Demands by the US that it take control of the Arctic island is for many Inuits a reminder of a troubling imperial past
O
n a bitterly cold recent morning in the Canadian Arctic, about 70 people took to the streets. Braving the bone-chilling winds, they marched through the Inuit-governed territory of Nunavut, waving signs that read: “We stand with Greenland” and “Greenland is a partner, not a purchase.”
It was a glimpse of how, for Indigenous peoples across the Arctic, the battle over Greenland has become a wider reckoning, seemingly pitting the long-fought battle to assert their rights against a global push for power.
Donald Trump’s tug-of-war over Greenland recalled “centuries of imperialism by different nation states but also colonisation by different actors,” said Natan Obed, the president of Canada’s national Inuit organisation, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
