Posted on 11/23/2021 7:44:20 PM PST by blueplum
....It was in 1951 when Danish authorities decided that one way to modernise Greenland would be to create a new type of Greenlander.
Teachers and priests were asked to identify children who could be re-educated and given a "better life" in mainland Denmark, and then return to be role models for Greenland-Denmark relations.
Many families were reluctant but some gave way, and in May 1951, the ship MS Disko set sail from Nuuk with 22 children on board.
Helene Thiesen, now in her 70s but seven at the time, said that her mother, who had been left alone with three children after their father's death, told her that Denmark was "just like paradise. You don't have to be sad"....
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
There is a whole lot of NOTHING in this article. The kids went to Denmark, and ended up somewhat estranged for “reasons”. Nothing explained, but whitey gotta pay!
Because when they returned to Greenland, they were put in an orphanage instead of returned to their parents. Estrangement by government decree.
It was an ignorant program that disregarded the human rights of the children and viewed them as pawns run by virtue signaling Karens of the era, no doubt.
The data is certainly skimpy. I did see that the six surviving Inuits now seek a payment of about $37,800.00.
Considering their experiences and apparent lack of support along the way, $37K is not all that much money.
In the states, that amount would be thickly padded with extra costs for ‘mental anguish’ or chronic anxiety, intrinsic qualities that can never be accurately measured.
In 1951, the city was called Godthåb (good hope), not Nuuk.
Greenland shoulda joined the US under Trump.
Go to war with Denmark and risk having to eat lutefisk?
lutefisk is swedish. the reward is to listen to the lamentations of their women.
Regards,
This part you had to follow a link to get. The girl of the story got married to a Dane but was not happy with what was done to her. Typical result of liberal do gooder meddling.
Considering the facts on the ground, Denmark's administration of Greenland has been remarkably benign over the century but that does not fit the narrative of anticolonialism. No matter the facts: white man bad, indigenous man good.
We have our own parallel in a way to this story in America with the Carlisle Indian School. There a well-intentioned effort to Christianize and civilize, if you will, American Indian students, Jim Thorpe among them, was ultimately shut because it was deemed a failure. In time it became fashionable to denigrate the motives of those running the school as close minded Christians and presumptuous whites.
My view is it doesn't matter whether the Carlisle Indian school failed because the school was at fault or because the culture of the American Indian resisted, like Huckleberry Finn, being civilized. It doesn't matter because the narrative says that no culture is superior to another (unless the culture in question is of a darker hue) and therefore any effort to ameliorate the ignorance and poverty of any culture must be decried. So it was concerning the Carlisle Indian school and so it is now concerning the Inuits taken to Denmark.
Anti-colonialism is the narrative.
Rabbit Proof Fence all over again.
“England’s empire has returned into sand.”
Only after the damage has been done.
Can’t unscramble the egg but we can learn. But then who owns the minerals in the South China Sea? Trump at least offered the Greenland folk to be instant millionaires. It would not have helped them. Money would go fast.
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