← 5CAST w/ Andrew Callaghan
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- [00:00]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the five Cast, which is our long form broadcast podcast type of deal that we launched a few months back. Our special guest today is Danish journalist and New York Times contributor Maya Takeli, who's been covering cultural affairs, social issues, foreign policy and independence movements in Greenland for the past couple years. As some of you guys who follow my pages super closely might know, I was just in Greenland for a couple days. Along with Vice Founder Shane Smith and his production team, we're currently collaborating on a joint series that covers international affairs and are likely gearing up soon to head to Iran, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Somaliland, Papua New guinea and some other places. So I'm excited for that. And I am currently back on a plane headed to Jordan to meet our Channel 5 team on the ground, where after I'm entering the Palestinian territories to document the ongoing situation there regarding settlement expansion in the west bank and figure out what the future of Palestinian sovereignty might look like under the PA now that Hamas appears to be transitioning out of a leadership role in the Gaza Strip. So without spoiling too much, I want to brief you guys a bit on how things went down in Greenland before we dive into the interview with Maya. Just I found very interesting she has.
- [01:03]
B
Something with this book after we sat.
- [01:04]
A
Down this morning called the Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, which is about a journalist who was successfully sued by a convicted triple murderer for pretending to be their friend as a disarming technique while interviewing them on background for a true crime piece. And it's just a very great book. So thank you Maya for letting me borrow this reading. Makes me feel like a genius and it's nice to look smart.
- [01:21]
B
So back to Greenland.
- [01:22]
A
Yeah, it was a media shit show to say the least. Members of the press borderline outnumbered civilians, but I was able to talk to a lot of great Greenlandic people, several of whom were trained in the art of freestyle rapping in their native language, which was pretty tight, and I got to sit down with some pretty prominent politicians along the way. So overall, 10 out of 10 shoot. I actually plan to go back briefly after Palestine to document some other things that I felt like I didn't have time to properly document during that three day window. But one of the best parts about being there was getting to meet other journalists who knew a lot more about the subject than I do. The situation and subject for those unaware is that currently Trump wants Greenland bad and indicated recently that while he doesn't plan to use military force to take it From Denmark, the US will impose 10 to 25% tariffs on any European nations who impose the acquisition, effectively punishing the working people and small business owners in countries that we're allied with for being unwilling to stand behind a colonization project that only 8% of Americans support. These antics have led to massive protests in Copenhagen because of course Greenland is still within the Kingdom of Denmark despite achieving an internal self rule in 2009, as well as a protest in Nuuk, the country's biggest town, which I personally covered myself. So most people that I talked to on the ground compared the situation to Venezuela. An act of resource driven imperial aggression masked as the necessary neutralization of a security threat. Like, you know, Madur poisoning Americans with fentanyl. So we need his oil. I guess the Greenland equivalent would be Russia and China are going to step on Denmark and use Greenland as a launch pad for their evil plans. So we need to seize all of the island's rare earth minerals without paying for them, or else communists are going to bomb Boston. So anyways, in the spirit of research and development and because I love talking to journalists, here's the interview with Maya that I did this morning. And by the way, five Cast is also available in audio only format on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and pretty much everywhere else. Just look up the word 5cast in all caps and you will find it. All right, without further ado, let's get into it.
- [03:11]
B
Alrighty, thanks so much for making the time. As if we haven't been hanging out in Nuuk for three days. For those who don't know, can you tell us your name and what you do?
- [03:20]
C
My name is Maja Tigitli and I'm a freelance journalist and I work mainly in Denmark, but also in Nuuk in Greenland. All over Greenland for the New York Times and I'm a correspondent for a Danish newspaper, Global Correspondent.
- [03:35]
B
Before we get into all the Greenland.
- [03:36]
A
Stuff, we've been in Nuuk for the past 72 hours.
- [03:39]
C
Was fun, right?
- [03:40]
B
It's been a media circus. What was your main takeaway from the past couple days?
- [03:44]
C
My main takeaway when I arrived there is that this is such a big story. It's like world news. Everybody wants to be part of the story and therefore they go to Nook. So you'll see journalists on every street corner. It's a very disturbing image because they stick out in Nook very EAS easily and it doesn't really make sense when you think about it to rush to the capitol because all of the things that makes Greenland world news right now are going on in this meta unreal realm. Of social media and joint statements from unions sent via text message or email. So nothing is really going on in the city, besides the fact that if you want to go to the supermarket, a journalist or two will ask you if you will die for Greenland. Whatever. I don't know what they ask, but they have to come up with something new, right?
- [04:44]
B
Yeah. Because Greenland's kind of having its biggest moment in the press of all time right now.
- [04:48]
C
This is a big moment. It is the biggest moment in so many ways, and there are so many things to write about or to ask people about, but it's just. I feel bad for people just trying to live their life as such a peaceful people. And there are eight journalists just on the main shopping street, right?
- [05:06]
B
Yeah. It seems like all of the media has been concentrated in Nuuk. And for those who aren't familiar with Greenland, there's 56,000 people living there. Nuuk is the capital and the biggest city, but there are several communities. In your experience, what's been your favorite place in the country?
- [05:19]
C
I loved going to the south of Greenland. It was like, I guess this is where people that decided to call the island Greenland arrived because it was green all over. I went there in the summer. I met some really fun people. We did a lot of sailing around to different islands and parts of the water. I told you this. I went to a city that was like what I imagined to be the San Francisco of Greenland. People were feeling a little loose.
- [05:46]
B
And what was the name of that city?
- [05:47]
C
Karotok. I really liked that. But as a journalist, I enjoyed going to the east because you see a very big difference between the west and the east of Greenland, Even though it's in the same municipality. Nuuk, and for examp to Selak, one of the biggest, biggest cities in east Greenland are completely different. Nuuk is very industrialized, supermarkets and streamlined roads. And in Tzcilac, everything is completely different. Everything's falling apart. There is not a hospital, schools, anything that you would need as a normal person living in a city. And I think that's like, could be an important thing to figure out if you want to cover world news. Maybe step outside of Nook for a week.
