"I feel that my body was colonised" - Naja Lyberth
November 19, 2023 2:32 PM Subscribe
How Denmark Destroyed Greenland: Brief History of Denmark's Colonialism in Greenland is a 25 minute video by Norwegian history YouTuber Fredda. The Danish colonial legacy has been in the news lately, as 67 Kalaallit women have sued the Danish government [NYT, archive link] for having run a program where Kalaallit women had intrauterine devices inserted without their consent in the 1960s and 70s, which possibly continued for long afterwards. About a year ago, the BBC's Elaine Jung made a 25 minute documentary about the Kalaallit women affected by the program, called Greenland's Lost Generation which focuses on psychologist and campaigner Naja Lyberth, who was one of those who had an IUD inserted as a teenager.
This is so complicated. These years, we (in Denmark) are discovering a whole lot of things that are unacceptable to modern minds. Hundreds of young men were interned on Livø because they were deemed stupid. In Sprogø, young women were interned for being immoral. Many of these young people were sterilized because of eugenic ideas that were popular all over the western world even after WW2. At an orphanage relatively close to Copenhagen, dozens of boys were abused, and no-one cared. Since I'm old, I even remember what was probably the last of these cases, about a foster family who abused the many children in their care, I think that was in the late 70s or early 80s.
What I'm saying is that Denmark up till fairly recently was a paternalistic, racist, sexist and classist society where violence was the norm, and the government's approach to Greenland wasn't very different from its approach to other Danish provinces. This is obviously not an excuse, it's just how it is.
I'm pretty certain the women who were mistreated will be compensated. This is a huge scandal, and no-one thinks it is acceptable.
Greenland should be an independent nation, and I think most Danes and the Danish government agrees. BUT: Greenland is a huge country with 57.000 inhabitants. There is no way it can defend its own borders or provide services like healthcare and education up to Phd levels. Remember that in order to have government, infrastructure, schools and healthcare, you need to have higher education. Someone has to support the country's development and defense, and right now, there is a lot of interest in the Arctic. There are powers who would love to support Greenland, like the US, China and Russia. Remember Trump wanted to buy Greenland. China wants to buy Greenland, they just don't say it on TV. I think both the government in Greenland and the government in Denmark are struggling to figure out how to deal with this. Look at how China, Russia and the US treat indigenous people. Denmark has a dark colonial history, but nothing compared to those alternatives. If like 100.000 people come in to exploit the natural resources and/or build a military presence, how will that feel for the indigenous population?
Iceland is independent, but it is smaller, has a much larger population, and is less contested in the Arctic power play. Its population is Nordic. I'll leave Icelanders to comment on the American influence.
Another thing is that Greenland and Denmark are totally intertwined. Everyone in Greenland has some element of Danish ancestry, and lots of important "Danes" are from Greenland or have Greenlandic ancestry. Knud Rasmussen, who was the first person to chronicle all of the Arctic peoples in the Western hemisphere had an Inuit mother and a Danish father. People from Greenland are way overrepresented in culture today, from university professors over musicians to reality stars.
The other Nordic countries have the Sami people within their natural borders. No-one expects Norway, Sweden or Finland to cut off the top of their countries and create an independent nation, even though a lot of the issues are the exactly the same, including the challenges: the Sami people don't have the ressources to defend their land against the powers who want to control the Arctic, and they aren't enough people to create a modern society with all that entails.
I wish Greenland was more accessible. It is a beautiful country full of amazing people. Go there if you can.
posted by mumimor at 4:41 PM on November 19, 2023 [11 favorites]
What I'm saying is that Denmark up till fairly recently was a paternalistic, racist, sexist and classist society where violence was the norm, and the government's approach to Greenland wasn't very different from its approach to other Danish provinces. This is obviously not an excuse, it's just how it is.
I'm pretty certain the women who were mistreated will be compensated. This is a huge scandal, and no-one thinks it is acceptable.
Greenland should be an independent nation, and I think most Danes and the Danish government agrees. BUT: Greenland is a huge country with 57.000 inhabitants. There is no way it can defend its own borders or provide services like healthcare and education up to Phd levels. Remember that in order to have government, infrastructure, schools and healthcare, you need to have higher education. Someone has to support the country's development and defense, and right now, there is a lot of interest in the Arctic. There are powers who would love to support Greenland, like the US, China and Russia. Remember Trump wanted to buy Greenland. China wants to buy Greenland, they just don't say it on TV. I think both the government in Greenland and the government in Denmark are struggling to figure out how to deal with this. Look at how China, Russia and the US treat indigenous people. Denmark has a dark colonial history, but nothing compared to those alternatives. If like 100.000 people come in to exploit the natural resources and/or build a military presence, how will that feel for the indigenous population?
Iceland is independent, but it is smaller, has a much larger population, and is less contested in the Arctic power play. Its population is Nordic. I'll leave Icelanders to comment on the American influence.
Another thing is that Greenland and Denmark are totally intertwined. Everyone in Greenland has some element of Danish ancestry, and lots of important "Danes" are from Greenland or have Greenlandic ancestry. Knud Rasmussen, who was the first person to chronicle all of the Arctic peoples in the Western hemisphere had an Inuit mother and a Danish father. People from Greenland are way overrepresented in culture today, from university professors over musicians to reality stars.
The other Nordic countries have the Sami people within their natural borders. No-one expects Norway, Sweden or Finland to cut off the top of their countries and create an independent nation, even though a lot of the issues are the exactly the same, including the challenges: the Sami people don't have the ressources to defend their land against the powers who want to control the Arctic, and they aren't enough people to create a modern society with all that entails.
I wish Greenland was more accessible. It is a beautiful country full of amazing people. Go there if you can.
posted by mumimor at 4:41 PM on November 19, 2023 [11 favorites]
Thanks for the extra information, mumimor, but I don’t think the future of an independent Greenland has much to do with the abuses of indigenous women by (apparently) state-run programs. That is complicated only in the way, say, residential schools were complicated or US reservation policy is complicated — genocide by slower, mor deniable means.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:08 PM on November 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:08 PM on November 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well, what might be complicated is the fact that the abuse continued after the Greenlandic authorities took over healthcare. And the women who were abused after the colonial time might not receive compensation. I didn't want to highlight this, but that is what happened. And I feel very uncomfortable about this.
