Dear Mr. Trump,
My name is Inger Platou.
Dear Mr. Trump,
My name is Inger Platou.
I am a retired school teacher and now live a quiet life as a freelance translator, writer and artist, with my now grown adopted children from Colombia. I had to adopt them, as I am one of those women who had an IUD inserted involuntarily as a young person, which made me sterile.
Like all other Greenlanders, I am a child of the colonial era, but I am friends with the Danes, even though their country, Denmark, has been a colonial power. Like many other Greenlanders, I also have Danish family, and we have always had a good relationship with the Danes and Denmark, despite the colonial history.
I and my ancestors have always lived in security and harmony in our country for decades. In our beautiful, safe and peaceful country, where we help each other, support each other and take care of each other – we have never experienced that any outsiders and strangers make us afraid of what will happen to us tomorrow or in 20 days. But when you interfere in our daily peaceful lives, you make us afraid and insecure.
I know that our minerals in Greenland are attractive to you, but they are ours that you cannot just take. This country is not a take-your-own table, even if you have more money than everyone else, that doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want.
We, Inuit, Greenlanders, have survived a harsh nature for many years, which no other people have been able to cope with. With their own home-made tools, qajaq, umiaq, dog sled, sealskin clothing, kamik, knives, houses, and what do I know, the Inuit survived without the help of other strangers from outside! We are a proud people, we have fought for our identity as Inuit, and we have fought to keep our own language and way of life. You must not come and destroy that. We feel good in our own country – Greenland.
I think, like many others in this country, that you should show respect! We do not want to start over as a colonial country. We know what the US has done to the Inuit in Alaska…
I hope you will listen to us.
But I fear waking up one day to war in Greenland.
Regards, Inger Platou, Nuuk, Greenland
