See previous posts regarding fun facts about the coldest inhabited regions of the world, such as France’s Icelands, Iceland’s bankruptcy, banks of seeds, and seeding arctic populations.
Tribalization and nationalism in the arctic continues! Following on the push for independence from Denmark by the Faroe Islands, Greenland this week voted with a supermajority of more than 75% to receive greater autonomy from Denmark. This may even lead to independence for this enormous island of just 56,000 people. With the approval of more than 3/4 voters, Greenland now has the sovereign right to take control of its security, system of justice, and police force.
Greenland scenery.
What is so bad about Denmark? Greenlanders elect two representatives who sit in the Danish parliament, so the region receives due political representation. The current primary export is fish, but Denmark provides a whopping half billion dollar grant for public services such as education and health care, so there is plenty of economic assistance. Locals may believe that independence promises a greater shares of profits from possible exports of oil, rubies, gold and diamonds — if they can ever convince anyone to invest the money to exploit these possible resources. But that’s a long way off. And who only knows how it would defend itself. (SIDENOTE: does anyone know if Greenland is within the US defense perimeter along with Iceland?)
Ultimately, this referendum comes down to tribalism and the phenomenon of arctic nationalism, the same factor that plays into Faroese identity, as noted previously. Greenland may be the sovereign territory of Denmark, but it shares little history with that nation. Up to 88% of the population is Inuit or mixed Danish and Inuit in ethnicy. Only 12% are of European descent. And Greenland explicitly chose to leave the European Community in 1985, just as the Faroese chose to opt out of EU membership.
Greenland is still important to the USAF. Not only is Thule Air Base still quite active as it’s northern-most base on the planet, but it’s home to a ICBM early warning site. On the other hand, Iceland’s importance has been severely downgraded with the closure of NAS Keflavik about a year and a half ago. Iceland’s president recently made the rather clumsy gaffe of offering Russia use of the closed base, something which he actually has no power over and in complete violation of the NATO pact.
Concerning the main theme of the post, Greenland shouldn’t really be looking to the Faroe Island’s for tips on future self-determination. The Faroe’s, by all accounts, seem to be sitting on top of one of the largest oil fields discovered in the last decade or so. Not the case for Greenland, like you mentioned it’s a bit of gamble with their natural resources. They may live to regret turning their back on .5 billion should they wave the flag a bit too enthusiastically and boot the Danes.
Greenland is indeed within the US defense perimeter — the Yanks moved in there during the Cold War because they wanted airbases close to the Soviets. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Air_Base
i think US has a base somewhere in greenland, as reported by the news articles i linked.
“there is also a ‘strayed H-bomb’ somewhere along the coast”
anyway, this would mean the ‘artic ocean’ right dispute among russia/canada/norway/denmark, will now be greenland not denmark.
re:resource, the greenlander are trying everything they can to fight al gore! they love global warming.
I fear you are right that this is a recurrence of tribalism – in this case a very expensive demonstration of cutting off your nose to spite your face! Very sad….
Excellent! I am one step closer to assuming my rightful place on the Greenlandic throne!
http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2007/08/all-hail-zenpundit-i.html
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