If you want, let’s remain friends, but we are a people, a land, a democracy: this is the message that the Prime Minister of Greenland sends to the President of the United States.
It has fewer inhabitants than Faenza. It’s Greenland. It has a total population of 59 thousand people, for every two inhabitants there is on average one beautiful polar bear. The University of Greenland has a total of 600 students and 19 employees including 15 teachers.
The capital Nuuk is as large as the municipality of Budrio, in the province of Bologna. Yet it is the largest island in the world, with an area slightly smaller than India but semi-deserted, and is currently the most disputed land on the planet. Trump wants it at any cost.
Ironically, however, the President of the United States who uses words like a saber is responded to by the Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who instead uses words like a foil. On the other hand, he is the head of the country of the Inuit who are said to be the people who have at least fifty ways to call snow. It is also the people that the philosopher Elias Canetti admired enormously because he gave importance to names as if they were souls, so much so that when a child was born, regardless of his sex, he took the name of the person he had come to “replace”.
Here, in fact, is the last message delivered a few days ago by Jens-Frederik Nielsen, born in 1991, badminton champion, to President Trump, via social media:
“We have been close and faithful friends of the United States for generations. We have stood shoulder to shoulder in difficult times. We have taken responsibility for the security of the North Atlantic and not least of North America. That’s what true friends do.
Precisely for this reason the immediate and repeated rhetoric of the United States is absolutely unacceptable. When the president of the United States talks about “we need Greenland” and links us with Venezuela and military intervention, it is not just wrong. This is so disrespectful. Our country is not the subject of superpower rhetoric. We are a people. A land. And democracy. This must be respected. Especially from dear and faithful friends.
We are part of NATO and are fully aware of the strategic position of our country. And we realize that our security depends on good friends and strong alliances. In this regard, a respectful and loyal relationship with the United States is very important. It’s been like this for decades. But alliances are based on trust. And trust requires respect. Threats, pressure and talk of annexation belong nowhere among friends. This is not how we speak to a people who have repeatedly demonstrated responsibility, stability and loyalty. That’s enough. No more pressure. No more clues. No more fantasies about annexation. We are open to dialogue. We are open to conversations. But it must happen through the right channels and in compliance with international law. And the right channels aren’t random, disrespectful posts on social media.
Greenland is our home and our territory. And so it continues to be.”
(translation @laredazione.net)
