CNN<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The statue, which looks over all of Nuuk, is of Hans Egede, an 18th-century Dano-Norwegian missionary who brought Christianity to the island. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should he be up there? Why isn\u2019t it a Greenlander up there?\u201d Olsen asks. \u201cWe Greenlanders should be more proud of who we are \u2026 not celebrate some foreigner who came here and changed our culture and colonized us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Danish control of Greenland dates to the time of Egede. Greenland was granted home-rule in 1979 and, after a referendum in 2008, the island was allowed more self-governing powers including the ability to hold a referendum on independence (though independence would also require approval from the Danish parliament.) <\/p>\n
But despite the increased autonomy, for Olsen the statue of Egede is a daily reminder of Danish colonization \u2014 something she purposefully talks about in the present tense. <\/p>\n
\u201cI used to be a royalist. I used to look up to the Danish people and thought they were better than me. Now, I\u2019ve really realized that\u2019s not the case,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
She points to abuses of Greenland\u2019s native people. <\/p>\n
In the 1960s and 70s, doctors placed IUD contraceptives in young Inuit girls without their or their parents\u2019 consent as a means of population control. An investigation by Danish and Greenlandic officials into what has become known as \u201cthe spiral case\u201d is expected to finish this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cI should have a lot more cousins,\u201d Olsen says. <\/p>\n
Another practice known as \u201clegally fatherless\u201d allowed Danish men who impregnated unmarried women in Greenland to skirt any responsibilities for their child. Olsen says her mother was one of the \u201clegally fatherless\u201d children born here. <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, Denmark has announced a boost in Arctic defense spending and the Danish king revealed a new design for the royal coast of arms, making far more prominent the symbols for Greenland and the Faroe Islands (also part of the Kingdom of Denmark.) <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s too little, too late, says Olsen, who supports independence for Greenland and is standing in upcoming elections. <\/p>\n
She acknowledges an independent Greenland would need to sign new agreements with other countries for defense of its 27,000 miles of coastline, and other arrangements when it comes to trade and financial support, but for her that\u2019s no reason to jump from Danish control to American. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should I? I\u2019m so proud of who we are as Inuit,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy should we just be taken by another colonizer?\u201d <\/p>\n
The US already has strong connections with and interest in Greenland. <\/p>\n
Climate change and the loss of sea ice is opening up new shipping routes between the US and Europe; Greenland is rich in oil and gas as well as rare earth minerals needed for modern development \u2014 a market currently controlled by China. A US base inside the Arctic Circle in the far northwest of the island gives the US Space Force \u201cSpace Superiority,\u201d the military says. <\/p>\n
For Tom Dans, the tall Texan with the wide smile, the logical next step is for Greenland to come even closer to Washington. <\/p>\n
As we walked along the pier at Nuuk\u2019s frozen harbor \u2014 where fishing boats with reinforced hulls, some equipped with harpoons for whaling, broke through the ice \u2014 I asked him if we were in the 51st state of the US. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think so. This is Greenland,\u201d Dans said, before adding with a laugh, \u201cIf we were in Canada, perhaps.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dans has no current role in the Trump administration, but was appointed to the US Arctic Research Commission, an independent federal advisory committee, during the first Trump term. He says he\u2019s set up \u201cAmerican Daybreak,\u201d which he describes as \u201ca nonprofit working to build US-Greenlandic relations.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also has a personal connection to Greenland. After the Nazis invaded Denmark during World War II, the US stepped up to help to protect Greenland, and Dans\u2019 grandfather was part of that effort as a merchant mariner. <\/p>\n
When we met, Dans had just traveled to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland, to commemorate the anniversary of the Nazi torpedoing of the US Army Transport Dorchester with the loss of almost 700 lives in 1943. <\/p>\n
Dans gestured toward a Danish Royal Navy vessel moored in the harbor. The Danes provide some security for Greenland but in reality, their navy is too small and the United States is again the main force protecting the island, he said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s an argument he\u2019s also made on the show of a former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon. \u201cPart of what is really important today, in the moment, is for Americans and the rest of the world to realize how closely intertwined our country has been with Greenland for so long and why it\u2019s so important,\u201d he said in a live appearance from Narsarsuaq last Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Dans brought me to a caf\u00e9 to meet J\u00f8rgen Boassen, a Greenlander nicknamed \u201cTrump\u2019s son.\u201d <\/p>\n
Boassen achieved semi-celebrity status in the MAGA universe as Greenland\u2019s biggest Trump supporter and was among those who welcomed Donald Trump Jr. when he visited Nuuk last month. <\/p>\n
He has made multiple trips to the US in recent months \u2014 attending the Trump victory party in Mar-a-Lago on election night and the inauguration. And just a few days into the new Trump administration \u2014 Boassen, Dans, and a Greenlandic politician visited the White House, where they posed with the Greenland flag. <\/p>\n
But even Boassen does not want Greenland to be taken over by the US. <\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t want to be subsumed as the 51st state, he says, but wants the US to be Greenland\u2019s \u201cbest and closest ally with everything \u2014 with defense, mining, oil exploration, trade, everything.\u201d <\/p>\n
Not all Greenlanders want to break free from Denmark. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe might be ready someday, but not today, not tomorrow,\u201d says Aqqalu C. Jerimiassen, the leader of Atassut, a party in favor of staying within the Danish kingdom. <\/p>\n
He acknowledged the wrongs committed against native Greenlanders and said the Danes must accept responsibility. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery colonizer has made mistakes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we cannot live in the past.\u201d <\/p>\n
Atassut, which describes itself as a \u201cmoderate conservative\u201d party, supports universal health care, free education, and other forms of welfare that are basic concepts across much of Europe, and which Denmark provides for Greenland. <\/p>\n
He says while some here \u201cvery much would like to be US citizens and would like to follow the American dream,\u201d most would not be in favor of joining the United States and losing universal access to these services. <\/p>\n
Greenland is holding elections next month that may reveal more about its population\u2019s views about future relationships with the world. And the parliament just fast-tracked a law banning foreign political funding. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s fine by H\u00f8jdal \u2014 the Danish guidance counselor I met at the airport \u2014 who said Greenland\u2019s future is for Greenland, not anyone else, to decide. <\/p>\n
As she watches the news coming from the United States of the hectic first weeks of the second Trump administration, she says a Turkish proverb comes to mind. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a clown enters a castle, he doesn\u2019t become a king. The castle becomes a circus.\u201d <\/p>\n
Greenland, she hopes, doesn\u2019t become a circus. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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