#Greenland Purchase

[tawhidurrahmandear]

Donald Trump has made statements twice suggesting that Canada should be incorporated as a state of the United States. His interest in buying Greenland is an old story. I suspect that Putin and Donald Trump might reach some kind of open or secret agreement whereby Putin would publicly support the purchase of Greenland. In exchange, Russia would be given free pass to do whatever he likes in Ukraine, and Russia’s decisions would become final in all European states bordering its territory. Donald Trump has a businessman’s mindset. He knows well that spending dollars on Europe’s security doesn’t benefit America. If war breaks out in Europe, Putin would easily acheive victory.

The BJP's plan for creating an "Akhand Bharat" (Undivided India) is likely to be imposible under the current leadership of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Moreover, a segment of Bangladeshi journalists spreading the idea of breaking up Myanmar to create an independent Arakan state is something India will never allow. Such a move could potentially destabilize India’s seven northeastern states, which remains a concern.

মার্কিন যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের অঙ্গরাজ্য হিসেবে কানাডার অন্তর্ভুক্ত হওয়া উচিৎ মর্মে ডোনাল্ড ট্রাম্প এই নিয়ে দুইবার বক্তব্য দিল। আর গ্রিনল্যান্ড কিনে নেয়ার আগ্রহ তার পুরনো। আমার ধারনা পুতিন আর ডোনাল্ড ট্রাম্প কোন ধরনের প্রকাশ্য বা গোপন চুক্তিতে উপনীত হবে যে, গ্রিনল্যান্ড ক্রয়ের ব্যাপারে পুতিনের প্রকাশ্য সম্মতি থাকবে, আর তার বিনিময়ে রাশিয়া ইউক্রেনে যা খুশি তাই করার অধিকার থাকবে। সাথে রাশিয়ার সীমান্ত সংলগ্ন সকল ইউরোপিয়ান রাষ্ট্রে রাশিয়ার সিদ্ধান্তই হবে চূড়ান্ত। ডোনাল্ড ট্রাম্প ব্যবসায়ী মানসিকতার। ইউরোপের নিরাপত্তার জন্য ডলার খরচ করে আমেরিকার লাভ নাই, সেটা তিনি ভালো মত জানেন। ইউরোপে যুদ্ধ শুরু হলে পুতিন জিতবে অনায়াসে।

বিজেপির "অখণ্ড ভারত" গড়ার পরিকল্পনা বাংলাদেশ, পাকিস্তান আর আফঘানিস্তানের নেতৃত্বের জন্য আপাতত তা অসম্ভব। আর বাংলাদেশের এক শ্��েণীর সাংবাদিকরা যে মায়ানমার ভেঙ্গে আরাকান রাষ্ট্র সৃষ্টির যে খবর প্রচার করছেন, তা ভারত কখনোই হতে দিবে না। তাহলে পূর্বাঞ্চলীয় সাতটি রাজ্য অশান্ত হতে পারে, এই আশংকা থাকবে।

[kineticpenguin]

During his first term, Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a border wall (they didn’t), that he would purchase Greenland (he didn’t), that America would hold a grand military tank parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (never happened), and that we would declare the moon official US territory (definitely didn’t do that). He talked about invading Venezuela, using “heat rays” on immigrants, building a snake-filled border moat, and nuking hurricanes as they approach the coast of Florida. You are welcome to google any of these but I promise you that he said them all, and that none of them ever got off the ground (even a little bit). Trump is at his core a TV clown, and he knows instinctively just what sort of clown show will keep the audience fully engaged with the performance. But while he’s out there dancing and singing and keeping everyone in hysterics, the rest of the GOP is under the bleachers stealing your wallet and setting the benches on fire.

[themisinformer]

Trump Signs Executive Order Requiring All Maps to Label Greenland As ‘Future U.S. Territory’

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Expressing his continued interest in the Danish territory, President Trump has signed an executive order requiring all maps to label Greenland as “Future U.S. Territory.” This comes after Trump has repeatedly said that he plans on purchasing the North American territory, claiming that he would use military force to gain the territory if necessary.

“Greenland is in a strategic location that would be very valuable to us,” Trump said while crossing out the “Greenland” label on a map in the Oval Office with red marker. “We need Greenland for our international security, and quite frankly, it would look much better in red, white and blue.”

