Inuits in Greenland rediscover cultural identity and national pride as independence debate intensifies

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - A man wearing a balloon of the Siumut political party on his head sits in the audience during a televised all party political debate at the high school in Nuuk, Greenland, on March 8, 2025. Greenland, the autonomous Danish territory will hold legislative elections on March 11. — AFP pic

NUUK, March 10 — With her colourful Inuit earrings and tattoos on prominent display, Ujammiugaq Engell, like many Greenlanders, flaunts her rediscovered cultural identity, which US President Donald Trump’s expansionist ambitions have only spurred further.

“I’m a whole lot of person. I carry my Greenlandic and Danish sides with pride,” said the smiling 30-some-year-old, the daughter of a mixed Danish and Greenlandic couple.

After moving to Copenhagen for university, she returned to live in Nuuk, the capital of the vast Arctic island, where she now works as a museum curator.

As Greenland’s former colonial power, Denmark pursued assimilation policies that included de facto bans on the Inuit language and traditional tattoos, forced sterilisations and the removal of children from their families to be placed in Danish homes.

The policies left Greenlanders bitter and cast a dark shadow over Denmark’s national conscience.

As Greenland gradually regained autonomy in the second half of the 20th century, its population, still made up of almost 90 per cent Inuits today, began to rediscover their long-stifled traditions.

Engell’s dark hair is piled high on her head in a bun, showcasing long beaded earrings that land beneath her collarbone.

Just below her right elbow, two parallel lines of dots encircle her forearm, symbolising holes to let the spirits move freely, she said.

“All women used to wear (tattoos) and then they disappeared with colonial history and Christianity taking over,” the historian by training told AFP.

“They were gone for a long time and then about 10 years ago they started making their way back into our culture.”

Greenlandic goldsmith Nadja Arnaaraq Kreutzmann works on a shrimp-shaped earring in her workshop in Nuuk, Greenland, February 9, 2025. — AFP pic

Neither Danes nor Americans

Independence is backed by all of Greenland’s main political parties, with the question of when to achieve it dominating the run-up to the island’s legislative elections on Tuesday.

Trump’s repeated remarks that he wants to get his hands on Greenland — first made during his previous term in office — have only served to boost Greenlanders’ national pride.

“I think it plays very much into the way that we are starting to understand our own importance and our own national identity,” said Engell.

Ebbe Volquardsen, a cultural history professor at the University of Greenland, said he had observed a “mental decolonisation” taking place among Greenlanders.

Volquardsen defined that as a “process where you try to become aware of colonial patterns of thought that you have internalised in your thinking and your way of looking at yourself and your own culture”.

Once identified those patterns could then be unlearned, he said.

So Greenlanders have begun “to value cultural techniques that have been discredited by the colonial power and by the Church on a very practical basis, like handicrafts and drum dancing and kayaking,” he told AFP.

In Nuuk, many locals say they see their future as neither Danes nor Americans, but Greenlanders.

“We have to fight for our culture, because Denmark took it away from us,” said Liv Aurora Jensen, a candidate for the green-left Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), one of the two parties that make up the outgoing government coalition.

Nowadays, “we have to think like Danes, we have to dress like Danes, and we have to eat like Danes. And I want our culture back”.

The sun rises behind Greenland's flag in Nuuk's old harbor, Greenland, February 5, 2025. — Reuters pic

Brain drain

Greenland today is a land of emigration. Over the past three decades, 300 to 400 more people have left the territory each year than have arrived.

That is expected to shrink the population from 57,000 currently to fewer than 50,000 around the year 2040, according to Greenland’s statistics agency.

Whether the renewed debate on independence will reverse the trend is uncertain.

But the exiles represent a loss of skilled workers who could otherwise have contributed to the building of an independent state.

Many exiles are often students going abroad for higher education, mostly to Denmark. Many never come back.

With her architecture diploma freshly earned from Denmark’s University of Aarhus, Sika Filemonsen said she would return to Nuuk this summer.

“Growing up in Greenland, we were always told to get an education so that we could contribute to society — that people with an education are exactly what the country needs, especially Greenlanders,” she said.

“That motivation has been a big part of why I wanted to pursue an education: to be able to help shape the country and play a role in its future.” — AFP

A general view shows Nuuk as the sun sets in Greenland, February 4, 2025. — Reuters pic