- [06:31]
B
Definitely. So jumping straight into it, why do you think Trump wants to acquire Greenland?
- [06:35]
C
I don't know, obviously, but he said a bunch of stuff, right? He said that he needs that. The US needs it for strategic purposes. And they have that. Given that they have a 1951 defense agreement that allows U.S. troops to do whatever they want. They had, like, I think it was 17 bases pulled out of all of them. There's one left, 150 people there. So he says he wants that. And it's not enough to kind of lease the island for the bases. So you could say that's why. Then there's a vast amount of rare earth minerals like gold and uranium and zinc and all of these super important minerals, but the market is open to invest in that, too. It's just a really difficult thing to do because of the climate, because of the labor pool, obviously. It's very small. There are 56,000 people there. And a lot of other things make it not as easy as the President is making it sound, but nonetheless available. So that doesn't truly make sense to me either. I mean, we heard a little bit about not that long ago in an interview with the New York Times. It's a psychological thing to be able to be the guy who acquired Greenland as part of American territory. It would be the biggest gained territory for Americans ever. I bet it will go into history.
- [07:56]
B
Like, he knows he's probably going to die relatively soon. And so Trump wants to have. Not that I wish that he wants to have a legacy. And he wants his grandchildren to, like, realize that their grandpa was like this heroic world conquistador who sees the ice island up north.
- [08:09]
C
Sure. He was really upset he didn't get the Nobel Prize. And I think that says something about the mentality. Right?
- [08:15]
B
Yeah.
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C
And. And yes, if he's like other people, other males, he will die soon. Right. How old is he?
- [08:21]
B
81. But he, you know, he drinks Diet Pepsi and eats meatloaf all day. He has a Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi button in his office. It was installed by his staff. So at the Oval Office desk, there's a button below it. It's called the Pepsi button. And actually it's Coke. I don't think he likes Pepsi. He drinks it all day. And, you know, obviously soda has debilitating effects.
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C
What would kind of button would you get?
- [08:42]
B
Probably sparkling water, like a La Croix button or something like that. Something chill.
- [08:47]
C
Okay.
- [08:47]
B
One thing I noticed when I was in Nook is that, you know, the people there, it's interesting because they're not eager to be interviewed, especially by Americans. There's a bit of media fatigue that I've noticed.
- [08:57]
C
Oh, my God. I get it.
- [08:58]
B
But you've been covering this for a long time. What is the Greenlandic perception of this current saga with Trump?
- [09:04]
C
In the beginning of all of this, in January last year, it was like this fun event. His son and Charlie Kirk came to Nook all of a sudden. And they got a lot of fun attention, I guess it felt like. But from there, it's mainly just been shock on shock on shock. You'll hear the Prime Minister talking a lot about the disrespect that they're experiencing. And I think that's a big part of it. Feeling like, once again, you're being disrespected as a people by a powerful nation. So it's also a re. Traumatizing session of the culture, not necessarily of specific people. I guess some of the people I have spoken to remember the last time that there were Americans and remembers being forced to do a lot of different things they didn't want to do. And then at this point, it's also just very tiring because it's. It goes. It's again and again you get a small pause in your life and then the kind of new wave comes. Like last week when we went because he said something and then everybody came to Nook to ask you what you felt about the things he was saying. So, yeah, I guess it kind of tears you apart from within, I guess. A lot of people told me that they don't sleep. When they sleep, they have nightmares. Those nightmares are specifically American planes bombing Greenland. And you never know when something is. When the attention is going to stop. And I think that's the worst part. There's no end to it. You know, when you've been in a bad situation, at least if you know that you're about to leave in an hour or it'll stop at some point you can endure. But this, it seems like you cannot guess when it will.
- [10:44]
B
So the overarching feeling is fatigue and then a little bit of anxiety as well.
- [10:48]
C
A lot of anxiety, I think. But it's now turning into anger. We saw that demonstration.
- [10:53]
B
Yeah.
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C
And I think that was a really cool act of defiance, turning your anxiety into anger and to revitalize yourself and get some energy to keep going.
- [11:01]
B
Yeah. So for context, that was the largest demonstration in Greenlandic history. It was a March on the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, and we filmed some interviews there for the upcoming thing that we're doing with. With vice.
- [11:11]
C
Yeah. And there were demonstrations in three other cities in Greenland as well.
- [11:16]
B
Yeah. So the relationship between Greenland and Denmark is a really interesting one that I wanted to highlight growing up here in Denmark. What did you learn about Greenlanders and the. Between Denmark and Greenland?
- [11:26]
C
Well, not enough. I will say that a lot of things have happened in my life that kind of blurs out my childhood But I think that the main thing I was taught was administrative stuff about the kingdom of Denmark and how Greenland was connected to the kingdom. Some of the old Greenlandic myths in like the spiritual part of religion studies, I guess, as far as I remember, at least that's about it. And that's not enough. There's not really any way to learn to speak the language. But at the same time, everybody in Greenland speaks Danish. Right. Because it's part of their schooling. It's a little bit embarrassing. And I think that could be a really good part or, you know, thing that comes out of this. Obviously as a journalist you have the possibility to educate people through your reporting now because there's so much attention instead of just asking people on the street what they think. You can do a lot of digging and make sure that everybody knows, knows the context. But I do think it would be a really good idea that children in Denmark. But obviously in the rest of the world we're taught about these indigenous native people that still have some sort of serenity compared to a lot of other places in the world where they don't.
- [12:43]
B
Yeah. Before we get into the extent of Greenlandic sovereignty, you talked about the history of the people there and the history of their culture and society. How would you break down sparknote style A brief history at Greenland for the uneducated American viewer at home.