The shared notion across Danish and Greenlandic authorities was that cross-breeding (I hate this wording, but it was theirs, not mine) was wrong. What they wanted to prevent were children with Inuit mothers and Danish fathers.
posted by mumimor at 5:21 PM on November 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
The shared notion across Danish and Greenlandic authorities was that cross-breeding (I hate this wording, but it was theirs, not mine) was wrong. What they wanted to prevent were children with Inuit mothers and Danish fathers.
posted by mumimor at 5:21 PM on November 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
There are other options .... New Zealand was essentially given all of the UK's pacific island territories after WW2, and helped most of them become independent nations - but some decided they were too small - for example Niue is a "self-governing state in free association with New Zealand" - most of its population actually live in NZ - it has it's own parliament, but NZ manages a lot of its foreign affairs (Niue uses NZ embassies for example), and defence. Rarotonga/Cook Islands are in a similar position (but has it's own embassies)
posted by mbo at 9:55 PM on November 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mbo at 9:55 PM on November 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
mumimor: This is so complicated.
To the peoples of the perpetrators, genocide is always a complicated story, because they have to answer the question "how did human beings we consider us… how did we… commit such an awful crime?" To understand that is a long, involved process, that requires thinking yourself into a truly horrific mindset, and see that people who look like you, talk like you, and live where you live, could be capable of evil.
It is a necessary and important process, but it is emotionally difficult and there are many traps along the way, all of which requires the help of historical and social research, philosophy and theory, not to mention exercising empathy and sympathy in ways that are not culturally ingrained in the community of the perpetrators.
But to the victims, it's a very simple story, like a fairytale or a horror movie, because none of the historical and social context that molded the perpetrators, and none of the thoughts and feelings of the perpetrators, follow the act of violence into the body and life of the victim. There is just blood and pain and death.
posted by Kattullus at 12:48 AM on November 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
To the peoples of the perpetrators, genocide is always a complicated story, because they have to answer the question "how did human beings we consider us… how did we… commit such an awful crime?" To understand that is a long, involved process, that requires thinking yourself into a truly horrific mindset, and see that people who look like you, talk like you, and live where you live, could be capable of evil.
It is a necessary and important process, but it is emotionally difficult and there are many traps along the way, all of which requires the help of historical and social research, philosophy and theory, not to mention exercising empathy and sympathy in ways that are not culturally ingrained in the community of the perpetrators.
But to the victims, it's a very simple story, like a fairytale or a horror movie, because none of the historical and social context that molded the perpetrators, and none of the thoughts and feelings of the perpetrators, follow the act of violence into the body and life of the victim. There is just blood and pain and death.
posted by Kattullus at 12:48 AM on November 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
Go there if you can.
I did, and honestly, I was impressed. My point of comparison was Native communities in the area I live (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Dakotas), where I know people and have at least some outsider familiarity with the situations and issues.
I could go on at great length, comparing the experience of people in Native nations around here with the experience in Greenland. There are a lot of parallels: the one linked in the post are some, there was something like a "residential schools" experience, there were attempts in the 1960s to move people away from remote communities to urban settings, much like what was happening in places like Minneapolis and Milwaukee. At times, there were restrictions on movement, much like there were with Canadian First Nations earlier in the 20th Century. And of course, there were missionaries.
But what really struck me on the ground when I visited was the degree of "ownership" that Greenlander/Inuit people have today. It's not perfect, there's still a European layer of management in places, and of course local institutions are still beholden to international finance and diplomatic status. But the degree of the local stake in institutions, businesses, schools, government, media, tech and communications, I thought was impressive, compared to what I've seen in North America. I'd see traces of Inuit influence, and I found myself thinking "imagine if this happened in Bemidji, Minnesota or Hayward, Wisconsin--it would blow people's minds". Local people have spoken up for themselves, and they've had successes.
I'll have to watch the video a bit later. I hope it talks a bit about the accomplishments of local people over the last 20 or 30 years ago alongside the problems of colonialism and its aftermath.
posted by gimonca at 5:37 AM on November 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
I did, and honestly, I was impressed. My point of comparison was Native communities in the area I live (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Dakotas), where I know people and have at least some outsider familiarity with the situations and issues.
I could go on at great length, comparing the experience of people in Native nations around here with the experience in Greenland. There are a lot of parallels: the one linked in the post are some, there was something like a "residential schools" experience, there were attempts in the 1960s to move people away from remote communities to urban settings, much like what was happening in places like Minneapolis and Milwaukee. At times, there were restrictions on movement, much like there were with Canadian First Nations earlier in the 20th Century. And of course, there were missionaries.
But what really struck me on the ground when I visited was the degree of "ownership" that Greenlander/Inuit people have today. It's not perfect, there's still a European layer of management in places, and of course local institutions are still beholden to international finance and diplomatic status. But the degree of the local stake in institutions, businesses, schools, government, media, tech and communications, I thought was impressive, compared to what I've seen in North America. I'd see traces of Inuit influence, and I found myself thinking "imagine if this happened in Bemidji, Minnesota or Hayward, Wisconsin--it would blow people's minds". Local people have spoken up for themselves, and they've had successes.
I'll have to watch the video a bit later. I hope it talks a bit about the accomplishments of local people over the last 20 or 30 years ago alongside the problems of colonialism and its aftermath.
posted by gimonca at 5:37 AM on November 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
There are other options ....
Greenland is a self governing entity within the Danish Kingdom. The only things that are handled by the Danish government are defense and foreign policy, though Greenland has some offices abroad in different places, but Denmark provides a very large part of the the Greenlandic government's budget through the so-called block contribution, and there are two members from Greenland in the Danish parliament. It's called a block contribution because the Greenlandic government decides how to use the funds, not the Danish government. Greenland has historically and to this day had governments that are more left-leaning/progressive than the governments in Denmark, which are again historically a good bit to the left of Bernie Sanders, even when they are led by Conservatives. Which all means: in Greenland, people are pro government. The reason this matters is below.
One thing I feel is complicated is that Danish authorities treated people in Denmark in the same way -- heck, I was given unwanted contraceptives as a young girl, before I even reached the age of consent and long before I had sex. This began during the sixties, and people were very excited about sexual liberation, even for kids. I'm not saying this makes anything better, and as I mentioned above, there was a specific extra layer of racist, colonialist thinking in Greenland.
It's also a complication that this apparently continued after Greenland became self-governing, up to the early 2000s.
While there is no doubt that Denmark is a colonialist nation, Greenland was treated entirely differently from the other Danish colonies like the Virgin Islands, and even Iceland, right from the beginning. I suppose the pragmatic reason was that the Danes couldn't survive in the Arctic without close collaboration with the indigenous people. This means that when Denmark decided to build a welfare society from 1933 onward, it included Greenland. Greenland was supposed to have the same rights and freedoms as the Danes in Denmark, but that was really difficult in a huge Arctic nation with very long distances between the villages and towns, specially before helicopters. You can't build a hospital in a village of 300 people. Some of the worst colonial abuse happened after WW2, because Danish authorities were trying to "help" Greenland towards independence and bungled it, very often because they were experimenting with progressive ideas, such as birth control in this case, but housing and education were other aspects where the authorities made huge mistakes based on progressive thinking.
