An In Depth report.
Greenland's dark history - and does it want Trump?
Peter Harmsen, Journalist and author of Fury and Ice: Greenland, the United States and Germany in World War II
Reporting from Copenhagen,BBC
On a hill above Nuuk's cathedral stands a 7ft statue of the protestant missionary Hans Egede. He had reopened Greenland's link with Northern Europe in the early 1700s and laid the groundwork for the establishment of Denmark's proudest colonial possession.
One day in the late 1970s, the bronze figure was suddenly covered in red paint. I remember that day well - I passed the statue every day on my mile long walk to school. I spent two years living on Greenland while my father taught geography at Nuuk's teacher training college. It was apparent not everyone among the Inuit majority was happy about the changes that Egede had brought to Greenland a quarter of a millennium earlier.
The clinking of beer bottles in filled plastic bags carried home by the Inuit to their tiny apartments – much smaller, usually, than the ones we Danes lived in – was testimony to pervasive alcoholism, one of the ills that Denmark had brought to Greenland, amid a lot that was undeniably good: modern health, good education.
But apart from the paint-covered statue, the dream of Greenland being independent from Denmark was only slowly beginning to manifest itself.
Getty Images
Greenland, home to 57,000 people, has been an autonomous territory of Denmark since gaining home rule in 1979
At the Teacher Training College right next to my school, the closest Greenland got to having a radical student movement was developing - some young people at the college demanded to be taught in their native Greenland language.
By the late 1970s, the capital was called Nuuk and no longer Godthaab, its official name for well over two centuries.
Now, decades on, change is afoot once again, as Donald Trump has his eyes on gaining control of the country. Asked in January if he would rule out using military or economic force in order to take over the autonomous Danish territory or the Panama canal, he responded: "No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security."
Later on Air Force One he told reporters: "I think we're going to have it," adding that the island's 57,000 residents "want to be with us".
The question is, do they?
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has, meanwhile, insisted Greenland is not for sale. "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders," she said. "It's the Greenlanders themselves who have to define their future."
So, what do the island's inhabitants want that future to look like - and if it does not involve them being part of the kingdom of Denmark, then what is the alternative?
One poll of Greenlanders suggested only 6% of Greenlanders want their country to become part of the US, with 9% undecided and 85% against. ...
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