- [12:55]
C
So the story goes that the first European contact with Greenland was around the same time that Inuits came from Canada to the island. Then the European Northern. The northern people, I don't remember what they're called left Inuit, stayed there to build the life. Danish Norwegian guy came to spread the word of Christianity and make sure that the people that were here before regained control of the island. Made people Christian, make them listen to God. God says that it would be a good idea if Denmark controlled the commerce and all the foreign policies and things like that. Classic colonial stuff. And from there on, no control of commerce or no contact with the outside world. That didn't go through Denmark until 1979, where Greenlanders obviously had. Had built a political environment of their own, got self rule and then later on in 2009, home rule and that leaves Greenland. There's a lot of shit I could mention now, especially all of the scandalous ways that Danes have treated Greenlanders. But this is just like to give you an idea about where they stand politically now. They do have their own mature political parliament and structures. And I think the only thing that's left in Denmark is foreign policy and security policy.
- [14:20]
B
So Greenland has its Own parliament. Most people on the parliament are of Inuit origin.
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C
Yes.
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B
They're relatively sovereign, but Denmark specifically still negotiates all of their foreign affairs, which.
- [14:31]
C
Is, like, in their main interest. Right. Because of the way that they're placed and all of the minerals and all of these stuff that we're talking about.
- [14:39]
B
Yeah. But also, you know, whenever I went to Greenland, I expected everyone to be on some, like, independence tip. Like if you visit first nations, like if you go to reservations in America, the first thing you hear is, we need more sovereignty. The Bureau of Indian affairs is not giving us enough rights to do what we want to do. We still feel like we are dependent on the federal government. We want our own land back. That's the common perception among the young people. When I went to Greenland, I was asking people, what do you think about Denmark? And I was expecting them to be like, oh, it's an evil colonial power. We want to be free. We want nothing to do with them. But then I learned about the welfare system that's in place.
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C
Oh, yeah.
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B
And for Americans at home who haven't been to Denmark or don't know about how things work here, college is not only free, but they pay you per semester to go to school.
- [15:21]
C
You get paid to study.
- [15:23]
B
Health care and medicine is also pretty much free unless you need a really specialized treatment. And there's a number of services that are free to the whole public. And the tax revenue of the average citizen is used to. To make that money to go around.
- [15:35]
C
Yes. You can actually go by ambulance to a hospital without having to ruin your fucking life.
- [15:40]
B
Crazy. So Greenlanders and the people there also get those benefits?
- [15:44]
C
Sure, to an extent. As I told you, there's differences between Nook and other parts of Greenland where you haven't established an infrastructure that allows people easily go to the hospital because there are no hospital in some of the city. I think there's one in Nook. And there are not schools in every city. But the idea is that they have the same benefits. And I just recently talked to a woman who lives in, like, the most isolated, I would say part of northern Greenland, who broke her ankle and had to be flown out to Nuuk to figure out that they couldn't fix it at the hospital in Nuuk and then be flown to Denmark and stay here for a month or two to get it fixed. So if you don't have the access in your city, it is by law decided that you should somehow get the help. Do they always do that? I don't think so. Is it implemented well enough? I don't think so either, and I don't think a lot of people think so.
- [16:39]
B
But if things were technically functioning, that person would have gotten flown for free to Denmark.
- [16:44]
C
She did get flown for free to Denmark, so that was functioning. But in my logic, my Danish logic, that's not good enough of. In your American logic, that's maybe luxury.
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B
Can you. I'm just imagining, right, like in America.
- [16:55]
C
Like, there should be a hospital next to you. You should not be flown out.
- [16:59]
B
That logically would be like if someone who lived in an American territory like Samoa, Guam or, you know, Puerto Rico. Yeah. Broke their ankle and then got flown to a hospital for free in New York. It's unthinkable. It would cost that person tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands died.
- [17:13]
C
Maybe, don't you think?
- [17:14]
A
100%.
- [17:15]
C
Yeah.
- [17:15]
B
But I think it's important to set this framework because part of the anxiety, I'm sure, on behalf of Greenlanders, is if they were to be acquired by the us, they would lose their Danish citizenship and then become part of the American health care system, which is one of the worst in the West.
- [17:29]
C
Yes. You have to pay for an ambulance, right?
- [17:31]
B
You have to pay for an ambulance.
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A
Not only that, all of you know.
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B
The medicine is controlled by privatized drug manufacturers who do price gouging and they make things more expensive, like stuff like insulin, AIDS medicine. There's people out there trying to make a bigger profit by making those medicines more expensive. And our healthcare industry. That's why Luigi Mangioni whacked that guy.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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B
That's just. That's just the insurance claim denial part. That's just one tip. That's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to some of this shit. So that would terrify me as a Greenlander, you know, and not say, I'm sure there's problems.
- [18:04]
C
You're terrifying me right now.
- [18:06]
B
Yeah.
- [18:07]
C
I don't want to fall and break something in the us and is that.
- [18:12]
B
A correct perception that they would lose Danish citizenship if they were to be acquired by Trump?
- [18:16]
C
I can't really answer that because I don't know what acquired means, but I guess so if it became American territory, it wouldn't be Danish any longer. Right. But I think that if it was taken, the Danish state would do their best to re. Establish or like, keep the established welfare system in place. But you couldn't. Right. I think the big question here is what does. Not to change the subject, but what does get actually mean? We need to. To get Greenland. I haven't really figured that out yet.
- [18:45]
B
In terms of is it going to be a purchase for, like, a military conquest?