It is worth noting that the Danish authorities first wanted to keep Greenland in a closed, pristine and "authentic" pre-modern state, having seen what was going on in the US and Canada and wanting to avoid that. It was the second generation of Greenlandic politicians in the pre-WW2 national councils who worked for modernization and closer bonds with Denmark. (The councils were established in 1911, but the demand for modernization grew after 1930). They wouldn't have used those terms but in modern parlance, they were saying that the Danish government had an essentialist, perhaps even racist view of the peoples of Greenland and that they had as much right to a modern society as the Danes in Denmark.
In the English-language articles and videos linked in the post, things are described quite differently than in the Danish language coverage. You might think the Danish coverage is less critical, but then you would be wrong, it's from there I know about the racist thinking behind the project. It's more that you get the sense of how the authorities were constantly scrambling to mend the problems they themselves had created, while also knowing there was no way back. People don't want to go back to live in squalor in the small villages, even though they feel alienated in the larger towns. People don't want to go back to live as hunter-gatherers although modern life has an other set of problems in the Arctic.
The specific problem they had created here was that a too large percentage of children were born to very young women who were abandoned by their Danish boyfriends when those men returned to Denmark after a few years of work. It's true that this was described as a burden on the welfare state, but that was specifically because the mothers were single parents and the dads were on another continent where they couldn't be held accountable and thus contribute to the children's upbringing. It wasn't an attempt to decimate the population of Greenland or a genocide, that is a truly absurd conclusion. Apart from the very specific case of the Pituffik Space Base, no one has ever wanted to take land from Greenlandic peoples, and there has never been any intent to kill Greenlandic people or limit their freedoms or rights, not even in colonial times.
The solution was stupid in many ways but perhaps the bigger scandal is that those men weren't held accountable. Denmark should have done that. I probably need to mention that these were consensual relationships in by far the most cases, and that the young mothers weren't children, the IUDs were inserted early in order to be ahead of the situation, just as being forced to take the Pill was for me in Denmark. I'm thinking that there are aspects of this that are really hard to understand for the English-speaking world, and that is why it isn't described in the links in the post. I'm struggling to explain it adequately. The authorities wanted to support the young women's right to have sex when and with whom they wanted. It was a progressive stance.
I really wonder why the home rule didn't stop the practice in 1979 when the home rule was established or in 1991, when Greenland's health care system became wholly independent of the Danish system. I had a lot to do with Greenland during the -90s, and met several members of the government. I know they had a lot to deal with, but ending this practice seems like an easy task, and since many cabinet members including the leader were women, it's not like they didn't know what was going on. Maybe they felt it was complicated.
This is being put out forcefully and in international media at a point in time where Greenland is working on its constitution and thus the final steps of independence. Some people want a total indepence and speak of the relationship between Greenland and Denmark in anti-colonialist terms. For them, this is one of several examples of colonialist behaviour from the Danes, ignoring that the practice continued for 20 years after the home rule was established. This is part of a political discussion in Greenland and Denmark about colonialism, which is absolutely fair, but I'll note that both the Danish and Greenlandic governments reacted ASAP after it came out, and made a joint statement, basically saying this was wrong, and we all need to figure out what exactly happened so we can do whatever is right.
And by the way, the reason I am not using the term Kalaallit Inuit is that there are two other indigenous peoples in Greenland, and I think there is a whole other can of worms buried there, but I don't know enough about it to understand or explain it.
posted by mumimor at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
Greenland is a self governing entity within the Danish Kingdom. The only things that are handled by the Danish government are defense and foreign policy, though Greenland has some offices abroad in different places, but Denmark provides a very large part of the the Greenlandic government's budget through the so-called block contribution, and there are two members from Greenland in the Danish parliament. It's called a block contribution because the Greenlandic government decides how to use the funds, not the Danish government. Greenland has historically and to this day had governments that are more left-leaning/progressive than the governments in Denmark, which are again historically a good bit to the left of Bernie Sanders, even when they are led by Conservatives. Which all means: in Greenland, people are pro government. The reason this matters is below.
One thing I feel is complicated is that Danish authorities treated people in Denmark in the same way -- heck, I was given unwanted contraceptives as a young girl, before I even reached the age of consent and long before I had sex. This began during the sixties, and people were very excited about sexual liberation, even for kids. I'm not saying this makes anything better, and as I mentioned above, there was a specific extra layer of racist, colonialist thinking in Greenland.
It's also a complication that this apparently continued after Greenland became self-governing, up to the early 2000s.
While there is no doubt that Denmark is a colonialist nation, Greenland was treated entirely differently from the other Danish colonies like the Virgin Islands, and even Iceland, right from the beginning. I suppose the pragmatic reason was that the Danes couldn't survive in the Arctic without close collaboration with the indigenous people. This means that when Denmark decided to build a welfare society from 1933 onward, it included Greenland. Greenland was supposed to have the same rights and freedoms as the Danes in Denmark, but that was really difficult in a huge Arctic nation with very long distances between the villages and towns, specially before helicopters. You can't build a hospital in a village of 300 people. Some of the worst colonial abuse happened after WW2, because Danish authorities were trying to "help" Greenland towards independence and bungled it, very often because they were experimenting with progressive ideas, such as birth control in this case, but housing and education were other aspects where the authorities made huge mistakes based on progressive thinking.
It is worth noting that the Danish authorities first wanted to keep Greenland in a closed, pristine and "authentic" pre-modern state, having seen what was going on in the US and Canada and wanting to avoid that. It was the second generation of Greenlandic politicians in the pre-WW2 national councils who worked for modernization and closer bonds with Denmark. (The councils were established in 1911, but the demand for modernization grew after 1930). They wouldn't have used those terms but in modern parlance, they were saying that the Danish government had an essentialist, perhaps even racist view of the peoples of Greenland and that they had as much right to a modern society as the Danes in Denmark.
In the English-language articles and videos linked in the post, things are described quite differently than in the Danish language coverage. You might think the Danish coverage is less critical, but then you would be wrong, it's from there I know about the racist thinking behind the project. It's more that you get the sense of how the authorities were constantly scrambling to mend the problems they themselves had created, while also knowing there was no way back. People don't want to go back to live in squalor in the small villages, even though they feel alienated in the larger towns. People don't want to go back to live as hunter-gatherers although modern life has an other set of problems in the Arctic.
