Danish Maoists on Greenland
Featured image: hundreds of Inuits demonstrate in the capital of Greenland, Nuuk. Source: Roede Fane.
In December 2024, US imperialism President Donald Trump stated that he wanted to buy Greenland and many bourgeois media focused on his alleged ‘craziness’ or its eccentric personality instead of making a serious analysis of the situation. The revolutionary Danish newspaper Røde Fane opposes these kind of analysis and states: “That said, it is also important to make it clear that Trump is not ‘crazy’ and that his desire to gain control of Greenland, or his other threats, have nothing to do with his personality. The United States, the world’s only hegemonic superpower, is losing its world hegemony, plunging it into a huge crisis.”
US imperialism interests in Greenland are various. Røde Fane refers to economic and military interests as follows: “As the ice caps melt, new sea routes open up in the Arctic, which are important for imperialist powers to control for both military and economic reasons. At the same time, the melting ice caps expose large deposits of “rare earth metals” and uranium, which now makes the land particularly interesting to other imperialist countries such as China and the US.” Regarding the rare earth metals, they have a huge importance when it comes to electric motors, turbines, chips and many other fundamental components. Chinese social-imperialism has almost the full control of the deposits and world production of rare earth metals. As Røde Fane explains, “This forces US imperialism, which wants to break China’s monopoly, to rush its control over the country’s resources.”
Additionally Greenland has a strategic position, important for one of the strategic goals of US imperialism: “to encircle and wrestle Russian imperialism from ts status as a nuclear superpower”. But according to Røde Fane the true intentions of US imperialism are not to take over Greenland as it might bring some disadvantages: “Trump is a businessman who uses blackmail as a bargaining tool. It is not in the strategic interests of the US to directly occupy a colony. This will only exacerbate the antagonism and tensions between the Inuit in Greenland and the imperialist occupying power. At the same time, it intensifies inter-imperialist antagonisms in the Arctic by getting rid of a ‘buffer state’ through direct annexation.” Therefore the true intentions are to “gain even more while excluding other imperialists from gaining anything at all”. Røde Fane opposes the subjugation to Yankee imperialism and reminded the numerous crimes by the Yankees: “It is naive to believe that greater US influence will bring anything positive for the Inuit. The Yankees have slaughtered and displaced millions of indigenous people and left bloody traces wherever they have gone in the world.” According to Røde Fane this is part of the process followed by Greenland for several years, “from being a Danish
colony to a semi-colony. This means that Greenland is going from being politically, culturally, economically and militarily subordinate to Danish imperialism, to only being economically subordinate to Danish imperialism or several imperialist powers.”
After the threats and blackmail by Trump, parliamentary elections were called in Greenland. Within this context, the bourgeois Danish press, as well as bourgeois political parties and revisionists and opportunists or even self-proclaimed ‘anti-imperialists’ have displayed all kinds of colonial chauvinism and defended the rule of Danish imperialism. Many even defend that Greenland “needs” the “economic aid” by Danish imperialism (called bloktilskud).
The Danish occupation of Greenland has colonial and racist roots which are still very visible: the name itself, ‘Greenland’ was imposed by the first colonizer, Erik the Red. He called the Inuits, skrællinger, what actually means sub-humans. Those names remain nowadays as the Danish authorities call the Greenland people as “Greenlanders” or “kalaallit”, which translated into “Greenlandic”, “kalaallisut”, means the same. With the arrival of the Danish colonial power, established in 1721 by priest Hans Egede, the imposition of Christianity, ban on the Inuit culture, customs and religion, came. In 1953 Greenland was directly annexed and many Inuits were ‘relocated’ dying while traveling and trying to survive without the proper conditions to do so. The Inuit demanded justice after this mass murder and after a long time, they received a small compensation as they rejected to define themselves as skrællinger, or sub-humans, before the authorities. Even today the Inuits cannot have a future without accepting the Danish ruling and speaking Danish.
Røde Fane denounces that “Danish imperialism, which today continues to colonise Greenland, claims to help the Inuit, they claim to do this by sending the so-called bloktilskud (block grant) without mentioning what Danish imperialism gains from having its colony and allowing its troops to occupy the country on military strategic and economic terms.” The exploitation of Greenland occurs in several manners: by benefiting Danish workers over Inuit workers with special agreements; by plundering the fish wealth and paying very low prices for the fish caught by the Inuit fishers; the profit generated by Danish companies which have been ‘nationalized’ do not benefit Greenland development, but “still end up in the pockets of the Danish monopolistic bourgeoisie”.
Nowadays many Inuits aim to break with this colonial and racist roots. They call Greenland as Nunarput, which means ‘our country’. The movement which wants to break with the Danish ruling is growing. Now bourgeois politicians try to channel it into the Inatsisartut (Greenland Parliament), which was established itself by Danish imperialism. The bourgeois Parties don’t represent any true alternative since they want to remain subjected to Danish imperialism, or to another imperialist power. Røde Fane makes clear that “And the state in Greenland today is created and maintained by the colonial power, and the colonial power has not designed its own tool to be turned against itself.” Røde Fane expects and acceleration of the process of Greenland becoming a semi-colony, through the achievement of a “self-government”. However, the Danish newspaper writes that “this will only mean that the face of exploitation will change, or that the country will go from being mainly exploited by Danish imperialism to being exploited by several imperialist powers.” Thus, “If true change is to take place in Greenland, it must come from the Inuit themselves, not within the mechanisms established by the exploitative order.”
—————————————————————————————————————————-
The full article by Røde Fane that we have been quoting can be accessed through this link:
