OPINION:
It felt like whiplash. First came the heartache on Aug. 11 when Danish authorities forcibly separated an Inuit newborn, Aviaja-Luuna, from the embrace of her loving mother, Ivana Nikoline Bronlund, just an hour after the birth. The reason: Ms. Bronlund had been subject to banned “parenting competence” tests by the Danish authorities and was deemed unfit to parent.
Two weeks later came feelings of hope that justice long denied was finally at hand. Copenhagen at last apologized for its moral trespass against the Inuit of Greenland: a disturbing and long-running forced contraception scandal known as the Spiral Case. This was a campaign, started during the 1960s, in which Danish doctors forced birth control devices (shaped like spirals; hence the name) on Greenlandic women and girls in a bid to control the Greenlandic population.
A closer look at this public mea culpa leaves a bittersweet aftertaste, partly caused by its underwhelming and half-hearted attempt to atone for the sins of its past. The Spiral Case is no secret, and it has festered like an open wound for decades. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged, “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: Sorry.”
When ‘sorry’ is insufficient
“Sorry” seems to grossly understate the gravity of the offense, and it demands a deeper act of contrition. “Sorry” is what a misbehaving child says to a parent demanding an apology when the child does not feel sorry one bit. Offenses of this magnitude need much more.
As Ms. Frederiksen specified: “I apologize to the girls and women who have been subjected to systemic discrimination. Because they are Greenlanders. For experiencing both physical and psychological harm. For being let down.”
This wasn’t just discrimination; this was a state-led campaign to suppress Greenland’s birth rate, an assault on the very future of a people. “Sorry” doesn’t even come close to cutting it.
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen’s words of apology on behalf of Nuuk “for the harm and abuse that may have been inflicted on several women after we took over responsibility for our health care system” are likewise insufficient. Naaja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for justice and gender equality, further muddied the message of atonement by saying: “An apology is only fitting and I believe it was unavoidable in order to move forward on a path of healing. So I am very pleased by the apology but I also couldn’t see any way around it.”
However, Greenland’s representative to the Danish parliament, Inuit Ataqatigiit party member Aaja Chemnitz, saw joy in this moment for the many victims; it had been so long in coming. “An apology is important for a renewed relation between Greenland and Denmark,” she said. “What a joy.”
Dark chapters come to light
Yet others remain disappointed. As Mr. Nielsen told the BBC: “For too long, the victims … have been silenced to death. It’s sad that an apology only comes now. It’s too late and too bad.” Ms. Frederiksen cautioned: “We must become more knowledgeable about our common past” and “other dark chapters that deal with systemic discrimination against Greenlanders.”
These dark chapters include forced separations and other intentional suppression of Greenland’s birth rate. There was widespread pain, suffering, in many cases, irreversible sterility, and a nearly universal lack of informed consent.
Former Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede rightly called the Spiral Case a genocide. Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as, in part, killing members of a group, “causing serious bodily or mental harm” to a group, “forcibly transferring children of [one] group to another group,” and/or “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” Three of these apply to Denmark’s mistreatment of Greenlanders.
At the very least, “sorry” and other platitudes and equivocations must mark the beginning, and not the end, of the process of atonement. Much more is needed. Let’s hope Denmark steps up to the obligations accompanying a genuine apology and shows that it’s truly repentant about its past.
• Barry Scott Zellen, Ph.D., is a research scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut and senior fellow (Arctic security) at the Institute of the North. He is the author, most recently, of “Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World” (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2024).
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