The specific problem they had created here was that a too large percentage of children were born to very young women who were abandoned by their Danish boyfriends when those men returned to Denmark after a few years of work. It's true that this was described as a burden on the welfare state, but that was specifically because the mothers were single parents and the dads were on another continent where they couldn't be held accountable and thus contribute to the children's upbringing. It wasn't an attempt to decimate the population of Greenland or a genocide, that is a truly absurd conclusion. Apart from the very specific case of the Pituffik Space Base, no one has ever wanted to take land from Greenlandic peoples, and there has never been any intent to kill Greenlandic people or limit their freedoms or rights, not even in colonial times.
The solution was stupid in many ways but perhaps the bigger scandal is that those men weren't held accountable. Denmark should have done that. I probably need to mention that these were consensual relationships in by far the most cases, and that the young mothers weren't children, the IUDs were inserted early in order to be ahead of the situation, just as being forced to take the Pill was for me in Denmark. I'm thinking that there are aspects of this that are really hard to understand for the English-speaking world, and that is why it isn't described in the links in the post. I'm struggling to explain it adequately. The authorities wanted to support the young women's right to have sex when and with whom they wanted. It was a progressive stance.
I really wonder why the home rule didn't stop the practice in 1979 when the home rule was established or in 1991, when Greenland's health care system became wholly independent of the Danish system. I had a lot to do with Greenland during the -90s, and met several members of the government. I know they had a lot to deal with, but ending this practice seems like an easy task, and since many cabinet members including the leader were women, it's not like they didn't know what was going on. Maybe they felt it was complicated.
This is being put out forcefully and in international media at a point in time where Greenland is working on its constitution and thus the final steps of independence. Some people want a total indepence and speak of the relationship between Greenland and Denmark in anti-colonialist terms. For them, this is one of several examples of colonialist behaviour from the Danes, ignoring that the practice continued for 20 years after the home rule was established. This is part of a political discussion in Greenland and Denmark about colonialism, which is absolutely fair, but I'll note that both the Danish and Greenlandic governments reacted ASAP after it came out, and made a joint statement, basically saying this was wrong, and we all need to figure out what exactly happened so we can do whatever is right.
And by the way, the reason I am not using the term Kalaallit Inuit is that there are two other indigenous peoples in Greenland, and I think there is a whole other can of worms buried there, but I don't know enough about it to understand or explain it.
posted by mumimor at 6:20 AM on November 20, 2023 [5 favorites]
THANK YOU, Mumimor, for your contributions to this thread.
posted by bouvin at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by bouvin at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
muminor, while I feel this is becoming a back-and -forth between you and me, and I usually enjoy and learn from your comments on MetaFilter, I'm disappointed by your deflection and defensiveness in this thread. You are throwing up a lot of related ideas for the purpose of confusing (intentionally or not) the very simple fact that the Danish government sexually assaulted and sterilized a large number of Greenlandic women over a long time.
That the Home Rule government did not immediately end the program does not absolve the Danish government. Lots of post-colonial (or, rather, transitional-from-colonial governments) governments maintain harmful pracices from the colonial period. It's hard to shake generations of abuse, after all.
That the Danish government also interfered with the reproductive lives of its non-indigenous people just makes it worse.
That the 60s and 70s were a more misogynistic time is an explanation but hardly an excuse.
That there was a problem with Danish men leaving pregnant girlfriends behind when they left the colony is more an argument for sterilizing Danish men than Greenlandic women.
That Danish people are also shocked and horrified by what their government did doesn't mitigate the awfulness of the program. They abused the trust and bodies of indigenous girls in a colony and hid the information to compound their criminal behavior. Absence of shock and horror would be a further crime; its presence is not a mitigating factor.
Virtually every European country with colonies or internal indigenous populations need to face up to their genocidal pasts. The largest difference here that I can see is that these women are still alive to demand personal restitution for themselves.
Once you take Danish feelings out of the equation, it is not a complicated situation, just a monstrous one. I hope the women get justice.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:09 PM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
That the Home Rule government did not immediately end the program does not absolve the Danish government. Lots of post-colonial (or, rather, transitional-from-colonial governments) governments maintain harmful pracices from the colonial period. It's hard to shake generations of abuse, after all.
That the Danish government also interfered with the reproductive lives of its non-indigenous people just makes it worse.
That the 60s and 70s were a more misogynistic time is an explanation but hardly an excuse.
That there was a problem with Danish men leaving pregnant girlfriends behind when they left the colony is more an argument for sterilizing Danish men than Greenlandic women.
That Danish people are also shocked and horrified by what their government did doesn't mitigate the awfulness of the program. They abused the trust and bodies of indigenous girls in a colony and hid the information to compound their criminal behavior. Absence of shock and horror would be a further crime; its presence is not a mitigating factor.
Virtually every European country with colonies or internal indigenous populations need to face up to their genocidal pasts. The largest difference here that I can see is that these women are still alive to demand personal restitution for themselves.
Once you take Danish feelings out of the equation, it is not a complicated situation, just a monstrous one. I hope the women get justice.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:09 PM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, I do not want to suggest I have some kind of high ground here -- I live on stolen land, I work on stolen land, and my country continues its pattern of genocide to this day, only in a slower and more deniable way. I hope Denmark manages to avoid that path and makes an effort to settle at least some of its debts fairly. Colonialism, in the end, will try and devour everyone, colonies and metropole alike.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:35 PM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:35 PM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
OK
This is factually wrong: the Danish government did not sexually assault or sterilize any women at all. They systematically enforced the use of IUDs on Greenlandic children which was abusive, horrible and wrong, but is neither sexual assault nor sterilization. Most of these thousands of girls grew up to have children and in many cases significant influence on the development of their country. If you insist that this is equivalent to the history in your own country, we will have to agree to disagree.
I agree with your point about the Danish men, though often they weren't just leaving pregnant girlfriends but whole families behind, which makes it worse. This is one element where the racist and colonialist attitude really comes through, because there were specific rules allowing those men to escape responsibility. I'm sorry if I didn't make this sufficiently clear. The main thing that makes me angry about this project is that it is an attempt to solve the problem of Danish men abandoning their families in Greenland by forcing the use of contraception on thousands of children who hadn't even thought of adult relationships, let alone relationships with foreigners.
Neither the Danish nor the Greenlandic governments hid information about the program. They were proud of it, because they saw it as a progressive, liberating project. In the Danish public radio podcast where this was all revealed last year, doctors who implemented it told about their work and why they thought it was a good idea. They also acknowledged that the lack of parental consent was a big issue, and explained it happened very rarely, and mostly in families where the parents didn't speak Danish or were very far away. Which is absolutely not an excuse, but I wonder if the investigation will show that some parents did consent, but didn't tell their daughters. Like my mum, in Denmark.
For US readers: DR, the main Danish public broadcaster is like the BBC. It is what most people listen to and watch, even though there are alternatives, and their stories carry over to other media.
