Transcript
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Katya Adler / Tim Whewell / Irony Wells (1:05)
Hello, Today we're in Colombia where we hear from fishermen feeling the ripple effects of recent US military activity over tourism may be a hot button issue for Japan's pm. We visit one region trying to lure tourists back. And finally we're in Greece, where a landmark court case came to a close this week in which aid workers were put on trial after rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean. But first, Donald Trump's desire to take over Greenland came sharply into focus this week as delegates from Greenland, the US and Denmark met in Washington along with US Vice President JD Vance. The talk stalled due to a fundamental disagreement over plans, but Mr. Trump reiterated that control of the territory is critical for his planned missile defence system. Golden Dome Katja Adler has been in the capital Nuuk.
Katya Adler (2:05)
In Greenlandic there are more than 80 words for freshwater ice, glacier ice, a hole in the sea ice used by seals to surface and breathe, a hole in sea ice made by a narwhal. There's even a word for a passage in sea ice that a boat can go through. On this Arctic island of heart stopping beauty and the harshest of natural environments, knowing your ice has been key to survival over the centuries. Inuit communities first arrived here from Canada around four and a half thousand years ago. The miniature museum in the snow and fairy light covered Greenlandic capital Nuuk has a vibrant exhibition of spears, fur lined clothes and decorated kayaks to help you build up a picture of what it must have been like. What I learnt is that juxtaposed with the brutal practicalities of living here, Inuk culture is spiritual and mystical, rich in respect for the natural world, the seas, the whales and other creatures killed for survival. On the walls of the otherwise grey tenement blocks in town there's a fabulous mural of a proud and powerful looking woman, her hand resting on the head of a massive polar bear. The Inuit women of Greenland are formidable. It's one of the first things I noticed when I arrived here. Unabashedly forthright, far more so than the men, I stopped in the street to ask their opinion about Donald Trump's insistence that Greenland must belong to the us. I'd like to encourage him to use both his ears wisely to listen more and speak less. Our country is not for sale, amelie Zib told us, waving her hands for emphasis after removing her chunky mittens, known here as puaaluk, often made out of seal skin, 27 year old potter Pilou Chemnitz told me Greenlanders are extremely tired of the US president. We've always been living this quiet and peaceful life here. We just want to be left alone, she said wistfully. But Greenland's geostrategic position between the US and Canada, Russia and Europe has meant that it's rarely been left alone. The Danes colonized this island in the early 18th century, bringing Christianity and enforced Western traditions with them. And there have been many modern day abuses. In an attempt by the Danish authorities to keep Inuit numbers down in the 1960s and 70s there was a campaign of forced insertion of the contraceptive coil in around half the population of Greenlandic women of childbearing age, some as young as 12 years old. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen only recently apologized for that scandal. A system of compensation for victims has finally been introduced. There was also the so called Little Danes experiment of the 1950s where indigenous children were taken away from their parents to grow up in Danish culture. And then the legally fatherless law where if a Danish man got an Inuk woman pregnant he bore no responsibility for the child. That was only fully repealed in the 1970s. Greenland eventually became semi autonomous from Denmark in 1979. Colonial legacies are so heavy and difficult. We're still processing the trauma and women carry a lot of it. That's part of what makes us so strong, Sara Ulsvig told me. She's the chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and co organiser of the first Inuit Women's Summit. She speaks with great distaste about what she describes as the attempted manipulation by Donald Trump of Greenlanders resentment towards Denmark. What broke my heart over the last year is watching the US administration try to use our pain against us to support their narrative that we'd be better off with them than with Denmark. Last year, a planeload of Trump supporting social media influencers flew out here, Sara told me. Wearing bright red Make America Great Again baseball caps, they walked the streets of Nuuk handing out hundred dollar bills, including to children. My son came home from school talking about it, Sara told me. What a disrespectful thing to do. In polls, 85% of Greenlanders say they don't want to be American. I think it's an unfair position to put our people in, icky Malik Pikilak, a young tattoo artist, tells me. We get this choice whether we want to be Danish or American. We're asked to choose between two oppressors. From their perspective, there's