Government commissioned report on Danish-Greenlandic history should not be merely symbolic

By Inge Høst Seiding, associate professor, PhD, head of Institute of Culture, Language & History at Ilisimatusarfik

This article was published in Danish on altinget.dk

A historical government commissioned report of the relationship between Greenland and Denmark must be strongly rooted in Greenlandic society to have a meaningful and lasting effect. Otherwise, there is a risk that it will become merely a symbolic handling of sensitive and difficult issues between the countries, writes Inge Høst Seiding.

Greenland has been less surprised to hear the stories of fostered and adopted children, orphanage experiments and, most recently, contraception campaigns.

Firstly, because it is not only history, but also living memory for the older part of the population. Secondly, because the consequences of many years of changing Danish colonial policy still have consequences for society.

There is much talk about our shared history, but as several researchers have also pointed out, it is more accurate to talk about entangled histories. The significance of colonial history is very different in the two countries. The need for research in the two countries are therefore quite different, and the Danish side should listen carefully to what is needed in Greenland when discussing research.

The fact that these topics today mainly appear in the media and a few, smaller research projects is due to the fact that research capacity and tradition are still new and limited in Greenland.

The purpose of historical research

If the government commissioned report is to be able to do what the politicians have initially said it must, namely both uncover and communicate historical events and bring about reconciliation, the task is therefore not entirely simple.

This requires that the Greenlandic research community is given a real opportunity to participate in the project, and at the same time build capacity to continue research in the field in the future. A research project that allows Greenlandic research students to be involved in the work is therefore an obvious way to ensure that the research and dissemination of this important and underexposed part of our history has lasting significance.

Reconciliation is not achieved with a government commissioned report, but if it leads to the possibility of new research into Greenland's own history in the future, it has been helped along.

Government commissioned reports have traditionally been archival studies of administrative history, designed to check facts and place responsibility in individual cases. This has its own justification and should to some extent also be part of future work.

It is also in Greenland's interest. Not least because the vast majority of the most important archives on Greenland's history in the 20th century are in Danish archives and have not been the subject of much research and registration - yet. This in itself is a problem that particularly affects Greenlandic researchers and archive users. This too should be part of what the government commissioned report helps to change.

The collective memory of the Greenlandic people

Equally important, for both countries, is the involvement of the Greenlandic population. This must be done in the research on memories from the time after the new settlement and the rapid modernization project that followed in Greenland.

These memories are carried by people alive today, but also by their descendants, in the form of memories of involuntary moves from settlement to town, adoptions out of the country, broken homes, linguistic segregation and the feeling of not being able to get on in life in one's own country.

In addition to being, from a historical perspective, an indispensable part of the history that otherwise appears only in fragments in the archives, it is also a prerequisite for the Danes' understanding of history: from being primarily about what happened 'in the best sense' to also being able to include an understanding of the country and culture in which it happened, and the consequences - which still characterise Greenland today.

A good example of how the government commissioned report can create more than just an uncovering of historical events can be found in the 2017 report of the Greenland Reconciliation Commission. One of its recommendations is that a knowledge centre for history and reconciliation be established in Greenland. At the time, there was no dialogue on reconciliation, because that was not what Denmark wanted.

That now seems to have changed, although there is still talk primarily of a historical examination. If reconciliation is to be approached, the focus should be on creating a lasting basis for acquiring knowledge about the entangled histories.