That the Home Rule government did not immediately end the program does not absolve the Danish government. Lots of post-colonial (or, rather, transitional-from-colonial governments) governments maintain harmful pracices from the colonial period.
I hear what you are saying, and that was actually my own thought when I first heard of this last year, but then I remembered my meeting with parts of the Greenland government in the -90s and it didn't make sense to me.
I literally think it was complicated. Again, Greenland is huge, and people even today don't always have immediate access to healthcare, including reproductive healthcare. I may have my own thoughts about those Danish workers in relationships with Greenlandic women, but they were legitimate relationships, many of them were serious and young people enjoy sex. If the couples wanted children, they could go to the doctor and get the IUD removed. An IUD is a very safe form of contraception and side effects are real, but quite rare. I certainly preferred it when I needed contraception.
Some of the stories in the OP are really weird. It seems absurd how people could be examined for reproductive health issues and the doctors not discovering the IUD. But I totally believe the women. One huge factor that I think is also well known in the US, is that the best doctors don't always apply for jobs in remote districts with little access to modern amenities.
There is one thing in some of the articles and videos in the post that confuses me. They seem to find that the huge drop in childbirths during the 70s is indicative of some surprising and unusual occurrence, but this dip is normal in all western countries. It can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious, given everything else we know about Greenlandic modernization, is that Greenland followed or was part of the general Western trend of that time period.
Virtually every European country with colonies or internal indigenous populations need to face up to their genocidal pasts. The largest difference here that I can see is that these women are still alive to demand personal restitution for themselves.
This is the thing that really gets me. There was no genocide in Greenland, Iceland or Føroyer. Or in Norway before 1814. Not even a tiny little hint of it. Claiming that genocide was part of Danish North Atlantic colonialism is counterfactual, or perhaps a projection of other histories onto the history of the North Atlantic nations. I don't think there was any heroic reason this was the case, it just didn't make any sense for the Danish central government to kill people, harm them or remove them from their land.
This is the main reason I think this is being used as part of a political project, regardless of the real suffering of the women involved, which is acknowledged by everyone. Reading about Naja Lyberth in Greenlandic media is different from the linked English language media. I do wonder why distributing incorrect information through international media is meaningful, but I am not a propaganda expert, and also this might be created by the editing of the international media, not the Greenlandic sources.
Our current PM is very, very alert about Greenlandic issues. She is the best possible person to handle this, I think, and I am not at all a fan of her in general. But she comes from a city with a large Greenlandic presence, and also I just think she respects the Greenlandic people at a fundamental level that is different from her predecessors. The way she handled it when Trump offered to buy Greenland, making it clear that Greenland is autonomous and not for sale, and giving the right of response to the Greenlandic leader set the pace, and she has dealt with every new problem in the same way.
Denmark participated in the slave trade, with colonies in both the Virgin Islands and Ghana. I'm not out to absolve Denmark as a nation from genocide or other atrocities. But the slave trade issues should be in another post.
Anyway, I can see how you can read my comments as confusing. I am struggling a lot with them and spending too much time, because I don't want to reproduce offensive material, even as quotes, and I don't want to seem offensive towards Greenlandic victims, specially since I acknowledge their pain 100%. So I am not being as direct as I perhaps would be outside the internet.
posted by mumimor at 4:18 PM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is factually wrong: the Danish government did not sexually assault or sterilize any women at all. They systematically enforced the use of IUDs on Greenlandic children which was abusive, horrible and wrong, but is neither sexual assault nor sterilization. Most of these thousands of girls grew up to have children and in many cases significant influence on the development of their country. If you insist that this is equivalent to the history in your own country, we will have to agree to disagree.
I agree with your point about the Danish men, though often they weren't just leaving pregnant girlfriends but whole families behind, which makes it worse. This is one element where the racist and colonialist attitude really comes through, because there were specific rules allowing those men to escape responsibility. I'm sorry if I didn't make this sufficiently clear. The main thing that makes me angry about this project is that it is an attempt to solve the problem of Danish men abandoning their families in Greenland by forcing the use of contraception on thousands of children who hadn't even thought of adult relationships, let alone relationships with foreigners.
Neither the Danish nor the Greenlandic governments hid information about the program. They were proud of it, because they saw it as a progressive, liberating project. In the Danish public radio podcast where this was all revealed last year, doctors who implemented it told about their work and why they thought it was a good idea. They also acknowledged that the lack of parental consent was a big issue, and explained it happened very rarely, and mostly in families where the parents didn't speak Danish or were very far away. Which is absolutely not an excuse, but I wonder if the investigation will show that some parents did consent, but didn't tell their daughters. Like my mum, in Denmark.
For US readers: DR, the main Danish public broadcaster is like the BBC. It is what most people listen to and watch, even though there are alternatives, and their stories carry over to other media.
That the Home Rule government did not immediately end the program does not absolve the Danish government. Lots of post-colonial (or, rather, transitional-from-colonial governments) governments maintain harmful pracices from the colonial period.
I hear what you are saying, and that was actually my own thought when I first heard of this last year, but then I remembered my meeting with parts of the Greenland government in the -90s and it didn't make sense to me.
I literally think it was complicated. Again, Greenland is huge, and people even today don't always have immediate access to healthcare, including reproductive healthcare. I may have my own thoughts about those Danish workers in relationships with Greenlandic women, but they were legitimate relationships, many of them were serious and young people enjoy sex. If the couples wanted children, they could go to the doctor and get the IUD removed. An IUD is a very safe form of contraception and side effects are real, but quite rare. I certainly preferred it when I needed contraception.
Some of the stories in the OP are really weird. It seems absurd how people could be examined for reproductive health issues and the doctors not discovering the IUD. But I totally believe the women. One huge factor that I think is also well known in the US, is that the best doctors don't always apply for jobs in remote districts with little access to modern amenities.
There is one thing in some of the articles and videos in the post that confuses me. They seem to find that the huge drop in childbirths during the 70s is indicative of some surprising and unusual occurrence, but this dip is normal in all western countries. It can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious, given everything else we know about Greenlandic modernization, is that Greenland followed or was part of the general Western trend of that time period.
Virtually every European country with colonies or internal indigenous populations need to face up to their genocidal pasts. The largest difference here that I can see is that these women are still alive to demand personal restitution for themselves.
This is the thing that really gets me. There was no genocide in Greenland, Iceland or Føroyer. Or in Norway before 1814. Not even a tiny little hint of it. Claiming that genocide was part of Danish North Atlantic colonialism is counterfactual, or perhaps a projection of other histories onto the history of the North Atlantic nations. I don't think there was any heroic reason this was the case, it just didn't make any sense for the Danish central government to kill people, harm them or remove them from their land.
