There are two tales about the relationship between Greenland and Denmark; both contain truth and blindness. One is the story told by the ruling classes in Denmark, the other is the narrative that unites progressives and nationalists in Greenland.
The moral of the first tale is that Greenland, as a part of the Danish kingdom, has managed the extremely challenging transition to a modern society without sacrificing its culture or identity. This is a rare and impressive achievement. Greenlanders are among the only indigenous people in the world with their own parliament, political institutions and education system and who have maintained their own language. And they have access to the same welfare services as other citizens of Denmark.
This has been achieved under difficult conditions by only around 55,000 inhabitants on a vast island in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, isolated from the rest of the world. True, the people of Greenland were not asked to consent when they were integrated into the Danish kingdom in 1953, after more than 200 years as a Danish colony. But in referendums in 1979 and 2008 a majority of them voted in favour of a revised arrangement that allowed them to expand political control over their own territory and resources. Greenland’s constitution calls the period from 1953 to 1979 a phase of “hidden colonisation”, but also recognises that the next decades constitute an era of “decolonisation”.
In this narrative, the Danish kingdom has served as a formidable vehicle for Greenlanders to achieve self-determination. Freedom for Greenland from this perspective is not about formal independence or liberation from old masters, it’s about gradually building institutions and the capacity for self-determination – under the Danish crown.
Colonialism continued
The other narrative sees Greenland’s recent history as merely a continuation of colonisation. It claims that the Danes have never respected Greenlanders as equals, and that the Danes have always been illegitimate rulers. Here in fact is the “hidden colonisation” in question: a term that reflects the unequal pay between Danes and Greenlanders, the negative attitudes of Danish employers in Greenland and the way in which the Danish media talk about Greenland in general.
Those who tell this story point to scandals such as the practice in the 1960s and 70s of Danish doctors implanting contraceptive IUDs in the wombs of thousands of Greenlandic women and girls without their consent or knowledge, as part of a campaign to limit Greenland’s birthrate. The Danish government has officially apologised, but approximately half the fertile women in Greenland were forcibly fitted with contraception at the time. Then there’s the 22 children who were taken from their families in Greenland and transported to Denmark, where they were supposed to be educated as the next generation of the colony’s capable rulers. The Danish prime minister has acknowledged these moral failures. But such dark episodes reveal, according to this narrative, that the Danes saw themselves as the white masters on a mission to bring civilisation to savages.
Where the story held by the ruling classes often refers to institutional progress and welfare reform, the story of those who demand Greenland’s independence speaks of persistent and institutional racism in Denmark against people from Greenland.
This is widely documented and I think anyone who has lived here in Denmark has encountered examples of racism against Greenlanders. The fact that there is a demeaning phrase for heavy intoxication that refers to being “as drunk as someone from Greenland”, so commonly used that it’s in the official Danish dictionary, speaks of ongoing humiliation and a denial of human dignity to Greenlanders.
You could say Greenland’s people have been institutionally decolonised but still seek the dignity and pride of being their own masters.
Battles of modernisation
So you have the ruling classes insisting that Greenland’s consent is the first and decisive premise for the present arrangement. There is a very broad public consensus that Denmark cannot rule Greenland against the will of its citizens.
At the same time, many people in Denmark say that Greenland still lacks the capacity to deal with its own social problems or its economy. They point to the €600m that Greenland receives every year from Denmark as proof that their freedom is paid for by their so-called colonisers, and argue that blaming everything on Danish colonialism is a way of escaping responsibility for their own failures.
These two narratives can be a feature of any society that has gone through a process of rapid modernisation.
But in the case of Greenland and Denmark, the tensions have been intensified by cultural and geographical distance. It is morally and politically difficult to defend an arrangement in which a huge island is governed by a small country with an entirely different social and cultural history, thousands of miles away, unless the people of Greenland choose it as their collective path to greater self-determination.
I’m not saying you have to choose between these two stories. Most people accept that both perspectives are part of the same complex history. And the political divide in Greenland is not between those who want independence and those who want to remain in the kingdom of Denmark. Rather it is between those who want formal autonomy in the near future and those who consider it a long-term goal. The broad but fragile government stresses that it wants to remain in the kingdom, but only “for now”; it is a temporary arrangement.
Even after the direct threat of annexation by the Trump administration, most public figures in Greenland refused to explicitly recognise the kingdom of Denmark as their political home. The distance between the Danish and Greenlandic governments has been revealed in numerous public statements in recent months. Danish leaders have insisted on a united “we”, whereas Greenlandic voices have repeated that they are neither Danish nor American. This changed on Tuesday last week, when Greenlandic government leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen said during a joint press conference with the Danish prime minister that Greenland would pick Denmark over the US if asked to choose, “here and now”.