- [18:48]
C
Yes, first of all. But, like, get you want to rule Greenland or like, what do you want to do when you get it? Because if it's for strategic and mineral purposes, what about the rest of what goes on when you acquire a territory? Right. I don't think that has been very clear at any point. We're all speculating how is he going to get it? Because that's interesting and a little bit scary, and that fits the news really good. But what does it mean? I think would be super great to have somebody ask him if they talk to him.
- [19:20]
B
What do you think it most likely means?
- [19:21]
C
I think that it means to put a flag there and take some pictures of it. And I think practically what you'd have to do to take Greenland would be to take the airspace, the airports. But to me, it feels like you just want to take a selfie there and say, now, this is mine now. Like you buy a car. But I don't. I don't know. I think it's very unclear. Maybe I'm stupid. I don't think I am. But I think it's very unclear what's going on.
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B
Do you expect, you know, any armed conflict to actually occur, or you think it's just going to remain this, like, weird proxy thing?
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C
This is one of the questions you get on the street of Nook.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So let's stay away from speculation.
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C
Yeah, I don't know, man.
- [20:00]
B
Okay, let's stay away from that kind of speculation. But I want to speculate a different, perhaps conspiracy theory.
- [20:07]
C
Oh, no.
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B
So the Peter Thiel iceberg, I see a lot of people talking about, you know, him wanting to build a futuristic AI city or something.
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C
Ingredient people on the Internet.
- [20:16]
B
Yes.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Okay, what's going on there?
- [20:18]
C
I think that this is hard to talk about because the reporting on this is really bad. And because I am who I am, this is what I kind of want to stick to. But I have been exposed to a lot of things on both YouTube, funnily enough, other social media platforms about this. But I think there was this one article in Reuters maybe that kind of sketched out the idea to do a freedom city in Greenland, which I understood to be this libertarian tech valley somewhere in Greenland where people could guess, set up a lot of data centers because of the cooling nature of the island, and from there on live an ideological life together. Very rich tech people. And I mean, and it's been sketched out pretty clearly, but the conspiracy theories that it gives birth to are not very well looked into. I think people are freaking out a little bit because the ambassador to Denmark, Ken howery, worked on PayPal with Peter Thiel as well. So it's a little strange that the friend of the guy who wants the Freedom City in Greenland is now a political figure within. In this mission to get Greenland. That's what is freaking people out. I mean, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, man, but I bet they talk to each other. I'm not sure if Freedom City was just like a drunken idea we could have done. We could get drunk and have an idea like that too, right?
- [21:47]
B
Yeah. Freedom City in Greenland does sound like a drunk idea.
- [21:50]
C
Yeah, it could be pretty fun.
- [21:51]
B
Specifically cocaine.
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C
Yeah. Yes. It's snowing tonight, baby.
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A
But that's some Kitchen Talk.
- [21:57]
B
Five in the morning.
- [21:59]
C
That could be it. And then Kitchen Talk turns into something else. But maybe I should do some reporting on it, actually.
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B
Yeah, I don't think it's that outrageous. If you consider the connections between PayPal mafia Peter Thiel and JD Vance. They're kind of. They bankrolled his entire vice presidential campaign. And even before then, like, Peter Thiel and J.D. vance are tight. They share a similar agenda, which is just making a bunch of money and accruing power. So I don't think it's outrageous that, like, us. Yeah, right. I don't think it's outrageous that there can be, like, some connective tissue there.
- [22:27]
C
No, no, not at all. But to me, it's just important that we figure it out somehow. Because of the, like, absurdity of the situation, people are looking for ways to explain what is going on. And I get that that's supernatural, and I'm trying to do that as well. I think in this type of situation where everything goes on in this, like, imaginary realm I talked about, where you're tweeting something and that changes the entire world, or let's try to be the guys that get to the bottom of things and make sure that we can prove what we say. Because the rest of this discussion is non proven, non logical, and just, like, radical. And I think that's also what's making a lot of people really scared for their lives and livelihood. I'm not trying to be, like, the guardians of morale. Guardian of morale right now, but I think that's my way out of talking about this conspiracy.
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B
Yeah, no, totally. Well, I think it's important to. It's so easy. Go like, full Palantir. Peter Thiel.
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C
I would love to do that. And when you turn off the cameras. Let's go there. But I mean, well, let's talk about.
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B
The validity of a different concern that was brought up by Trump as far as the security threat and kind of the Arctic being this frontier of the new surveillance war between China, Russia and the U.S. is there any merit to the idea that if we didn't seize Greenland, that China and Russia would use it as a place to plot their next attack or like spy program against.
- [23:54]
C
The U.S. i mean, again, I haven't talked to Russia and China, but what I do know is that these ships that he keep mentioning, it sounds as if there are Russian Chinese ships in the harbors of Nuuk. They are not moving inside of the realm. They are in international waters like they're supposed to be. It's very important to say there is no intel backing up his claims, that they're just like running around trying to take over the country. Obviously there are the specific interests that he's talking about, the placement of the island with the country and the minerals that you can access. Sure, that's something that superpowers are interested in, but it is a very exaggerated description. The few investments that, for example, Chinese companies have tried to do have, have been stopped by the Greenlandic and Danish government. So it's like, it's not that fucking crazy. He would know if he went. I would love to see him go. Not saying that as a threat, but I would actually love to see Trump.
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B
Physically touch down a nuke.
- [25:03]
C
That would be really great.
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B
Don't you not send his son and the Kirkinator to do it for him?
- [25:07]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be fun. I think he could learn something also.
- [25:11]
B
I think I learned a lot.
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C
Right.
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B
Circling back to that conversation about the.
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A
Positive relationship, positive elements of the relationship.
- [25:18]
B
Between Greenland and Denmark, probably. We got to talk about some of the bad as well.
- [25:22]
C
Let's do it. Yeah.
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B
So one of the articles that you broke last year was about young women in Greenland being having contraceptives forced on them to slow the birth rate down and make it so less Greenlanders are born. Can you kind of elaborate on what happened there?
