Monday, June 22, 2009

Naalakkersuisut: the white revolution

The great advantage to having contemporary Europeans as your oppressors (especially Scandinavians) is that when you get tired of being oppressed, you can just tell them to take a hike. That's pretty much what Greenland has done. In today's NYT, Sarah Lyall gives her impressions of the capital 'city' of Nuk on the day it took its first steps toward self-government. Greenlandic is now the official language, rather than Danish -- though visitors will find that English serves perfectly well. (It's rather humbling to strike up a conversation with an Inuit fisherman and discover that he is trilingual.)

Actually, it seems that the language is Kalaallisut. Who knew? And the government is Naalakkersuisut, though whether that word refers to the emerging nation or just the parliament, I'm not certain. What's clear, however, is that the Green Revolutionaries in Tehran can only wish it were as easy to free themselves of their own vicious president as it has been for the Greenlanders to show Denmark to the door. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

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