With this executive order, all map manufacturers that refuse to change Greenland’s name to “Future U.S. Territory” will be banned in the U.S. The executive order also requires all government agencies and educational institutions to only display maps with the new label, with the failure to do so resulting in heavy fines.

“Greenland is going to be in the hands of the U.S. in a matter of months,” Trump said. “And if people refuse to acknowledge this fact, then they’re purposely misleading the American people and have no place in this country.”

Trump has added that everyone will have exactly 72 hours to update their maps before bans and fines start rolling out.

[saywhat-politics]

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) seemed to support President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal during an interview Monday on Fox News. (Watch the video below.)

Host Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump adviser, asked Blackburn to walk viewers through some of Trump’s recent musings on Truth Social and “why they’re important.”

In the last few days, Trump again suggested he wants the U.S. to purchase Greenland from Denmark and operate it for defensive purposes. He also threatened to take back the Panama Canal from Panama over “exorbitant prices” for passage.

Blackburn appeared to give preliminary backing to the president-elect on those matters.

Trump had received a “mandate” from voters to transform President Joe Biden’s “America-last policy” into one that puts America first, she claimed.

“So when it comes to dealing with the Panama Canal and making certain that China is not being advantaged in this, and America disadvantaged, of course, let’s put this issue on the table and talk about it,” she said.

[peonycats]

Hey, so as a person who has in my unpublished works a story wherein APH Greenland is minorly featured, after I saw your post complaining about Greenland's current characterisation in fanworks, I realised that my story 100% fits all the things you were complaining about. And if it's not too much trouble how would you characterise Greenland in a way that is less problematic?

Or do you have any reccomendations for resources I can use to educate myself about Greenlandic culture?

So, I will preface this with the following:

I AM NOT INDIGENOUS. I AM NOT INUK. YOU SHOULD GO ASK SOMEONE INDIGENOUS OR BETTER YET, SOMEONE WHO IS GREENLANDIC INUIT.

However, in this post, I will primarily give some guidelines that are generally applicable to any nation personification of color that has experienced colonialism/imperialism by a Western nation and is still dealing with its legacy. Keep in mind that what you're asking for is a lot, however- we're touching on topics of national anthropomorphizations in political cartoons, the depiction of the colonized, particularly the indigenous, and the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer.

Don't make Greenland America and Canada's relative.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's kid, biological or otherwise.

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues in Greenland for fandom content.

Don't Make Greenland America and Canada's Relative

Every time I've seen this come up, this is usually justified one of two ways-

a) Greenland is related to America and Canada because the Vikings set up the first European settlements in continental North America, so they would be related via their Norse heritage. b) Greenland is related to America and Canada because America and Canada have a native parent, and Greenland is a sibling of that native parent.

To head things off- The first one is bad. See my next section for the issues of making Greenland a child of the Nordics/Nordic ancestors.

The second one almost always carries the implication of that the native parent of America and Canada is some kind of nebulous pan-American "APH Native America" personification; the issues with having the many indigenous peoples of the Americas as similar and interchangeable enough to warrant only one personification to represent them all are obvious, I should hope.

The slightly more plausible alternative is that America and Canada's native parent represents some Inuit group, and through that, Greenland is their sibling. Even if more plausible, we run into the same issue of turning a group into a monolith- there are many different Inuit groups, all with their own unique histories and cultures. Though Inuit groups may be more related than all Indigenous Americans to each other, they are still not a monolith, and determining their relationships to each other shouldn't be resolved with a blanket solution of "they're all related, nuff said."

If we want to dig into the weeds of historical accuracy, it makes no sense for America to have Inuit heritage, seeing as the United States began as the Thirteen Colonies in the Eastern Seaboard of the modern United States which doesn't overlap with the traditional lands of the Inuit. The Alaska Purchase was not made until 1867, hundreds of years after the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies.

I would also like to point out another issue I’ve seen with many “Auntie/Uncle Greenland depictions” in the fandom. Whenever you do see such depictions of Greenland in the fandom, almost never do we see the creator of such interpretations shedding light on any other indigenous characters (particularly ones not related to the USA and Canada). Therefore, such depictions are exceptionalizing and exalting an indigenous character above all other indigenous characters because they have more of a connection to major Western countries. 

