“What Did the Danes Ever Do for Us?”

(a Greenlandic sketch in the style of Monty Python)

Scene:
A windswept Greenlandic village. Snow. A group of Greenlanders stand around a barrel with a small fire. One wears a sealskin coat. Another holds a clipboard for no apparent reason.

Elder Greenlander (angrily):

Right! I’m fed up with this! Fed up, I tell you!
The Danes come here, plant their flag, take our land, tell us what to do for two hundred years, and then have the nerve to say they helped us.

Crowd:

(Grumbling agreement)

Elder:

So let’s ask the question properly:
What did the Danes ever do for us?

(Silence)

Greenlander #1 (tentatively):

Well… they built some houses.

Elder:

Oh, houses, is it?
And what were we living in before, eh?
Warm, culturally adapted dwellings that worked perfectly in this climate?

Greenlander #1:

…Yes.

Elder:

So they built us worse houses.
Next?

Greenlander #2:

They brought education.

Elder:

Education?
You mean schools where children were told their language was primitive and they should speak Danish instead?

Greenlander #2:

Yes, that education.

Elder:

Right.
So they taught us we were inferior.
Marvellous. Put that under “benefits.”

(Clipboard man writes furiously.)

Greenlander #3:

Healthcare?

Elder:

Healthcare?

Greenlander #3:

Hospitals. Doctors.

Elder:

Doctors who decided, for our own good, that Greenlandic women shouldn’t have so many children?

Greenlander #3:

(quietly)
There was that.

Elder:

So… forced sterilizations.
Excellent. Very modern. Very Scandinavian.

Greenlander #4 (trying hard):

Infrastructure! Roads! Airports!

Elder:

Roads?
Where exactly are you driving to?

Greenlander #4:

The airport.

Elder:

And where does the airport take you?

Greenlander #4:

Denmark.

Elder:

Ah.
So they built us roads… to leave.

Greenlander #5:

They gave us subsidies.

Elder:

Subsidies?

Greenlander #5:

Yes. Money.

Elder:

Money to ensure we never develop an economy of our own, never control our resources, and remain permanently dependent?

Greenlander #5:

That money.

Elder:

Right.
So they paid us not to grow up.

Young Greenlander (excited):

But we have autonomy now!

Elder:

Autonomy?

Young Greenlander:

Yes! We can decide many things ourselves!

Elder:

Like what?

Young Greenlander:

Culture. Language. Some local laws.

Elder:

And who controls defense?

Young Greenlander:

Denmark.

Elder:

Foreign policy?

Young Greenlander:

Denmark.

Elder:

Major economic levers?

Young Greenlander:

Denmark.

Elder:

Natural resources?

Young Greenlander:

(complicated pause)
…Denmark-ish.

Elder:

So we’re autonomous in the way a teenager is autonomous while living in their parents’ basement.

(Long pause. Wind howls.)

Clipboard Man (clears throat):

Well… to be fair…
They did stop calling us “colonial subjects” and started calling us “partners.”

Elder:

Ah yes.
Nothing says equality like renaming the relationship.

Greenlander #1:

So… what did the Danes ever do for us?

(Everyone thinks hard.)

Greenlander #2:

They kept other empires away?

Elder:

Did they?

Greenlander #2:

Well… the Americans did most of that.

Elder:

Right.

Greenlander #3:

They preserved our culture?

Elder:

By suppressing it for a century and then politely allowing it to exist again?

Greenlander #3:

When you put it like that…

Elder (sighs):

All right.
I’ll grant you this.

(Everyone leans in.)

Elder:

They didn’t mean to harm us.

Crowd:

(uncertain murmurs)

Elder:

But they did mean to manage us.

(Pause.)

Elder:

And that, my friends, is much worse —
because it lasts longer.

(Suddenly a Danish Bureaucrat appears with a clipboard.)

Danish Bureaucrat (cheerfully):

Good news! We’ve prepared a report proving how much we care about you.

Elder:

Does it include asking us what we want?

Danish Bureaucrat:

Of course not.

(Freeze frame. Title card appears.)

“END.”