simply no option for us to be just our own people. I'd come to her studio in a brightly painted wooden cabin perched on a hill on the outskirts of Nuuk. It was very different from what I'd imagined, with a well stocked nail bar right next to her tattoo bench. She laughed at my surprise. Inuk tattoo culture is another world to Western tattoos, she observed. Traditionally, the markings connected women to their families, community and the spirit world, marking rites of passage like womanhood or motherhood and ensuring a good afterlife. Tattooed dots, for example, protected your clan against vengeful spirits, while images of plants and totems of ravens cured illnesses or ensured easy births. Often worn on hands and faces, the tattoos have been enjoying a renaissance amongst Greenlandic women over the last few years. It's almost like a wordless protest rebellion, even in the face of the Danes and the Americans spatting over who has sovereignty rights over Greenland. The defiance of getting these very visible tattoos is all the more significant when you hear how Greenlandic society works even nowadays, icky Malik tells me. The more Inuit you look or sound, the harder it is to get better paid jobs and advance. The Danes hold most of the civil service and many academic jobs, she says, and indirectly influence how parts of society are managed officially, since the 2009 Self Government act was passed, Greenlanders have a large degree of autonomy, except when it comes to foreign and security policy. Greenland also has the right to declare full independence from Denmark, though that would need approval by a referendum amongst the Greenlandic people and by the Danish Parliament. Danish Greenlandic relations have ironically been given a boost of late, with both sides uniting to reject the Trump threat to annex Greenland. The majority of Greenlanders favor independence from Denmark. The difference between them is how swiftly they want that to happen. Greenland's biggest industry is fishing, and that is insufficient to keep the economy here afloat. Greenland still relies heavily on subsidies from Denmark for its generous welfare system. For example, the Danish block grant is said to make up about 2/3 of Greenland's government budget. Pippa Luk Loonga is the co chair of Greenland's Foreign and Security Committee and an MP for the pro independence Inuit Solidarity Party, part of the governing coalition here. Her hands are covered in tattoos. She thinks social media has helped inspire young Inuit women to return to their culture. All those wonderful Inuit influencers out there, they make us realize how much we'd forgotten and that we're not alone. We're a very proud people. We've always been treated like second class citizens by the Danes, she tells me, adding that Donald Trump's attempt to buy off Greenlanders was also insulting. But she's a realist and one of the many I spoke to here who see opportunity, not just a threat, in the U.S. president. We don't want to rely on others or belong to others, but we do want to cooperate, she says. An independent Greenland would need economic and defence partners to survive. As many Greenlanders have pointed out to me, trading with Denmark Denmark, over 2,500 miles away, makes far less business sense than working with the US 300 miles away. For now, though, the US isn't offering a business deal between equals. A meeting in Washington last week between Danish and Greenlandic officials with the U.S. vice President J.D. vance fails to get President Trump's threat of a unilateral takeover of Greenland off the table. These are uncertain times for the mere 50,000 people living on this vast island. Mayor Avaduk Nolsen's municipality spreads beyond Nuuk, encompassing an area the size of France. I asked her what words of advice she had for frightened citizens. Before answering, she led me into the main meeting room in Nuuk City hall, its wood panelled circular walls adorned with a giant narwhal tusk and decorative tapestries depicting Greenlandic history. She pointed to a panel called the Last Drum Dance, showing a traditionally dressed Inuk man holding a Greenlandic drum, once frequently used as a condu storytelling and spiritual expression before being suppressed by Danish missionaries. We need to stick together as a people. I think we're very good at that, says Mayor Nolson, intimating that Greenlanders have faced and survived takeovers before. It's our country. Let's focus on what we have in Greenland because that's what we care so much about. Geographically, Greenland is in North America. Politically it's in Europe because of being tied to Denmark. But emotionally, this island is a world unto itself, impossibly proud of its red and white flag representing the sun, the ocean and the ice. But the polar ice is melting. The Arctic is becoming more accessible and increasingly contested amongst global powers hungry to dominate the lucrative new shipping routes set to emerge, and the natural resources like rare earths and minerals that Greenland is rich in. The geopolitical storm now raging over this once silent, icy giant of an island is far from over.