- [25:35]
C
That's pretty crazy, right? It's a well known story in Denmark, but it was in around the 60s, all the way up until 1992 girls down to the age of 12 had secretly put IUDs in their body by Danish doctors. And also they got injected with, I don't know, this medicine that makes you sterile, I guess.
- [25:58]
B
What?
- [25:59]
C
That's a little part of it. But these two things are pretty crazy.
- [26:04]
B
Up until 1992 that was happening.
- [26:06]
C
Yeah. And a lot of them did not even know what was happening. I'm gonna tell you a little crazy story right now, but I spoke to some of the women that recently got an apology for the daily stage state from doing this and what had happened. Some of the times were that they would start to experience. These 12, 13 year old girls would start to experience a lot of pain in their body. They wouldn't understand why. They would go back to the doctor. They would say, I'm feeling super strange. I'm bleeding. I don't know why. The doctor would not recognize the pain or the struggles of the girl. She would go back and luckily women would start talking to each other. They'd find out that they had IUDs. Some of them from doctors telling them luckily. And they would. To be able to have children pull them out themselves.
- [26:57]
B
Jesus.
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C
Because I mean the doctors wouldn't take.
- [27:00]
B
Them out and the doctors knew what was happening and they had to pretend like they didn't know.
- [27:04]
C
I don't know if they had to pretend, but some of them it.
- [27:06]
B
And what do you think Denmark's motivation in. In doing something that horrible was?
- [27:10]
C
I think it's a common thing that you want to keep down the birth rate in areas that you control. And I think we see a lot of stories like this all over the world. Especially with kind of like colonialism.
- [27:23]
B
I just can't. I mean those. All those doctors should get a life sentence in prison. I don't know if you guys have that out here.
- [27:28]
C
We have. But it's 12 years or something or not. No, it's more my life sentence are very weird. Let's talk about that at another point.
- [27:34]
B
Either way, like that's just play PlayStation. That's so horrible. The doctors who are supposed to take care of you, you know, and how can you get that many people, doctors especially, who presumably went into the field to help people heal from sicknesses and stuff on board to do something that horrible like preventing someone from being able to have children by injecting them as a child.
- [27:54]
C
How do you make people kill each other? It's like making them think that they are doing it for some greater good. And a lot of other things have happened too. A lot of cities have been shut down because of coal mining. For example, there was a big coal min city and when the coal mine closed down, Danish people running it just closed down the city and forced people to move somewhere else after they've been living there for their entire life. When they created the B base, the American space base. They had to tear down an entire community. Tul Inuit, some of the oldest tribes, were forcefully moved to a city that they built. Having to say goodbye to their entire history, their ancestors, and go on dog sled to some weird place where you would live in a house. They lived in huts. Children were taken to Denmark by the Danish state to try to experiment on them. It's called the experiment children. To see if they could make them better people by educating them in Denmark against their will. It's like there's so many things that have happened that are part of this very strained relationship between Denmark and Greenland. And there's a lot of talk right now about how bringing up these things again are part of an influence campaign to create further strains between Denmark and Greenland in order for the US to take over. I think that's a valid anxiety if you're Danish and you want to keep Greenland inside the realm. But I also think it's pretty important to talk about these things now and again. This is a big moment. Let's use this moment to relive history so that we don't forget and then recognize that a lot of these things were crazy. Right?
- [29:31]
B
Yeah, it's well put because there's so much good and bad in that relationship, but there's a lot of, yeah, but.
- [29:35]
C
We can't pretend like it didn't happen. That seems dumb and I don't understand why. I know it's not nice, and I know that the current government in Denmark were not there when that happened, but, I mean, we need to be adults now.
- [29:50]
B
Was there any attempt to erase the Greenlandic language?
- [29:53]
C
Man, I'm not very knowledgeable on this part, but I guess when you start teaching people Danish in school, there's a big chance that people won't keep the traditional language. Right. A lot of Greenlandic youth speak Greenlandic still, but more of them speak better English. Now. I do know of a lot of greenlighters who lost their language. My age, I think.
- [30:15]
B
But more as a result of exposure.
- [30:17]
A
To mass culture, I would say.
- [30:18]
B
So I find that the most interesting, especially because in the US there was a real extreme, systematic effort to destroy indigenous languages. We've been covering the current revitalization of the Navajo or Dine language. Like they're just now opening up immersion schools for the first time in 50, 60 years. It was so bad back in the day on every reservation where some of the Catholic missionaries and the white teachers that ran some of these boarding schools would like, wash people's mouth out with soap for speaking their native tongue, like, beat them. And you know, the whole point, they, they, they thought that if they erased the language first, that everything else, as far as cultural loss would follow, which in some cases it did. But in Greenland, because it's so isolated and maybe because of Danish policy, it seems like the Greenlandic language is thriving. And when you go there, you hear people talking it everywhere and you're like, oh, this is interesting, because even in Alaska, where they share ancestry with the Greenlanders, if you look at the Earth from the top, all Arctic peoples are linguistically connected in some way. Most of them, at least. You won't hear much native Alaskan spoken in, like, Fairbanks or Anchorage. But in Newcombs, like, everybody speaks fremantic.
- [31:17]
C
Yeah. And I think we have a responsibility to see if we can learn that too. As Danes, this is something I haven't looked into. And as a Danish reporter, this is also very important to say. There are lots of things that I don't know yet, and I'm still trying to figure out. That's why in many ways it's so important to, to that what we also do right now is focus on Greenlandic journalists, Greenlandic historians, Greenlandic politicians, to kind of get access to the microphones now, because throughout time, a lot of people have gone to Greenland to experience the Arctic cold and to be an Arctic explorer, shoot a polar bear and do really hard stuff and document it and talk to very interesting Greenlanders and write it down and then end up being the people telling the story, first of all. And also end up being very, very famous for going and doing something that Greenlanders do every day.
