denmark whether or not they wished to be acknowledged as a nationwide minority, nothing occurred from the Danish aspect. Maybe as a result of going through historical past is so delicate.

We are afraid of the place this course of will take us. But we at the moment are on this unlucky state of affairs in opposition to our will. Everything is in free fall. Trump and his supporters have hijacked the discourse and are telling the story over our heads. It is appalling to revive our whole colonial historical past on this manner. And all of the extra painful as a result of there’s usually a grain of fact within the phrases, earlier than they’re twisted past recognition.

The solely good factor is that it has introduced us nearer collectively. Now it is essential to not expose ourselves in entrance of the digicam. The eyes of the world are on us. Whether within the grocery store, on the dentist or after we are ready on the airport, journalists are instantly there all over the place who need to be the primary to report after we get into bother. As an individual, as a mom, I continuously battle with not dropping my steadiness on this new, harmful world order.

Let me give a current instance of this divide. I discussed the Greenlandic Parliament’s choice to ask Greenlanders residing in Denmark about recognition as a minority. For many, together with me, it is a matter near the guts. The politician Kuno Fencker, acquaintance of mine, helped push by this parliamentary decision, however ultimately the matter got here to nothing – together with in Greenland.

Today I’m simply requested how I may be associates with a person who talks to the enemy (Fencker attended Trump’s inauguration and met with Republican Congressman Andy Ogles final 12 months, editor’s word). – Kuno has additionally been attracting lots of consideration in current weeks due to his views on Greenland’s independence. And as a result of I do not agree with him on this challenge, different Greenlanders can not perceive why I do not break off dialogue with him.

As a rustic with such a small inhabitants, we’ve got to be very cautious right here. Of course, you possibly can have completely different political views and nonetheless meet for dinner and snigger collectively. Otherwise we are going to fall into the lure that Trump units for us. The extra tolerant we’re with one another, the much less we accuse or denounce one another, the better our cohesion. But that is not straightforward. It is simple to fall again into established patterns so long as the previous wounds haven’t but healed.

When Donald Trump Jr. landed in Nuuk, town of my childhood, in January 2025, the thought for the plot of my new thriller got here to me. I abruptly felt what could be the worst nightmare for us Greenlanders: being at odds amongst associates, household and neighborhood and doing Trump’s soiled work by slandering and blaming one another. But in opposition to the backdrop of our painful historical past, with which we’ve got by no means reconciled, this has occurred shortly – even when Denmark has now introduced that Greenland is an equal associate and that we might dare to face the darkish chapters of our historical past collectively.

But it ought to be remembered that Denmark, beneath the aegis of former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, refused to take part within the reconciliation fee arrange by the Greenland parliament in 2014 – simply 12 years in the past – and that earlier than Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeldt’s joint go to to Washington in Greenland, voices had been raised that the Danish international minister ought to keep at residence.

For now, we’ve got managed to resolve the interior disputes and the joint delegation’s go to to Washington was a hit. We should proceed this work sooner or later. Under regular circumstances, it takes many, a few years to reconcile after the tip of colonial rule. We haven’t got that a lot time. In the midst of all this adversity, the disinformation campaigns and espionage that I describe in my novel The Divide, Donald Trump has mockingly executed us a service. We discovered that freedom comes at a value and the significance of alliances. This applies within the household, within the Nordic nations, within the EU and in NATO – and particularly in issues of “rigsfællesskabet”, the “Reich Community”.

Let me finish with a phrase of hope: with “rigsfællesskabet” we’ve got initiated a reconciliation course of throughout which we are going to cope with the ghosts of the previous as soon as and for all. And with which we consciously select to create a neighborhood of equals through which Denmark isn’t the one one in cost.

I’ve a extra federal line in thoughts, with a typical royal household and customary international coverage, on an equal footing. I additionally imagine in Greenland rejoining the EU. In 1985, Greenland left the European Economic Community due to the EU’s fisheries coverage. The world in the present day is completely different.

The EU may be economically useful for Greenland. In return, Greenland can profit all of us within the EU and strengthen shared safety and cohesion. Yes, even world peace. And I imagine within the continued help of our associates within the EU and the Nordic nations. Because if we let Trump take management of Greenland, what’s subsequent?

From the Danish of Hannes Langendörfer