Greenland is as vast as Nunavut with a population that exceeds that of Nunavut, the NWT and Yukon. It has an Inuit demographic predominance that positions it side-by-side with Nunavut (with which it is literally adjacent geographically) that could, if well managed, become a native paradise and model for indigenous sovereign restoration for the world to marvel.
Greenland has experienced instead its own legacy of economic stagnation, crushing social challenges (with the same persistent challenges of substance abuse and addiction, community violence, and alarming levels of youth suicide) and widespread despair. Such problems are not unbeatable 香蕉视频直播� see how Iceland, across Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 other border, invested heavily in its own energy independence and in ubiquitous youth infrastructure, creating a subarctic paradise that all of Arctic North America can learn from. The persistence of such societal dysfunction erodes the fabric of traditional values even as Greenland, along with Nunavut and much of Arctic North America, celebrates its strengthening autonomy and nurtures its yearnings for independence.
It is true that its bilateral, nation-to-state approach to sovereign restoration does set Greenland on a path toward independence that is the envy of the North. But, in practical terms, it has become a long, slow road marked by continued dependency and accelerated social dysfunction. The less grandiose but ever more practical Canadian approach of 香蕉视频直播渘ested federalism香蕉视频直播� and the Alaskan approach of extending the separation of powers to include autonomous native polities (whether structured tribally, through corporate entities owned by native peoples or as natural regional boroughs with their own ethnographic distinctiveness as allowed under Alaska香蕉视频直播檚 state constitution) have allowed for a proliferation of regional and local structures of autonomy in the political and economic space that is more granular, and better reflects the regional diversity of Arctic North America in a way that Greenland has not yet, owing to its focus on its more centralized, bilateral approach.
This is coupled with Denmark香蕉视频直播檚 continuing paternalism, and its recurring mistreatment of Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 native majority 香蕉视频直播� recently manifested in revelations of state-sanctioned efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to suppress the Inuit birth rate with ominous, Apartheid-like connotations that are dissonant with kingdom香蕉视频直播檚 assertions of benevolence over Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 fate. The 香蕉视频直播渟piral case香蕉视频直播� (香蕉视频直播�spiralsagen香蕉视频直播�), as it is known, involved Danish doctors who inserted intrauterine devices (IUDs) in thousands of Greenlandic Inuit girls and women, often without their informed consent and under the direction of government officials.
While dating back decades, that episode has become a potent reminder of the darker side of Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 colonial history, which included an effort in the 1950s to create a new generation of 香蕉视频直播渓ittle Danes,香蕉视频直播� young Greenlandic Inuit who were separated from their communities to be raised in Denmark, to return home to help cement the bond between the island and Denmark, comparable to and contemporaneous with similar efforts in Canada to separate native youth from their communities through the now-discredited residential schools (complete with mass graves and too many tales of heartbreak to count, for which Ottawa has belatedly apologized), in addition to its equally controversial effort to populate its High Arctic archipelago with Inuit displaced from Quebec 香蕉视频直播� both initially portrayed as well-intended efforts to rescue Inuit from poverty, but which exacted a high and often tragic toll in human suffering. In more recent years (and in our own, troubled present times), Danish social workers have routinely separated Inuit children from their parents using what is widely perceived to be a racially-biased 香蕉视频直播減arenting competency test香蕉视频直播� that has continued the trauma of family separation and coerced assimilation by Danes.
It cannot be understated: Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 colonial experience is not a love story, as often portrayed by the Danes, but instead long, traumatic and, at times, abusive co-dependency. U.S. President Donald Trump may well sense this, and the opportunity it presents the United States to drive a wedge between Denmark and Greenland. One can thus see why Greenland has stagnated rather than prosper, even as the rest of Arctic North America has evolved beyond dependency into something more genuinely and autonomously self-governing at the local and regional level.
Greenland香蕉视频直播檚 state-led system rooted in Europe香蕉视频直播檚 collectivist continental tradition (which tend to stagnate), combined with its lack of private property (and hence the absence of an freewheeling, entrepreneurial culture of deal-making to leveraging property for economic growth) 香蕉视频直播� albeit with permitted land use at the local level that香蕉视频直播檚 not entirely different from elsewhere across Arctic North America, which emerged from the monopoly-ruled chartered company lands of the fur trade with its own collectivist European roots 香蕉视频直播� has held the upper hand on matters of development, innovation and investment with the public sector in command. As we saw at the Cold War香蕉视频直播檚 end, centralized economies experienced a cascading collapse under the accumulated weight of competition with private economies in the West as the world economy rapidly globalized. The West, in the end, trounced the East, and private enterprise became the new mantra as the East and West converged. Except, of course, in much of Arctic North America, particularly the farther east of the Alaska boundary you travel. Perhaps Trump香蕉视频直播檚 vision for Greenland is a Berlin Wall moment to come in from the cold, and to break free of the paternalism and suffocating collectivism of the European mindset.
One might thus argue: perhaps Greenland will benefit from a much-needed infusion of western entrepreneurialism, and a little more of our free enterprise culture with its exuberant embrace of private property rather than state-controlled, government-led economics. This does not suggest that in Alaska or Canada it香蕉视频直播檚 entirely freewheeling, but is in fact, in many ways, much the same but less extreme 香蕉视频直播� but where political capital continues to predominate over economic capital more often than not (forcing the Inupiat to not only subsidize the other native regions with its oil wealth, but half the billion dollars Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act brought to native Alaska, and allowing Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, like the Mackenzie Valley, to remain decoupled from the North香蕉视频直播檚 oil infrastructure, despite the earnest desire on the slope to have it drilled and pumped at long last (and which may finally have its moment in these next four years, god willing).
But the success and endurance (for all the hiccups along the way) demonstrated by the native corporations as they bridged the gap between the state (as a settler-dominated colonial structure) and tribal peoples (who were colonized by the former), have given natives such a large stake in the system that they have effectively become their own order of government (during the pandemic, Washington came to view the Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) as governmental organizations eligible to receive public health aid, as they were often the most effective institutions of self-governance in rural Alaska).
-Barry Zellen is a former Yellowknife resident who is now an independent scholar specializing in Arctic geopolitics.
