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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Relations of Power and Domination in a World Polity
[w]e are forced to do this by necessity in order to politically secure our provision with
food and other necessities of life. As far as whaling is concerned, the general public
does not accept the Brundtland
3
principles of sustainability but is guided by subjective
emotions. Thus Greenland is forced to play by the rules, which – in no way justified by
the nature of the subject matter – are dictated by a tacit racism of an overpowering
negotiating partner that is often not recognized as such and in the present instance
lead to positive discrimination (document A: 15).
The same is the case for Japan, whose representatives are fighting for cultural reasons to be able to
continue whaling after the whaling moratorium of 1986 (Sowa, 2013a). The expert commission is of
the opinion that up until now it has not yet been possible in the IWC to establish a system for
managing the whale population according to sustainability criteria. In contrast to the Japanese
coastal whalers, the Greenlandic whalers are allowed to hunt whales because whaling in Greenland is
legitimate as
Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling
(Donovan, 1982a; Gambell, 1993, 1997), and it is assigned
annual quotas for strikes of large whales. Hence the experts speak of ―positive discrimination‖
(document A: 15) against those who have been granted the status of ‗indigenous people.‘ As long as
the Greenlandic self-government system is based on a national community with Denmark or exists
in some sort of partnership with Denmark, the
Kalaallit
can keep their international status as an
indigenous people. Therefore the early version of the working paper argues in a reflected, realistic
and dialectical way. In weighing the pros and cons, the experts understand indigeneity as a political
strategy but not as a social reality. It is a necessary strategy so that the Greenlanders do not lose the
rights they currently enjoy. But at the same time this version of the working paper presents a revolt
against the existing categories of world society.
In the later version of the working paper, document B, the dialectical structure has disappeared. The
argumentation in the second text is shorter (11 pages) and linear, and it has a different structure.
4
In
the expert commission‘s representation of the Greenlanders here, we are confronted with the
Western notion of the Greenlanders as an indigenous people possessing traditional knowledge and
recognized as such in numerous international arenas. The first sentence of the text reads: ―[t]he
Greenlanders inhabit the largest island in the world lying 3-4,000 km from the
rigsmyndighederne i
Danmark
[Danish government administration]‖ (document B: 4). Already this infers Denmark‘s
hegemony. The later version too holds on to the principle of Greenland representing a people of its
own and a self-understanding of Greenlanders as an indigenous people, albeit in a watered-down
version to the first. However, it no longer addresses any reasons why the indigenous status should
be questioned. Even the irrelevance of calling the people ‗indigenous‘ is no longer mentioned.
Rather, the authors emphasize that the Greenlandic people have ―an ancestry over many thousands
of years in Siberia and Arctic North America and (…) [are] internationally renowned for their
outstanding culture, which still finds expression in, for example, its time-honored language‖
(document B: 4). Thus the later version of the working paper underscores Greenland‘s indigenous
status as well as solidarity with other indigenous peoples. The later version refrains from mentioning
the word ‗autonomy‘ at all.
The debate about the image of representation shows that the articulation of a collective identity is
influenced by international categories. Whereas the earlier working paper emphasized the formation
of a nation-state for all the people inhabiting the country, the later version focuses on the status of