- [32:20]
A
Like what?
- [32:20]
C
Like hunting. Seal hunting. I was on a seal hunt and I was like, oh, I'm so cool. I'm doing something really hard. I went ice fishing as well. You cut a hole in the ice and you pull up fish. I was like, this is so hard. Let me take a picture. And I just didn't realize that the day after, when I was super tired from being on the ice and dog sledding all day, they just left at five in the morning to do it again. Right.
- [32:45]
B
That's crazy. So in places that aren't industrialized, like Nuuk, like if you were to go to Katak or somewhere in the south or the east, is there still people living that, like, old, pre colonial life?
- [32:54]
C
Yes, man. The people love hunting. It's a big part of the culture. They hunt seals. That's really fun for them. I spoke to a guy in Kul actually in the east when all of this happened again. And I asked him, what do you think about the Trump stuff? And he said, I just hope Americans don't come and take over Greenland because I know they find seals very cute and I just need to keep hunting my seals and they hunt reindeer and whales. It's. It's incredible. And it's not even to try to be cool. It's because that's what you do.
- [33:24]
B
I didn't even think about that. Also, America might increase the presence of like PETA style animal activists and they're not going to be cool with the idea of anyone killing a narwhal wall, for example.
- [33:33]
C
Oh yeah, that's an even cuter animal. Tell them about the Pharaoh Islands, man.
- [33:38]
B
That's. That's Denmark's other colony, right? Other territory.
- [33:42]
C
Other territory, yeah.
- [33:43]
B
So one year that you mentioned that I think is really important is the year 2009. Cuz that's the year that Greenland achieved self governance and moved to home rule. Was that a huge moment for them?
- [33:52]
C
Yes, it was. It was an important moment after pushing and pushing and pushing to do that. And it was a, an important step towards what they really want, which is independence. I don't think that there is any political movement in Greenland that do not want independence. It's more so about how you get there. I don't know if you ever had like a job you hated?
- [34:13]
B
Yes, many.
- [34:14]
C
Okay, so me too. You get to a point where you want to quit your job and you need to move on. The question will be, will I wait until I have the next job job and got things figured out and I'm sure I have the money so I don't get thrown out of my house or am I just gonna quit and I'm gonna figure it out.
- [34:32]
B
I worked restaurant jobs until I was 23 and I'd already been well into my career. But I had to wait to leave the service industry until I had like enough of a career in journalism to just do that full time. I think I probably would have failed if I just was like it. I'm dropping out of school, I'm quitting my job, I'm gonna be a reporter. Because it would have been too much stress and I would have had no foundation.
- [34:53]
C
Also if I met you and you were trying to get a job where I was living, working and you had this like it. I'm just going to. I would also maybe be a little careful negotiating with you. Right. Because you would have like this crazy energy. I guess this is me trying to like create some Sort of analogy, right?
- [35:10]
B
No, no, I think it's good.
- [35:11]
C
So. So that's the big differences in the tempo in which people want to move towards independence.
- [35:18]
B
So everybody wants it. It's just a matter of timeline and.
- [35:21]
C
How you do it. A lot of people I've spoken to lately agree that it's important that you build a strong economy before you're able to disconnect from Denmark. That still provides a lot of money to Greenland each year. Right.
- [35:36]
B
Half of all of Greenland's income is provided through welfare by Denmark. I'm not sure a large part of the Greenlandic people receive their income from Denmark's welfare system.
- [35:48]
C
Yeah, and it's part of the funding the system.
- [35:51]
B
So the fear is that if you went independent, you would lose the advantages of the. Of the Danish welfare system.
- [35:57]
C
Yeah, you would. That's part of the public debate is a lot of the times when Greenlanders have mentioned their desire to be independent. The response from Danish politicians or public figures has been, well, then find your own doctors or find your own way of getting cucumbers to green Greenland. Because Danes also send every product ever to Greenland that they can't do themselves. Right. And that, I guess, is reality. There are so many things that they would have to figure out from scratch. But I guess by some it's been interpreted as a threat or like a consequence. Say saying, I want independence. And then the response is, well, then.
- [36:44]
B
I didn't know that you're on your own. I was really curious about that. I was wondering if, like Danish politicians would feel offended and basically punish them and say, you're on your own. If they decided to become independent, but.
- [36:55]
C
They would be on their own.
- [36:56]
B
I didn't know they'd made that clear.
- [36:58]
C
I don't think the intention was to threat anyone, or I hope not, I don't know. But that's how it's been interpreted at least.
- [37:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, independence for Greenland would mean a lot of things. I mean, it's hard because I was here doing this collaboration show with Van Device and they actually, they have some. A crazy network of fixers and contacts and they got us into the Danish Parliament and while we were there, we interviewed a couple, an MP and her staff and spokespeople who are associated with the Greenlandic Independence Party. Yes.
- [37:28]
C
Okay.
- [37:28]
B
And they were saying that like, you know, they're referencing like the sterilization and all these atrocities. And then the next thing they said is, therefore Greenland should be ruled by the Greenlandic people. Hands off Denmark. It's ours. Yeah, And I did but, and I.
- [37:41]
A
Asked them, I was like, what's their position?
- [37:43]
B
Are you worried about losing the benefits of the welfare system if Greenland becomes independent? And they were like, no. Like we, we have an abundant and rich land. We have great trade relationships with other European nations. We could become part of the EU maybe, or NATO or, you know, do what Iceland did, basically.
- [38:00]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see that.
- [38:01]
B
And I don't know. I really don't know. Like I said, we're going back to speculation now. Like, what's Trump going to do? I think it's a speculation, like what would happen if Greenlandic people lost their Danish citizenship, got Greenland passports and became totally sovereign.
