The Inuit believe in life after death. A part of your soul enters hell or heaven and another part rejoins a newborn relative. Imposing the name of someone deceased on a child means that his ancestor will transfer certain personal qualities to him, so saying goodbye to a child is also saying goodbye to the ancestors, to the entire Inuit universe and its eternal cycle. In front of Nuuk’s Inatsisartut, the parliament of Greenland’s capital, there are signs in the snow with the names of Greenlandic children separated from their parents, dozens of them. Pronouncing their names invokes reincarnated ancestors, the last hope for their parents, abandoned by the law. Greenland, a former colony that Denmark continues to control in matters of foreign policy, security and social welfare, has become the Danish quarry for adoptions . The “parental tests”, in 2022, declared 5.6% of Greenlandic parents unfit, while children of Danish origin whose parents are considered unfit for parenting, according to the same parental tests, do not exceed 1% . “We demand evidence in the mother tongue, but they say it will take years to develop it,” complains Minister of Justice Naaja H. Nathanielsen. The last name to join the list is “Zammi”, born on the night of November 7 and taken two hours later from the arms of her mother, Keira Alexandra Kronvold, in the Maternity ward of Thisted Hospital. The 38-year-old Inuit woman had not passed the forældrekompetenceundersøgelse (FKU), a test of parental competence included in article 50 of the Social Services Act, relatively easy for Danes of Nordic ethnicity but which presents linguistic and conceptual barriers that are very difficult to overcome for the Inuit.Related news standard No reading History of climate change NATURAL report Yes The forced sterilization of the Inuit: another dispute in the tense relationship between Denmark and Greenland Rosalía SánchezThe exam asks parents about their life history, their reactions and feelings in different situations, how they deal with mental and physical symptoms or any treatment or rehabilitation, as well as their situation of current life and ideas about the future, through conversations with a psychologist and regulated tests. Once separated from her child, the mother can only see him for two hours a month, if she is able to travel to Denmark or settle near the adoptive family. Qupalu Platou, who lost her two twin children in 2017, during the process of applying for help due to her low income, now has to divide herself: one month she visits boarding school in an orphanage and the following month she is adopted by a Danish family. «If you grew up in Denmark and are asked about your self-image or if you are in favor of positive or passive parenting, you can answer, but if you have grown up in a nomadic life, following the migrations of the caribou, your language does not even have words for name what they are asking you,” explains local psychologist Naja Lund Kielsen. The Inuit reality in Greenland The green lights over the sky of Nuuk City (Greenland) on a September night. Below, an Inuit hunter from northern Greenland moves his dog sled over the frozen sea. In the last photo, Britta Mortensen is one of the 4,000 Inuit women who had a contraceptive device implanted without their consent ABC/AFPThe state logic of Denmark, a traditionally tolerant and inclusive country, has however been that of re-education and even forced assimilation. The first programs began in the 1950s, when school directors and priests identified alert children, between 6 and 10 years old, who were awarded by the Save the Children foundation to Danish families. The 21 Inuit families who agreed did so under pressure. The father of Helene Thiesen, one of those children, had died of tuberculosis three months earlier and they convinced her mother, alone with three children, that it was a good opportunity for her. “My mother explained to me: ‘You’re going to Denmark.’ And I asked her: ‘Mom, what is Denmark?'” he remembers about the farewell. Most of those children failed to adapt and were returned, with an extensive history of abuse and trauma. After the failed experiment, the Danish State began to implement a campaign to implant contraceptive devices in young Inuit adolescents, often without them even being aware, a practice that began in the 60s and has extended until the 80s.Keys The origin The indigenous Inuit were the only inhabitants of Greenland until 1721, when Denmark began to colonize the island. Today, of the 52,000 inhabitants, 88% are of Inuit ethnicity. The Inuit make up 20% of Denmark’s population 4,500 IUDs without consent During the 60s and 70s, the Danish Government installed 4,500 IUDs without authorization on 13- and 14-year-old girls from Greenland, which have caused serious health problems. It has then carried out a policy of acculturation and immersion in the Danish language and education. Independence The majority of Greenland’s population wants independence from Denmark, but everyone benefits from the status quo: Denmark gains importance as an Arctic coastal state thanks to the island, and Greenland receives a large share of its spending. 80 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants The wave of suicides began in the 70s. It reached a rate of 113 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the 90s and today it is around 80 per 100,000 inhabitants, and mainly affects men between 15 and 19 years. AcculturationThe large fishing industry, which represented 90% of exports Danish, had taken over the region and impeded traditional livelihoods. The Inuit began to depend on social assistance, a burden for the Danish governments. At the end of the last century, many small communities such as Kangeq, on the southwest coast, even had basic public services such as electricity cut off, as it was considered an excessive expense. Local schools were also eliminated and, still today, the majority of Inuit children who go to school do so in Denmark, in host families, and seeing their parents only on vacation. “Schools in Inuit territory force you to do the opposite process, you are the one who has to adapt and only then can you start teaching them Danish,” explains Anders Hvidegaard, a teacher in Tiniteqilaaq, with about 80 inhabitants. Rare is the Danish master who accepts a position like this, which involves ice fishing for his own food, months each year in complete darkness, the lowest temperatures on the planet and powerful katabatic winds. “Several of my students are determined to become teachers and love this way of life, which is theirs, so in ten or fifteen years there may be a turning point,” he says. For now, however, hopelessness prevails. Nowhere in the world is the suicide rate higher than in Greenland, 80 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022, and the majority of suicides are under 25 years old.The thaw, a new threat And when it seemed that nothing worse could happen to For the Inuit, the melting ice as a result of climate warming pushes them from their territories further north. “In the 1980s the snow was hip-deep, it froze in December and melted in June,” says Uunartoq Løvstrøm, a hunter from Saattut, a small island near the head of the Uummannaq Fjord with 200 inhabitants. “It freezes in February and melts in April.” The melting of ice also attracts exploiters of natural resources for whom extraction until now was too expensive. The large deposits of rare earth minerals and metals, currently in great demand, have caused corporate interests to vitiate the work of local administrations, competent to grant excavation permits. Denmark, which until 20 years ago was happily contemplating the total independence of Greenland, is now demanding its role. In a final link in the curse that seems to weigh on the Inuit, the melting ice has turned the Arctic into an area of great influence, the future Panama Canal for maritime transport. And in Russia’s confrontation against NATO, a geostrategic enclave is necessarily under control. No one needs efficient local authorities, while the armies of both sides carry out maneuvers to learn how to fight in extreme climatic contexts. In Inuit mythology, the sun Malina and the moon Annigan are brothers who seek each other to fight each other. And the day they meet will be the day of the end of the world, at least of the Inuit world.
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