Greenlanders fire up the debate

Greenlanders in Denmark are to get involved in the political debate in Denmark.

That is the objective of a project that the Greenland House in Aalborg has launched in collaboration with the newspaper Politiken.

Here, participants learn over three evenings and with homework exercises to write letters to the editor that will make a splash in the media and generate publicity.

- In light of the recent fierce debate about Greenland, we believe that there is a need to broaden the debate so that more Greenlanders get involved, says Jeppe Bülow Sørensen, director of the Greenland House in Aalborg.

- It is often the same people that we see in the media – and they are very skilled and professional, but we miss the ordinary Greenlanders in the media. We would like to do something about that – and when we got a good offer from Politiken, we jumped at the chance.

Experienced debate editors

The instructors on the course are two of Politiken’s debate editors, Susan Knorrenborg and Kenneth Lund, who take the participants into the newspaper’s engine room and teach them what works and what doesn’t work when writing a letter to the editor or debate piece. The participants also get checklists and tips on how to overcome the fear of getting involved in the debate.

The participants in the course write letters to the editor between the course evenings and receive praise and criticism – and when the course is over, there is also a possibility that the participants’ letters to the editor may be printed in Politiken.

The course is called Hørups Talenter after Politiken's founder and first editor Viggo Hørup – and is part of a five-year project where the two debate editors travel around Denmark and hold courses for groups that normally don't get much speaking time in the media.

- There are four classes each year – and in addition to the course in Aalborg for Greenlanders, this year we have been to two social welfare education programs and an agricultural school, which are also groups that have difficulty getting through to the media.

Extra carrot

There is the extra carrot in the project for the five years it has been running, that a jury selects the best debate contributions from the year's Hørup talents every year, which are celebrated at an award ceremony on Politikens stage at the summer Folkemøde on Bornholm.

The course in Aalborg had six participants – among others, high school teacher Sorlannguaq Lind Ravn and drum dancer and cultural mediator Josepha Kuitse Kunak Thomsen.

- We both went to a meeting at Det Grønlandske Hus with Uagut and Julie Rademacher, where we talked about the fact that the Danish media lacks breadth in their coverage of Greenlanders in Denmark – and we also talked about how we could do something about it.

- So when we got the offer of a course, we of course said yes. Because we believe that it is important that we get involved in the Danish political debate about Greenland. As Greenlanders living in Denmark, we have a lot to contribute, explain Sorlannguaq Lind Ravn and Josepha Kuitse Kunak Thomsen.

Sermitsiaq has asked the two new participants in the Danish debate to write a letter to the newspaper. Here, the two explain that they want to participate in the debate primarily for the sake of their children.

 

The letter to the editor can be read below.

 

We do it for our children

By Sorlannguaq Lind Ravn and Josepha Kuitse Kunak Thomsen

Three evenings in March, a small group of Greenlanders made the pilgrimage to the Greenlandic House in Aalborg to learn how to write letters to the editor and debate contributions. The instructors were two debate editors from the Danish newspaper Politiken.

For us participants, there are many reasons to participate in the course, but one thing recurs in the conversations between us: We do it for our Danish-born children.

We have met Greenlanders many times during our years in Denmark who are ashamed of their background. We have met them in different contexts. Whether it is adults of Greenlandic origin who come to Josepha's lecture on Greenland and are completely strangers to their own cultural background – and who are embarrassed by this. Or whether it is young people whom Sorlannguaq meets through his work as a high school teacher, who hide their Greenlandic family relations from everyone else and do not quite dare to face that part of their background.

Regardless of whether they are children, young people or adults, most of them have been confronted again and again with a very one-sided story about what a Greenlandian is. And when others keep telling you that it is shameful to be Greenlandic, it is very easy to start believing what they say

That is why we believe that Greenlanders living in Denmark should get involved and be heard in the Danish debate. We do so now with the hope that society can get used to hearing our voices. So that the next generation of Greenlanders in Denmark will encounter a society and a media image where the narrative about Greenlanders is broader, more nuanced and more just.

We will contribute with a more nuanced image of what a Greenlander is by standing up and telling our own stories. The artistic English teacher, the culture-interested mask dancer and the completely ordinary people that we are.

When we become part of the debate, we become more than just statistics.