This is the main reason I think this is being used as part of a political project, regardless of the real suffering of the women involved, which is acknowledged by everyone. Reading about Naja Lyberth in Greenlandic media is different from the linked English language media. I do wonder why distributing incorrect information through international media is meaningful, but I am not a propaganda expert, and also this might be created by the editing of the international media, not the Greenlandic sources.
Our current PM is very, very alert about Greenlandic issues. She is the best possible person to handle this, I think, and I am not at all a fan of her in general. But she comes from a city with a large Greenlandic presence, and also I just think she respects the Greenlandic people at a fundamental level that is different from her predecessors. The way she handled it when Trump offered to buy Greenland, making it clear that Greenland is autonomous and not for sale, and giving the right of response to the Greenlandic leader set the pace, and she has dealt with every new problem in the same way.
Denmark participated in the slave trade, with colonies in both the Virgin Islands and Ghana. I'm not out to absolve Denmark as a nation from genocide or other atrocities. But the slave trade issues should be in another post.
Anyway, I can see how you can read my comments as confusing. I am struggling a lot with them and spending too much time, because I don't want to reproduce offensive material, even as quotes, and I don't want to seem offensive towards Greenlandic victims, specially since I acknowledge their pain 100%. So I am not being as direct as I perhaps would be outside the internet.
posted by mumimor at 4:18 PM on November 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
I can confirm that this was not hidden at all – in the sexual health information that I was provided with in school in the early eighties (in seventh or eighth grade?), I recall it being described that IUDs were commonly used in Greenland as opposed to the pill. The reason given was that remote villages would only see a few ships per year, so IUDs were the better alternative. (This was, of course, in hindsight not the whole truth).
I have from time to time on this site seen the admonition that people should shut up and listen, when they are not as aware or knowledgable about a situation as they might think they are. That seems like sound advice to me?
posted by bouvin at 3:52 PM on November 21, 2023
I have from time to time on this site seen the admonition that people should shut up and listen, when they are not as aware or knowledgable about a situation as they might think they are. That seems like sound advice to me?
posted by bouvin at 3:52 PM on November 21, 2023
mumimor: This is factually wrong: the Danish government did not sexually assault or sterilize any women at all. They systematically enforced the use of IUDs on Greenlandic children which was abusive, horrible and wrong, but is neither sexual assault nor sterilization. Most of these thousands of girls grew up to have children and in many cases significant influence on the development of their country.
If you had read the articles I linked to in my post, or watched the video about Naja Lyberth, you would know that many women who had IUDs inserted without their consent in their early teens were unable to have children, and that many more struggled for years to conceive. You would also know that the birth-rate in the country halved in just a few years, from 1966 to 1974. These events are horrible enough without you quibbling about what counts and doesn't count as sexual assault and sterilization.
I'm honestly really shocked by the last two comments, both mumimor's and bouvin's. I'm not without sympathy, however, both because I have Danish heritage, and because even in my native Iceland there is a strong cultural current to downplay Danish state crimes in their former colonies.
That said, I'll leave with a quote from Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, one of the two Kalaallit members of the Danish Parliament, from a speech earlier this year:
posted by Kattullus at 3:42 AM on November 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you had read the articles I linked to in my post, or watched the video about Naja Lyberth, you would know that many women who had IUDs inserted without their consent in their early teens were unable to have children, and that many more struggled for years to conceive. You would also know that the birth-rate in the country halved in just a few years, from 1966 to 1974. These events are horrible enough without you quibbling about what counts and doesn't count as sexual assault and sterilization.
I'm honestly really shocked by the last two comments, both mumimor's and bouvin's. I'm not without sympathy, however, both because I have Danish heritage, and because even in my native Iceland there is a strong cultural current to downplay Danish state crimes in their former colonies.
That said, I'll leave with a quote from Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, one of the two Kalaallit members of the Danish Parliament, from a speech earlier this year:
I det seneste år, kommer flere og flere krænkelser imod os Inuit-Grønlændere, som var blevet holdt hemmeligt af Danmark op til overfladen. Hemmeligheder, folkedrab kommer frem i lyset, juridisk undertrykkelse, overtrædelser af menneskerettigheder, blot for at spare penge på vores bekostning.English translation:
Her i folketingssalen, lige her på denne talerstol, har tidligere ministre sagt at folkedrab af Inuit-Grønlændere var en succes, blandt andet på grund af de penge der er blevet sparet.
Hvor er medmenneskeligheden?
In the last year, more and more wrongdoings against us Inuit-Greenlanders have come to the surface, which had been kept secret by Denmark. Secrets, genocide, have come to light, legal opressions, violations of human rights, just to save money at our expense.Note: This speech was covered on MetaFilter earlier this year, a post I somehow missed. She delivered the speech in Greenlandic, and the Danish version, from which I quoted above, is from her own translation which she provided to the Danish parliament. The English translation is mine, from the Danish.
Here in the hall of parliament, here at this very podium, former ministers have said that the genocide of Inuit-Greenlanders was a success, partly because of the money that was saved.
Where is the humanity?
posted by Kattullus at 3:42 AM on November 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
mumimor, I find you comments confusing because they directly contradict what the women in the articles and video are saying. They are very clear that they received invasive reproductive treatments that they did not consent to (which is a kind of assault) and that they found it difficult or impossible to have children, which is sterilization or close enough, as a "reversible" birth control method won't be reversed if no one knows it's been done. You insist that the program was common knowledge, but the women deny knowing about it. It seems incredible that 67 women would lie about something that was common knowledge.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:31 PM on November 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:31 PM on November 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have already addressed some of the issues you bring up in my former comments, there's no need to repeat what I said if you don't want to read it.
First of all: I have read the articles and watched the videos. But I have also read the coverage in Greenlandic media and listened to the original, critical podcast that brought all of this to the fore when it came out last year. In that podcast, some of the doctors explained the thinking behind the project and I have sought to bring that temporal and societal context to this discussion.
I really don't understand this part of your comment: you quibbling about what counts and doesn't count as sexual assault and sterilization. Do you not see the difference between a common, safe and legal medical procedure that is still popular across the globe, and then sexual assault and sterilisation? I feel there is a heck of a difference. If more than 4000 women were assaulted by colonisers in a former colony, that would be a horrendous crime. But that didn't happen.
Which leads to the quote from Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam: just because she claims in parliament that this was an attempt at genocide doesn't mean it was. It wasn't. She is taking the historical remarks out of context for political reasons. I have explained above what the context was and won't repeat it. Alone in Canada, more than 4000 children were killed. In Greenland 0 children were killed because the purpose of the residential schools in Greenland was to give children from remote locations a modern education so they could build a modern independent nation, which was the plan from 1951 and onwards.