- [38:14]
C
So I'm actually working on some research trying to figure out how much money do you need to run Greenland? So that's some of the things we need to look into now to answer these questions because again, let's not spend our time trying to figure out what will happen within the next turning point of this political wrestling thing. Let's try to figure out all of the information so that we can monitor the situation, which with as much knowledge as possible. Right. I'm going to have to figure all of that out. But I will add to the Nellerak thing, if that's okay, that their position is also that within the agreement between Denmark and Greenland, there is an article within the law that says that if you push this button, you'll do a referendum in Greenland about the independence question and that will decide if Greenland is going to separate from Denmark. It is possible. Possible. And that's what Nelarak wants to do. Yeah.
- [39:07]
B
It's also important to note is that Greenland technically right now has the ability to vote for its own independence.
- [39:13]
C
Sure.
- [39:13]
A
They're not even.
- [39:14]
B
They can do that.
- [39:15]
C
Yeah. But the government has to press the button and then there's a referendum and.
- [39:18]
B
You'Ll see it's a physical button.
- [39:20]
C
No. What was this button? Pepsi button.
- [39:26]
B
Yeah.
- [39:26]
C
No, I don't. I'm not sure that it's a physical button. I'm pretty sure it's not.
- [39:30]
B
So zoom. Zooming in away from geo, Zooming out or in or whatever, away from geopolitics. I think it's also important to talk about what issues are actually faced day to day by the Greenlandic people.
- [39:41]
C
Yeah.
- [39:41]
B
What are some of the biggest issues that you found faces people there through your reporting?
- [39:45]
C
It's like everyday stuff, man. It's like affordability and housing, unemployment and people living off, you know, state benefits. There's a horrible culture of suicide in Greenland. Mental health issues. Alcoholism. There are many things that you'll recognize from all over the world. And all of the surveys and polls that were done before all of this attention resparked last year says that this is what the Greenlanders care about when they do go into elections or when they are politically active. So this, you know, meta attention has completely shifted the priority of the politicians in Greenland, whereas there are still to do to, for example, align how East Greenlanders and West Greenlanders live. Now everything is about talking to the European Union and NATO and spending a lot of energy on that.
- [40:42]
B
So you mentioned the. The suicide situation there. The rates really are staggering.
- [40:47]
C
Yes.
- [40:47]
B
And when I talked to Aki from the. The Independence Party, you know, she was suggesting that you could connect the escalating suicide rate directly to post 1950s industrialization, much of which was spearheaded by Denmark, and kind of disconnecting people from the traditional way of life and forcing them into a sort of more cold commercial existence. Do you think that is the driving factor behind it?
- [41:12]
C
I think that's hard to say. You can create correlations between a lot of things that happens in an industrialized time. I would have to look at the information she draws this from. But it sounds like something. Something that makes sense and it sounds like something that we've seen happen in other places in the world. Right. I'm not sure you can. You can connect this to a lot of different things depending on where you want to take the argument. But the thing that is important to note is it is staggering. It is a big dark spot in Greenlandic culture, and it's something that's difficult.
- [41:48]
B
To speak about because so many people are personally affected by.
- [41:51]
C
Yeah, man, I spoke to. I asked the guy at the bar, why do you think it's so difficult to cover this subject? I want to do that, but I don't want to do it in a way in which I'm like, everybody's killing themselves. Here's why. I want to do it with respect and not enforce stereotypes.
- [42:08]
B
You'll never guess why.
- [42:09]
C
Yeah, this is how. This is why everybody's dying in Greenland. And he was affected by the question. He was really willing to help and talk about it. But as he said, this is all also hard for me to talk about. I think like four or five of his friends had committed suicide too. I mean, how do you approach that as a journalist? And especially, how do you approach that as a journalist just coming in to cover the world news? You have to spend a little time looking into it. Right.
- [42:39]
B
And. And what was his, I guess, explanation or suggestion as to why the rate is so high.
- [42:44]
C
He didn't know.
- [42:45]
B
I was talking to our fixer, Patrick, the one who rented us the cars. Pat's like, I love Patrick. And I was talking, he. He told me, he asked me, he said, how many of your childhood best friends. Friends are still around? I said, like, you know, most of them are still around. And he said that like 80% of his childhood buddies had taken their own life.
- [43:01]
C
That's crazy.
- [43:02]
A
And I asked why?
- [43:03]
B
And he said that there's a big cultural acceptance of suicide.
- [43:06]
C
Yeah, that's part of it too. Yeah.
- [43:08]
B
Can you speak on that a little bit? Is it in the mythology or. No, I, I like Japan, for example.
- [43:13]
C
It's like big for them. I can't really speak on that because I don't understand it quite yet. But I can say that I spoke to a guy about it in Kumio. Destroy. Small, small, small, small, small town in East Greenland. I think maybe 150 people live there. Really hard to get there. So he said that part of it is a cult, this cultural idea that when you do not benefit the community anymore, you should not be a burden. So it would be better for you to leave the community and go into the mountain, as he said.
- [43:46]
B
So it's sort of a utilitarian idea. It's like if you're used to.
- [43:49]
C
That's what he told me, but I'm not sure. Man, we need to talk to all of them.
- [43:53]
B
Family was starving and you, you know, you like kill yourself and you're like, you can eat me now.
- [43:59]
C
Yeah, like that.
- [44:01]
B
Yeah. Because I'm trying to think there's only two other.
- [44:03]
C
I think if the way I understand what he was saying was more so rather than take what I have left and use it, it's more. So let me get out of your way, if that makes sense.
- [44:13]
B
Yeah, totally. I mean, the only other situations, like there's two specific cultures where you see suicide really normalized that come to mind. The first one would be just Japan. They have that practice called seppuku, which is if you have dishonored your family or like, you know, you're supposed to put a sword through your chest and. But you still to this day have like prominent CEOs who will get caught in like an embezzlement scandal and they'll just don't do that.
