“In Greenland, a strong people stand up to Trump”

For more than a year now, people in Kalaallit Nunaat – the land of the Greenlanders – have had to endure inhuman pressure from Washington. Time and again, they have responded calmly and thoughtfully, but also firmly, to Donald Trump’s intrusions. They now hope that we in Denmark, Germany, Europe and the rest of what they see as a still reasonable world will support them more clearly.

The Kalaallit perceive the conduct of the US President as intrusive. This is confirmed by the psychologist Naja Lyberth in a Facebook post. Writing in English, she compares his behaviour to that of a person planning a sexual assault.

It is no coincidence that she uses this particular comparison. Lyberth has treated a large number of people suffering long-term consequences of sexual violence. She knows the strength people can develop when they work through trauma. She is therefore convinced that the Trump administration is severely underestimating the resilience of the Greenlandic people.

At a press conference on Tuesday, prime minister Jens Frederik Nielsen once again emphasised that the people of Greenland cannot be bought: “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be controlled by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”

On 15 March last year, people in Nuuk and other cities took to the streets to demonstrate against Trump's plans. Proudly, they carried the Greenlandic flag, Erfalasorput, in their hands. They were the largest demonstrations Greenland has ever seen. Further protests are planned for Saturday.

The reactions are also so strong because people in Greenland know what it means to live under foreign rule. The traumas of the colonial period still run deep today.

Denmark was not the “good” colonial power it often likes to see itself as. Psychologist Naja Lyberth can speak to this as well. “I no longer remember many details. But I remember the instruments,” she says in her characteristically calm voice in a 2017 radio documentary by the broadcaster DR.

At the age of 14, she was fitted with an intrauterine device – without her consent and without that of her parents. “The instruments felt like knives.”

Between 1966 and 1975, the then Danish health system fitted around 4,500 women with IUDs – in most cases, as with Lyberth, without asking. That amounted to half of all girls and women of childbearing age. Nowhere in the world did the birth rate fall as sharply during that period as it did in Greenland.

Akitsinnguaq Olsen writes to me that on Thursday her colleagues arrived at work smiling, singing and proud. They share the hope that Greenland will be able to play a more distinct role in the future.

“I hope that Greenland has gained a stronger, more independent voice in the talks. Of course, we must continue to work with Denmark, but also show how strong we Greenlanders are.”

At the same time, she is aware that she and her compatriots will have to continue to endure pressure for as long as Trump remains president of the United States. She therefore appeals to democratic states to stand together, because this is about more than Greenland alone.

“We cannot do without one another as long as an apparently ice-cold, narcissistic and power-obsessed person is president of the United States.”

Once again, as so many times before, I can only agree with my good friend.