22 gifted children were taken to Denmark in 1951, in a failed attempt to socially engineer a new Greenlandic elite, absolutely not to harm them in any way. But it did harm them. They have been given apologies and compensations. Høgh-Dam is taking a real American history and trauma and transplanting it onto a completely different situation in Greenland.
I will try to address some of the other claims that are made.
you would know that many women who had IUDs inserted without their consent in their early teens were unable to have children, and that many more struggled for years to conceive.
I don't know what many means in this context. I know that about 4500 IUDs were given to women and girls in that time period, and that 67 have sought damages. The investigation will show how many women have suffered from malpractice of one kind or the other. If there are only the 67 women, I won't call it acceptable, because every single trauma is unacceptable, but it will be well within the statistical norm for all countries, Western or not. If there are significantly more, that will be another case. But we do not know now. The main things to look for will be lack of consent and untreated infections that led to permanent damage.
Like everyone, in Denmark and in Greenland, I am enraged by the notion that children were given a contraceptive device without consent. In the podcast, the doctors claimed that this was rare, but we don't know. But even one child is one too many. Like I wrote in my first comment, there is no doubt that the victims will be compensated. I don't know if there is anyone alive who can be punished, I doubt it. The doctors interviewed in the podcast were young at the time, far from any responsible level. Right now, no-one is looking at what happened after 1991, but I think the investigation will end up pointing to further questions, because there will be a need to know what the home rule was thinking and why.
IUDs are a very safe, efficient and un-invasive form of contraception, if you know what is going on. I wouldn't normally advise it for teenagers, because the procedure is painful, but I did discuss it with my teenagers, because they were suffering from side-effects of oral contraception, and for most people, the pain from the procedure is only for 5 minutes or less. Side effects from oral, hormonal contraception are more common than from IUDs, and include cancer. In Greenland, there is the added problem that people in villages and smaller towns can have limited access to all medicines, and even more so in the 1960s - 70s. Consent and care are the important factors here. If you know you have an IUD, and your reproductive health has been appropriately monitored, you can remove it at any time, and have all the babies you want.
In one of the videos you posted, there is a doctor "demonstrating" that the IUDs of that time period were "too large" for teenagers. That is truly rubbish. As we all know, there is room for a 10 pound baby inside most people with an uterus regardless of their age, it is a very flexible space. But the size of the device must definitely have made the procedure more painful. I understand why Naja Lyberth was traumatised, because I can almost feel the pain just thinking about it.
I am about the same age as Naja Lyberth, and I had a similar experience at the same time. The attitude in the medical community back then was different than it is now, in Denmark and in Greenland. I don't think it had as much to do with colonialism as it had to do with our parents' and grandparents' struggles with having so many children on a low income. I have five siblings. I don't even know how many aunts and uncles I have, maybe ten? My grandmother was always trying to persuade me to not have any children at all.
This is why I keep pointing to the women from the Greenlandic government that I met during the nineties. I don't think they were mindlessly continuing a colonial practice. I think they believed in the freedoms they as women had gained from having access to birth control.
I mentioned above that the relations between Denmark and Greenland have always been different from those with the other North Atlantic colonies, let alone the colonies in India, Ghana and the Virgin Islands. After WW2, that became even more pronounced. What happened in Greenland after the constitutional amendments in 1953 is not in any way comparable to what happened in Iceland before WW2 or in Norway before 1814. And this all happened during the 60s and 70s.
You would also know that the birth-rate in the country halved in just a few years, from 1966 to 1974.
This is actually the part I find most manipulative, so I will comment again though I did it above. Birthrates plummeted in many Western nations at exactly the same time, including in Denmark. This was seen as a positive, in Denmark, and in Greenland. The idea was that women should have access to education and economic independence. All over the world, women who have a choice still prefer having less children. It is a good thing. Claiming that a decline in birthrates around 1970 is an indicator of genocide is pure rubbish.
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on November 22, 2023
First of all: I have read the articles and watched the videos. But I have also read the coverage in Greenlandic media and listened to the original, critical podcast that brought all of this to the fore when it came out last year. In that podcast, some of the doctors explained the thinking behind the project and I have sought to bring that temporal and societal context to this discussion.
I really don't understand this part of your comment: you quibbling about what counts and doesn't count as sexual assault and sterilization. Do you not see the difference between a common, safe and legal medical procedure that is still popular across the globe, and then sexual assault and sterilisation? I feel there is a heck of a difference. If more than 4000 women were assaulted by colonisers in a former colony, that would be a horrendous crime. But that didn't happen.
Which leads to the quote from Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam: just because she claims in parliament that this was an attempt at genocide doesn't mean it was. It wasn't. She is taking the historical remarks out of context for political reasons. I have explained above what the context was and won't repeat it. Alone in Canada, more than 4000 children were killed. In Greenland 0 children were killed because the purpose of the residential schools in Greenland was to give children from remote locations a modern education so they could build a modern independent nation, which was the plan from 1951 and onwards.
22 gifted children were taken to Denmark in 1951, in a failed attempt to socially engineer a new Greenlandic elite, absolutely not to harm them in any way. But it did harm them. They have been given apologies and compensations. Høgh-Dam is taking a real American history and trauma and transplanting it onto a completely different situation in Greenland.
I will try to address some of the other claims that are made.
you would know that many women who had IUDs inserted without their consent in their early teens were unable to have children, and that many more struggled for years to conceive.
I don't know what many means in this context. I know that about 4500 IUDs were given to women and girls in that time period, and that 67 have sought damages. The investigation will show how many women have suffered from malpractice of one kind or the other. If there are only the 67 women, I won't call it acceptable, because every single trauma is unacceptable, but it will be well within the statistical norm for all countries, Western or not. If there are significantly more, that will be another case. But we do not know now. The main things to look for will be lack of consent and untreated infections that led to permanent damage.
Like everyone, in Denmark and in Greenland, I am enraged by the notion that children were given a contraceptive device without consent. In the podcast, the doctors claimed that this was rare, but we don't know. But even one child is one too many. Like I wrote in my first comment, there is no doubt that the victims will be compensated. I don't know if there is anyone alive who can be punished, I doubt it. The doctors interviewed in the podcast were young at the time, far from any responsible level. Right now, no-one is looking at what happened after 1991, but I think the investigation will end up pointing to further questions, because there will be a need to know what the home rule was thinking and why.