- [44:34]
C
And people put a sword to that.
- [44:36]
B
Chest, they probably now like shoot themselves or something. But like back it was a traditional old school Japanese thing that's still to this day seen as very Honorable. It's like, because honor is so important in our society. So it's like, if you've dishonored your family, you can keep the honor intact by doing that.
- [44:52]
A
It's seen as with a lot of valor.
- [44:54]
B
The other one would be like, I guess I'm thinking like Al Qaeda.
- [44:58]
C
Okay.
- [44:58]
B
You know what I mean? Like, suicide bombings being like, if you can become a martyr for your nation or for your religion, then you'll get to heaven and they'll be like, thanks, dude. Fuck, yeah, big party for you now. And I just didn't know if there's anything in Greenlandic culture that particularly views that as honorable or if you think it really just more connects to depression.
- [45:17]
C
Let me look into it and when you come back, we'll talk about it.
- [45:20]
B
Yeah, because I think there's an interesting piece of reporting to do about it.
- [45:23]
C
But I know I've just been holding back, both because I don't want to shake things up, but secondly, because it's a big Danish stereotype that Greenlanders drink and Greenlanders kill themselves.
- [45:33]
B
Is it?
- [45:34]
C
Yeah, it's like a big part of the. How you would speak on Greenlanders before all of this. And so moving into the situation, I wouldn't want to do that as the first thing. I also feel like it would be disrespectful if I came into your house and I knew that somebody in your family had just killed themselves, but I didn't know you. First thing I asked you was like, hey, your mom killed herself. What's up with that? Yeah, that would be really, really rude and weird.
- [46:00]
B
It's the last thing I'd want to talk to somebody about personally.
- [46:03]
C
Yeah, and you also need to understand different levels of culture before you go into hard conversations. I mean, unless you're fucked up and you're trying to make good conversation. But that's not what's happening from my end. And I'm not trying to jump into this and say that I know everything, because I don't. And also, I'm pretty sure that I've had and still have some kind of bias because I've worked for Danish media live in Denmark. There's a lot of things I have to figure out before I allow myself to ask these difficult questions.
- [46:34]
B
Definitely you mentioned difficult questions. And culture. Culture. And one thing that I also find interesting about Greenlandic people is they have very interesting temperament.
- [46:42]
C
Yes. I love it.
- [46:43]
B
They're not quick, though, to give a high energy interview. No, they're not quick to complain about things because normally when you go to a protest. Everyone that is there to complain and whine. Protests are massive whining events. People have whiny things on their sign and they're like, I'm just sick and tired of being. Being treated like this, you know, I'm not saying. I'm not saying protests. It's like some are you.
- [47:08]
C
Some protests are like in America.
- [47:12]
B
Fed up. In Greenland, you interview people and they're very stoic about why they're there. They're like honorable people, Very proud people. Proud and. But they don't need to perform during interviews.
- [47:24]
C
You know, a lot of people, especially in Europe, are not like American Americans. And when you go to the north, we are even more different. I have high energy for a northern person.
- [47:34]
B
But you're ethnically Turkish.
- [47:36]
C
That's why. That's not why. But, you know, so you think on.
- [47:40]
B
The top of the world, people are quieter.
- [47:42]
C
There's a different way of communicating. There are two different things that I find interesting about green lady culture. One of them is the non verbal communication, which works really well for me. I have a very expressive face. So I think, think it's really nice to be able to learn the non verbals and then make that a part of a conversation. And the other thing is the speed of the conversation. Not only how fast do you jump to whining, but it also. People are used to slow conversations where you're able to think. And I think maybe a lot of you guys would have more fun if your conversations were like that.
- [48:16]
B
Yeah, I mean, I'm from a relatively passive aggressive, quiet city, Seattle. I went to high school there. So even regionally, if you compared Seattle people to like Philly people or, you know, Baltimore people, it would be totally different. Seattle has more Scandinavian heritage as well, so maybe that's how we got some of that. Because the top of the world is so interesting because, you know, all you have is like Vikings and Inuits, Viking.
- [48:38]
C
Inuits and darkness and then a lot of light and then a lot of.
- [48:43]
B
Darkness again, knowing that, like, they all want to be independent at some point and they're just figuring out how to get there. And then boom, Trump comes in with this just like wild card bullshit is.
- [48:52]
C
Like put a gun to your head and ask you what you want after you've been working pretty slow within, you know, systems that are way different than the rest of the world's political systems. It's like a slow, institutionalized system in Denmark and Greenland. Right.
- [49:08]
B
I hope that Trump stops doing this because it's annoying and it makes us look bad and it's a waste of our tax dollars. These Democrat run cities. As I told Nick Shirley, as I told my boy Nick, I don't want.
- [49:19]
C
To get caught up in American Internet get beef.
- [49:23]
B
You're not going to. I, I don't. I hope not. I hope that.
- [49:26]
C
But if I do, I will say it is very normal to cut out parts of an interview. This is. It's also your job as a journalist.
- [49:37]
A
It's my job as a journalist.
- [49:39]
B
Entertain. It's my duty. It's also my job to entertain people. People want to like make it seem like as a journalist you're not constantly battling for people's attention. But you are. Yeah, but for real though, you're not going to get caught up in Internet beef. What the are we just talking about?
- [49:55]
C
I don't know. Greens and I guess or Ireland. I don't know.
- [49:59]
B
Something. All right.
- [50:00]
C
Something about this. This was great. Yes, something like that.
- [50:03]
B
It was great. Thanks for your time. Hell yeah. Channel 5 live worldwide Hollywood advice.
- [50:09]
A
The authority.
- [50:10]
C
Channel 5 news.
- [50:11]
A
Channel 55.
- [50:12]
B
We don't with custers and 5 is the best number.