Overall summary: The primary issue with making Greenland related to America and Canada is that Greenland is never allowed to exist outside of their links to these two. If you want to depict Greenland with respect, the most basic thing you can do is to not reduce Greenland into a tool for you to better characterize America and Canada and flesh out their background.

Don't make Greenland Denmark's Child, Biological or Otherwise

TW: racist caricatures of black, Latino, Native American, and Asian people

So first some quick historical background: Norse settlement of Greenland began around the 900s-1100s and died out sometime between 1450 and 1500 due to a variety of environmental and sociopolitical reasons. The surviving Norse settlers most likely either left or assimilated with the local Inuit populations, so there is some genetic legacy, but 85-90% of the population of Greenland today considers themselves Greenlandic Inuit.

For the following centuries, there were sporadic interactions between European whalers and the local Inuit. It was only until 1721 that another attempt at colonization was made, this time by the missionary Hans Egede, who founded a trading company and Lutheran mission near present day Nuuk, with the express permission of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway.

Greenland took on a special status in both Danish policy and imagination, a far-off land that was "vulnerable" to other nation's influences and in need of Danish protection. In line with that thinking, the Danish state held an exclusive monopoly on Greenland's resources and all trade with Greenlanders. It pressured Greenlandic Inuit to stay in their occupations of hunting and fishing so that Denmark could maintain access to resources Greenland provided, mainly animal products from local wildlife the Inuit hunted.

Additionally, the Danish also tightly regulated interactions between the Danish colonial population and the local Inuits. For a time, intermarriage was strictly controlled, limited to only Danish men and Greenlandic women of mixed descent and had to be approved by the colonial administration. When the US wanted to build military bases on Greenland for military purposes during WW2, a major concern of Greenlandic authorities was minimizing contact between the US soldiers and the local Inuits.

Of course, Greenland didn’t stay this way forever. Against Denmark’s wishes, Greenland did open up and become further integrated into the global economy and order of nations, and to this day a lot of Greenlanders have a Danish ancestor somewhere in their family tree.

However, to make Greenland (substantially) related to the Norse is to do a disservice to the hundreds of years of Greenlandic Inuit culture that already existed and then continued to thrive for hundreds of years in the absence of continued Nordic contact and influence. It implies that the ethnogenesis of the Greenlandic Inuit was kicked off by the Norse settlers, when in reality, the Greenlandic Inuit are largely descended from the native Thule people and later waves of migration of other Inuit people from modern day Nunavut and Nunavik. To make Greenland the child of Denmark is worse, and stands in stark contrast to the fact that compared to other nations and their settler colonies (think, England and America), Denmark heavily controlled Danish migration to Greenland and wanted to keep Greenland isolated and contained.

Now, moving past the issue of historical accuracy, there's been a long history in political cartoons starring national anthropomorphizations of allegorizing international relationships as familial relationships, or "mentor-mentee" relationships, especially when it comes to colonizer-colony relationships.

REPORT FROM THE FILIPINES Send more soldiers -Otis Uncle Sam: Balm in Gilead! Well, thank heavens both my new daughters haven't got the same disposition.

'School Begins', cartoon of Uncle Sam teaching a class in civilisation to pupils labelled 'Philippines', 'Hawaii', 'Porto Rico' and 'Cuba'

In these cartoons, the colonized is portrayed as child-like, infantile, in need of the US's benevolent guidance to be "civilized." After all, if the relationship between the colonizer and its colonial possessions was like that of a parent and their children (or a teacher and their students)- well, children need their parents, so therefore, the colonies need the colonizer and its guidance, right? By doing so, it portrays the relationship between the colonizer and its colonies as a necessary, benevolent one, one done for the benefit of the colony, and masks the inherently exploitative, unequal nature of colonialism. 

To make Denmark a parental influence on Greenland, then, is to replicate the same paternalistic attitude Denmark took to Greenland as a colonial possession in need of guidance and direction, and possibly whitewashing the toll Danish colonization has taken on Greenland. Even depictions of Denmark and Greenland that emphasize their “little brother/big brother” relationship are problematic, because they fall into the same colonial rhetoric of Greenland "needing" Denmark's civilizing guidance.