For the first time, the two parties almost managed to speak with one voice. This past weekend marked another moment of historic solidarity, when people in both territories came together to demonstrate against Trump’s threats. Protesters in a number of Danish cities waved Greenland flags.
Exploiting divisions
The great irony of this story is that the Trump administration, which leads a culture war against “woke” post-colonial ideology in American universities, has understood the polarising potential of the division between the former coloniser and the colonised. This is why Trump makes appeals to anti-colonial forces in Greenland.
Much of what the Americans say about Greenland displays both their ignorance and their own imperial arrogance. It’s not true that they need ownership of Greenland for national security. Thanks to a 1951 treaty, the US military has had unlimited access to all parts of the island and maintains its own Greenland base.
The US already possesses the military monopoly on legitimate violence in Greenland. JD Vance often emphasises that the Danes have not lived up to their security obligations in Greenland, which is true. But neither has the US, which has also done very little for security there.
The claim that it needs Greenland for rare-earth minerals and resources is also unconvincing. Greenland has long been open for business and invited investors to the country. But the Americans have not taken up these opportunities. The decisive challenge here is not access to resources, but building the infrastructure required to exploit them. It’s a high-risk investment, and the US currently lacks the capacity to cultivate rare-earth minerals.
Despite so many false claims and so much misinformation, the Trump administration’s approach to Greenland is clever. It says that if Greenland does become independent, it will be so strategically attractive and at the same time so politically weak, that it will be snapped up by China or Russia. The US cannot allow that to happen, it says.
Consequently, if the call for independence in Greenland and the resistance to Denmark is strong, it delivers a kind of legitimacy for a US conquest. If, on the other hand, Denmark and Greenland speak with one voice against the US and for self-determination within the kingdom, it will make it a lot harder for Trump to take it.
But the Trump administration has actually managed to expose the divisions between the two stories that Greenland and Denmark tell themselves. Even though there’s a clear legal and political answer to the question posed by Trump’s aide Stephen Miller querying Denmark’s right to rule over Greenland, it does challenge the moral legitimacy of the arrangement.
The dilemma for Greenland
This places Greenland in a dilemma. Its best leverage against the old colonial master, Denmark, is that it is now attractive to the US administration. But its best defence against a new imperial master is the recognition of the legitimacy of the old one. Either it uses Trump to pressure Denmark or it uses the Danish kingdom to protect itself from him.
After years of being ignored, Greenlandic voices and preferences are being listened to and transmitted to a global audience. They can use Trump’s interest to pressure a Danish government that has suddenly shown a great deal of interest in the wellbeing of Greenlanders. The government has even proposed a strategy to combat anti-Greenlandic racism in Denmark, which is remarkable for a leadership that has challenged international law to make life here less attractive for immigrants.
This recognition of Greenlanders’ consent and agency does give them some dignity. But for a very small population in a geo-strategically vital position to insist on their independence and dignity is dangerous.
As the true nature of Trump’s offensive emerges, this danger is becoming increasingly clear. He makes appeals to anti-colonial impulses in Greenland even as he openly reveals his true imperial ambitions. Yet he is no longer polarising Danes and Greenlanders, but uniting us.
From a Danish perspective, it’s hard to refute the challenge from Miller. The status quo is the result of an arbitrary deal that made Denmark the ruling power in Greenland.
As Danes, we don’t “deserve Greenland”; Greenlanders deserve freedom under the conditions they choose.
But for the people in Greenland this is existential. Their basic conditions of life will be radically changed if they become part of Trump’s US empire. They will lose rights and protections. Maybe they will be paid generously on the first day and get access to other opportunities. But their lives will be less secure, more vulnerable and less dignified. They will be offered a deal by a man who neither respects any political commitment nor cares about people. He does not even celebrate human rights and political freedom in principle. He’s not transactional, he’s extractive.
We know by now that what he wants in Greenland is absolutely unacceptable, but also not impossible. He wants ownership, this is “psychologically needed”, he says. It’s not about security or minerals, it’s about the ambition that the French called “la gloire” (the glory). He has a yearning to become a historic president, to expand US territory.
This is the tragedy of the people of Greenland: when they finally get the leverage to assert their dignity and demand recognition from their old master, they are confronted with a new, much stronger and more ruthless colonial master. And all of this is happening in a new geopolitical era, where an old phrase from Thucydides seems to describe the worldview of today’s rulers: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
Rune Lykkeberg is editor-in-chief of the Danish newspaper Information
