Language rights, human rights a concern in Greenland

I’m from Greenland and right now we have discussions about our minorities here in Greenland.

The discussions are about Danish people who can’t speak and understand Greenlandic, children of parents from both countries who can’t speak or understand the Greenlandic language, people who can’t speak or understand the Danish language and so on.

Right now, our acting president of the parliament has declared that politicians may only speak Greenlandic in the parliament. That created an outcry about racism and trying to keep the minority out of political influence.

A lot of the unilingual people speak only Danish, are highly-educated, and are our resources in the leadership jobs which are now mostly occupied by Danes. Greenland has a long history of being colonialised and ruled by the Danish government, and it’s relatively new for us to have all these well-educated people who can’t speak or understand the Greenlandic language. That is now a paradox many of us feel.

But we also need each other, so therefore it would be interesting to hear more about Paul Okalik’s proposals for a new human rights act in Nunavut and how you try to solve your problems.

Greetings from an Inuk from Greenland…

Karo Olsen-Jensen
Nuuk