Moreover, sensitivity is another concern for depictions of Greenland. At the risk of speaking for groups I do not belong to, having a child Greenland be raised by Denmark and the other Nordics (esp if Greenland has a negative relationship w them) hews a little too closely to the real life kidnapping of Indigenous children from their families to be raised instead by white families, in an attempt to remove them from their heritage and culture. Unless you're actually Greenlandic Inuit or indigenous, I don't think this is your story to tell.

Don't Use Sensitive Contemporary Issues in Greenland for Fandom Content

Don't use sensitive contemporary issues for fandom content, especially as an outsider. Don't be like the person I saw making angst headcanons around Greenland's high suicide rate.

---

Recommended Reading

This video is a great introduction to Danish colonization of Greenland, and how I began my dive into Greenlandic history. Bear in mind that this is a 25 minute long video, so it's compressing a lot, but it's a jumping off point, not the end-all be all. Content warnings should be in the beginning of the video.

Phasing out the Colonial Status of Greenland by Erik Beukel

This is a report commissioned by the Danish government and Greenlandic Home Rule analyzing the period between 1945 and 1954, where Greenland's status was changed from that of a colony to an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It's a series of political science essays looking at this period, but I found Chapter 2 the most useful, as it provides an overview of the relevant historical background factors in the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. Warning for some dated language (mostly because it uses Esk*mo at certain points) but otherwise there's not really any content warnings.

Worldviews of the Greenlanders: An Inuit Arctic Perspective by Brigitte Sonne

I haven't fully read this book so I can't totally vouch for this, but given the difficulty of accessing academic material of Greenland (especially as someone who doesn't speak or read Danish), this does fill in some much needed gaps in perspectives on Greenland. I realize the inherent problems of needing to read about Inuit perspectives in a book compiled by an outsider academic as well as the issues with the field of ethnography as a whole, but this may still be useful to some!

Articles I enjoyed that look at Greenlandic history and contemporary issues:

The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark that Kills you

A Brief History of the Indignities Heaped Upon Greenland

How a failed social experiment in Denmark separated Inuit children from their families

[azspot]

The awful people about to take power are a bunch of horrifying religious creeps and segregationist eugenicist oligarchs; they call themselves things like "christian" and "conservative" and "republican," and they insist they are the only good and normal people, but (according to the religious book they brandish at protests but never seem to read), a tree is recognized by its fruit. By their words and deed they have shown themselves to be worse than most decent people can even imagine: consumed by greed and bigotry, utterly without shame or decency, fundamentally opposed to the public good, foundationally aligned with brutality and violence, and corrupt to the core. They promise vengeance and pain and slavery and terror and theft and mass murder, and now they will have the power to deliver it. They've corrupted the courts, they've cowed the legislature, they've purchased the outlets of information, and now they taken the presidency, so they control the deadliest military in human history. It seems you can't even hide from them in Greenland.

Demolishing The Billionaire Scam

[affairsmastery]

US President-elect Donald Trump's interest in purchasing Greenland underscores America's continued ambitions in strategically vital regions like the Arctic. This move is a reflection of the US's long history of territorial acquisitions that have shaped its rise as a global power.

From the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which doubled the nation's size, to the Alaska Purchase in 1867, each acquisition has expanded America's reach and influence. Greenland, the world’s largest island, with its rich natural resources and strategic location, could offer significant economic and geopolitical advantages, continuing a legacy of US territorial expansion.

[eopederson]

A bastion of capitalism? Mountains and Prins Christian Sound, Kitaa - En bastion af kapitalisme? Bjerge og Prins Christian Sund, Kitaa, 2023.

The senile felon is proposing purchase of Greenland, a site for another of the felon's gimcrack "luxury" properties? From all evidence Greenland should at a minimum remain under Danish suzerainty or perhaps it should become an independent country. It is not Denmark's to sell, and there is no reason control of its security and foreign relations should be passed from Denmark to any other country.

[severalowls]

Trump is threating the invasion and/or annexation of half the US' neighbours (Panama Greenland and Canada) and all CNN has to say about it is "tee hee, this would be the biggest expansion of US territory since the louisiana purchase, how fun!"

[marta-bee]

They're....

