Greenland lawmaker takes tough stand

Aki Matilda Hogh-Dam, Greenland’s member in the Danish parliament, Folketing, in Copenhagen spoke in Greenlandic on Thursday. She distributed the translation of the speech into Danish to the members before she delivered her speech in her mother-tongue.

The Inuit, the name of the ethnic group she belonged to, member of the social democrat Siumut party, is fluent in Danish. At the end of her speech in Greenlandic, Speaker Soren Gade asked her if she would repeat the speech in Danish. She said she would not.

Then he asked her to leave the podium saying that her speech cannot be discussed unless it is delivered in Danish. She was insisting that there should be simultaneous translation of her Greenlandic speech into Danish. She was explaining her party’s position which was what the debate was about. By asking her to leave the podium, Speaker Gade made it evident that her speech cannot be debated.

Greenland had been a colony of Denmark’s Crown, and then it became a self-ruled entity in 1979, and became an autonomous region in 2009. Danish is taught in Greenland’s schools. But Greenland has accused Denmark of wrongdoings in the large Arctic island during the last century. The political relations between the island and Denmark have been strained for years. But Greenland is dependent on Denmark for annual financial support, which is 4 billion kroner ($600 million) in 2024. Greenland has a population of 57,000. And Greenland is demanding independence.

The Greenland-Denmark tiff is not an isolated instance in Europe. There is the question of Catalonia in Spain, where there is an ongoing struggle for autonomy and independence by the Catalans. Then there is case of Scotland, which enjoys the status of a self-governing region with a parliament and government of its own, and there is a demand from a section of political parties for independence. The differences between Greenland and Denmark, between Catalonia and Spain, between Scotland and England happens to be complicated. It is an ethnic divide, a cultural divide, a linguistic divide. But they have existed together for a long time.

In the case of Greenland it might appear that is a pure case of colonialism, and it dates back to no further than the early 20th century. In the case of Catalonia and Scotland, the connection goes back to centuries, and there is the inevitable cultural intermingling. But Catalonia and Scotland had retained their distinctive cultural identities despite the hegemony of Spain and England over them.

It just goes to show that people are not willing to give up their deep-rooted cultural identities for the sake of convenience. It is not difficult to argue that Catalonia and Scotland have much to gain from being part of the larger entities like Spain and England. But the Catalans and the Scots, and the Greenlanders, would argue back saying that their roots are more important for them than the material advantages of being part of a larger political structure.

Can these issues be sorted out politically, democratically? The Catalonian experience shows that it is not easy to do so. Spain had resorted to force to control the breakaway political groups who had declared Catalan independence. But force is not the answer. And Spanish politicians know that only too well. So they keep the channels of communications open with the Catalan politicians, and they offer then incentives to remain part of Spain.

The English had decided in the late 1990s to a devolution plan by which Scotland could become autonomous along with Wales and Cornwall. Though some of the Scottish politicians want to break away from Britain, the people in the referendum are not supporting them. But the independence sentiment is pretty strong. So it is with Greenlanders in their political equation with Denmark, a tense relationship.