IUDs are a very safe, efficient and un-invasive form of contraception, if you know what is going on. I wouldn't normally advise it for teenagers, because the procedure is painful, but I did discuss it with my teenagers, because they were suffering from side-effects of oral contraception, and for most people, the pain from the procedure is only for 5 minutes or less. Side effects from oral, hormonal contraception are more common than from IUDs, and include cancer. In Greenland, there is the added problem that people in villages and smaller towns can have limited access to all medicines, and even more so in the 1960s - 70s. Consent and care are the important factors here. If you know you have an IUD, and your reproductive health has been appropriately monitored, you can remove it at any time, and have all the babies you want.
In one of the videos you posted, there is a doctor "demonstrating" that the IUDs of that time period were "too large" for teenagers. That is truly rubbish. As we all know, there is room for a 10 pound baby inside most people with an uterus regardless of their age, it is a very flexible space. But the size of the device must definitely have made the procedure more painful. I understand why Naja Lyberth was traumatised, because I can almost feel the pain just thinking about it.
I am about the same age as Naja Lyberth, and I had a similar experience at the same time. The attitude in the medical community back then was different than it is now, in Denmark and in Greenland. I don't think it had as much to do with colonialism as it had to do with our parents' and grandparents' struggles with having so many children on a low income. I have five siblings. I don't even know how many aunts and uncles I have, maybe ten? My grandmother was always trying to persuade me to not have any children at all.
This is why I keep pointing to the women from the Greenlandic government that I met during the nineties. I don't think they were mindlessly continuing a colonial practice. I think they believed in the freedoms they as women had gained from having access to birth control.
I mentioned above that the relations between Denmark and Greenland have always been different from those with the other North Atlantic colonies, let alone the colonies in India, Ghana and the Virgin Islands. After WW2, that became even more pronounced. What happened in Greenland after the constitutional amendments in 1953 is not in any way comparable to what happened in Iceland before WW2 or in Norway before 1814. And this all happened during the 60s and 70s.
You would also know that the birth-rate in the country halved in just a few years, from 1966 to 1974.
This is actually the part I find most manipulative, so I will comment again though I did it above. Birthrates plummeted in many Western nations at exactly the same time, including in Denmark. This was seen as a positive, in Denmark, and in Greenland. The idea was that women should have access to education and economic independence. All over the world, women who have a choice still prefer having less children. It is a good thing. Claiming that a decline in birthrates around 1970 is an indicator of genocide is pure rubbish.
posted by mumimor at 12:37 PM on November 22, 2023
GenjiandProust: You insist that the program was common knowledge, but the women deny knowing about it. It seems incredible that 67 women would lie about something that was common knowledge.
I feel I should answer this, because you have clearly not been a teenage girl in a remote area during the 60s or 70s. Something that was common knowledge among adults in Nuuk and in the government of Greenland would not have been common knowledge among teenagers in Maniitsoq, where Naja Lyberth lived, and it seems very many, even up to half, of these malpractices happened.
The real outrage here is that girls and very young women were treated without consent because somehow it was OK that Danish men were impregnating Greenlandic women and then leaving the country without consequences. I remain outraged. It's about colonialism and racism, and it is also about the patriarchy. I am angry, and it is depressing that you all make it seem like I am defending the practice just because I won't accept the hyperbolic genocide rhetoric.
It seems that 25% of all children born in Greenland in 1966 were born out of wedlock. Which wouldn't be a huge number today, but really was then. So, ohoy, give the women contraceptives, and make a special rule that frees the Danish workers from responsibility. It is disgusting. But genocide it is not.
posted by mumimor at 1:50 PM on November 22, 2023
I feel I should answer this, because you have clearly not been a teenage girl in a remote area during the 60s or 70s. Something that was common knowledge among adults in Nuuk and in the government of Greenland would not have been common knowledge among teenagers in Maniitsoq, where Naja Lyberth lived, and it seems very many, even up to half, of these malpractices happened.
The real outrage here is that girls and very young women were treated without consent because somehow it was OK that Danish men were impregnating Greenlandic women and then leaving the country without consequences. I remain outraged. It's about colonialism and racism, and it is also about the patriarchy. I am angry, and it is depressing that you all make it seem like I am defending the practice just because I won't accept the hyperbolic genocide rhetoric.
It seems that 25% of all children born in Greenland in 1966 were born out of wedlock. Which wouldn't be a huge number today, but really was then. So, ohoy, give the women contraceptives, and make a special rule that frees the Danish workers from responsibility. It is disgusting. But genocide it is not.
posted by mumimor at 1:50 PM on November 22, 2023
IUDs are a very safe, efficient and un-invasive form of contraception
They are literally a medical device inserted into the recipient's body. They may be safe. They may be efficient. They may even be easy to install and remove. But they sure as heck are invasive.
posted by Mitheral at 2:47 PM on November 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
They are literally a medical device inserted into the recipient's body. They may be safe. They may be efficient. They may even be easy to install and remove. But they sure as heck are invasive.
posted by Mitheral at 2:47 PM on November 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
A couple more comments, and then I really am done here:
Do you not see the difference between a common, safe and legal medical procedure that is still popular across the globe, and then sexual assault and sterilisation? I feel there is a heck of a difference.
The difference, which you keep missing, is consent. The women in question assert that neither they nor their parents gave consent for the procedure. Given that at least some of these women also maintain that they were never even informed of the procedures, so they were unable to take it into account in their later medical experiences. That's the problem, not the procedure itself.
I feel I should answer this, because you have clearly not been a teenage girl in a remote area during the 60s or 70s. Something that was common knowledge among adults in Nuuk and in the government of Greenland would not have been common knowledge among teenagers in Maniitsoq, where Naja Lyberth lived, and it seems very many, even up to half, of these malpractices happened.
This is a weird non sequitur. What was "common knowledge" in Denmark or Greenland isn't the point -- it's that specific girls in specific placers were not being informed. Doctors should not be relying on "common knowledge" to inform their patients or maintain medical records. Each participant needs complete information for informed consent.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:47 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Do you not see the difference between a common, safe and legal medical procedure that is still popular across the globe, and then sexual assault and sterilisation? I feel there is a heck of a difference.
The difference, which you keep missing, is consent. The women in question assert that neither they nor their parents gave consent for the procedure. Given that at least some of these women also maintain that they were never even informed of the procedures, so they were unable to take it into account in their later medical experiences. That's the problem, not the procedure itself.
I feel I should answer this, because you have clearly not been a teenage girl in a remote area during the 60s or 70s. Something that was common knowledge among adults in Nuuk and in the government of Greenland would not have been common knowledge among teenagers in Maniitsoq, where Naja Lyberth lived, and it seems very many, even up to half, of these malpractices happened.
This is a weird non sequitur. What was "common knowledge" in Denmark or Greenland isn't the point -- it's that specific girls in specific placers were not being informed. Doctors should not be relying on "common knowledge" to inform their patients or maintain medical records. Each participant needs complete information for informed consent.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:47 AM on November 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
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