OK. So the US House is actually initiating a bill to buy Greenland. They're calling it the "Make Greenland Great Again" act. They've also completely flummoxed the Constitutional order of things - the bill as written gives Mr. Trump power to initiate a territory buy (which he doesn't need) and gives up Congress's responsibility not just to receive but approve any purchase treaty.

I know this is serious stuff and depending on how it happens, if it happens, could be an international incident with NATO. But it's also so stupid it's hilarious. I can't stop smiling.

Because they're so damned stupid.

I do hope this is distraction or the GOP trying to stroke Trump's ego, or something that makes at least a scintilla of sense. Then again, it could just be Wednesday.

[gusty-wind]

THE "NEW WORLD IS BUILDING UP".

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Edwards at Raw Story:

Donald Trump Jr. quickly left Greenland Tuesday after spending less than a day in the autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The son of President-elect Donald Trump traveled to the island as part of his father's effort to purchase the territory. Representatives from Denmark, however, made it clear that Greenland was "not for sale." Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede "has been very, very clear … that there is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday.

[...] "Danish fake news has been doing a lot of anti-American sentiment, so that shouldn't surprise us, but let's go have some fun," he added.

Dear Donny Cokehead Jr.: Greenland belongs to Denmark, not the USA.

[overfedvenison]

The best take I've heard on the current Trump situation with Greenland and Canada is like... "He's attempting to do a common business tactic where you reduce the value of a rival corporation through aggressive action, and then purchase it at it's now-devalued price" That's key, I think... Trump isn't really a fascist despite the claims as such - He may bear surface-level similarities, and many of his followers even seem to ideate the aesthetics of that movement, but he's ultimately a businessman running himself as a brand and treating a country something akin to one of his corporations. His actions and perspective seem to make the most sense through this lens - He's trying these aggressive corporation vs corporation business tactics on countries, he's acting more as a CEO passing aggressive and far-reaching decisions for the future of a company in his first days rather than acting as a president leading a slower change of policy, and his staff is emphasizing people who make money at the expense of things like experience or ethics. Him doing things like passing orders to withdraw from the World Health Organization only to re-assess that in the days after is the kind of thing a CEO taking over a company would do. And, even the goal of expansion of US territory makes more sense if you view his position as one inherently from a US-aligned capitalist mindset, where the acquisition of additional assets is an inherent wealth generating strategy, and not a thing that causes additional complexity and expense. From that view, Trump fundamentally seems like the logical conclusion of US-style capitalism, more than any other ideology. Almost all his actions - even including the anti-diversity ones - Make sense when you view him as someone acting like a CEO taking over a company. Obviously, a lot of these ideas blatantly do not make sense when applied to a country rather than a business; in particular the idea that you could simply buy Greenland or Canada (as though the concept of a nation is as fleeting as the ownership of a company.)

[tomorrowusa]

Trump thinks European countries should spend more on defense. And most have – under President Joe Biden.

One European country in particular is spending more to defend itself against a crazed imperialist – Donald Trump.

The Danish government has announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland, hours after US President-elect Donald Trump repeated his desire to purchase the Arctic territory. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was a "double digit billion amount" in krone, or at least $1.5bn (£1.2bn). He described the timing of the announcement as an "irony of fate". On Monday Trump said ownership and control of the huge island was an "absolute necessity" for the US. Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, is home to a large US space facility and is strategically important for the US, lying on its shortest route to Europe. It has major mineral and oil reserves. Poulsen said the package would allow for the purchase of two new inspection ships, two new long-range drones and two extra dog sled teams. It would also include funding for increased staffing at Arctic Command in the capital Nuuk and an upgrade for one of Greenland's three main civilian airports to handle F-35 supersonic fighter aircraft. "We have not invested enough in the Arctic for many years, now we are planning a stronger presence," he said. The defence minister did not give an exact figure for the package, but Danish media estimated it would be around 12-15bn krone. The announcement came a day after Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social: "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity." Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Egede responded to Trump's comments, saying "we are not for sale". [ ... ] Trump's original suggestion in 2019 that the US acquire Greenland, which is the world's largest island, led to a similarly sharp rebuke from leaders there. At the time Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederickson described the idea as "absurd", leading Trump to cancel a state trip to the country.

Perhaps Greenland's flag would be a good one to wave to show opposition to Trump.