Derogatory remarksdiscrimination and discrimination are not foreign experiences for part of the Greenlandic population in Denmark.
Therefore, the House of Greenland in Copenhagen has started a campaign on rights for Greenlanders with the support of the Ministry of Immigration and Integration.
Derogatory remarksdiscrimination and discrimination are not foreign experiences for part of the Greenlandic population in Denmark.
Therefore, the House of Greenland in Copenhagen has started a campaign on rights for Greenlanders with the support of the Ministry of Immigration and Integration.
The eight videos, in which eight different people talk about their experiences, the consequences of the experiences and what they do, have been shown up to a million times since the campaign was launched this spring.
In addition to providing information about rights to interpretation and greater knowledge about reports of hate crimes, the purpose, according to the house’s director, Leise Johnsen, is to ensure that Greenlanders in Denmark are heard and understood.
The purpose is immensely noble. And I hope and cross my fingers that it will work. But it also made me think about how things are in Greenland.
Members of opposition parties talk down their opponents, how stupid and ignorant they are, instead of talking about politics, goals and visions for the Greenlandic people.
But it’s not just politicians who talk like that. Also other opinion makers and people who comment in e.g. Facebook, speaks out extremely sharply and sometimes violently.
The debate has turned into the conflict and disagreement here and now. It is poisonous and it is unforgiving. And if you disagree? God bless and comfort you! There is no room for disagreements.
I’ve written about it before, and I’ve found that it’s really important to me. I would so like that we humans can maintain respect for each other even if we disagree. That in our disagreement we can keep the focus on the ball instead of going after the head.
It is so that I miss postings from Aqqaluaq B. Egede and Hans Enoksen, who are no longer with us. They were political opponents, and they could disagree vehemently on the podium and in the media. In their free time, they were really good friends and didn’t hold back from good-natured teasing each other. There were people behind the attitudes.
I so wish more people could learn that different attitudes are what they are; different attitudes. There are people behind every attitude who have humour, feelings, experiences and much more. That the poisonous and conciliatory statements affect those people, just as they can also affect yourself, your parents and your children.
It is of course okay to have strong opinions, and we should of course be able to speak our mind. But if strong opinions are said with the purpose of pointing, putting down or hurting, then the likelihood that a person with a different opinion will listen, reflect and perhaps understand your opinions is very small. In turn, they will create a – perhaps just as violent – backlash.
But what will it take for the debate to not be so toxic anymore? Because it is not exclusively a Greenlandic phenomenon. It exists everywhere. But unlike other countries, where the language is e.g. Danish, Spanish, German or English, not many people understand our language.
Therefore, there is also less focus on libelous statements and direct hate speech. And I think that we don’t want our descendants to be as negative in their way of expressing their opinion.
And of course we must educate our children and young people to speak properly, respectfully and with dignity. But isn’t it also time for the finger to be pointed at us adults?
Is it appropriate that an information campaign is also made about what the current form of debate is doing to the individual people?
A bit like the campaign Det Grønlandske Hus in Copenhagen is running. Or maybe a bit like the campaign the mobile company in Denmark, Call Me, had about speaking properly from 2012.
Because we adults must also learn to speak properly.
