COLUMN: A Piece of Ice That Revives the Ghosts of Colonialism

When Empires Decide Who Exists

The concept of terra nullius—land belonging to no one—was one of colonialism’s most powerful legal tools. In the 18th century, British authorities applied it to Australia, despite at least 60,000 years of Indigenous presence. Their reasoning? Indigenous peoples had no “civilized” government, no permanent agriculture, and no private property as defined by Europeans. So, according to this twisted logic, the land was empty. Available. Up for the taking. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Australian High Court finally overturned this doctrine, recognizing the traditional land rights of Indigenous peoples.

Alaska, or How to Buy People Without Asking Them

In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million—about two cents per acre. American newspapers mocked the purchase, calling it “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s icebox.” But no one consulted the Indigenous peoples of Alaska, who have lived there for at least 10,000 years. Their land-management systems—based on seasonal salmon migrations, whale and seal hunting, waterways, and ancestral sites—were simply ignored. An agreement between two empires was enough to transfer sovereignty, as if the inhabitants didn’t exist.

That’s what makes me sick. This ability of the powers that be to decide, among themselves, the fate of millions of people. To draw lines on maps, sign treaties, and trade territories like Pokémon cards. And the people who live there? Oh yeah, them. They’ve been forgotten. Sorry. Actually, not sorry. Because in colonial logic, they don’t really count. They’re just… there. Like furniture you move around when you’re rearranging a room.

Before the Europeans arrived

The first inhabitants of Greenland arrived about 4,500 years ago from North America. The Inuit, ancestors of today’s Greenlanders, settled there around the year 1200. They developed a sophisticated culture perfectly adapted to the extreme Arctic conditions. Their knowledge of navigation, hunting, building insulated dwellings, and managing natural resources was—and remains—remarkably complex. But for Trump, none of this exists. Greenland is “almost entirely uninhabited and underdeveloped.” As if the absence of skyscrapers and highways meant the absence of civilization.

Danish Colonization and Its Horrors

Denmark established its rule over Greenland in the early 18th century. In 1953, the island became a Danish department, an integral part of the kingdom. This was followed by a particularly brutal period of forced assimilation. In 1951, 22 Inuit children were torn from their families and sent to Denmark to create a “Danish-speaking elite.” They were forbidden from speaking Greenlandic and cut off from their roots. In 2021, the six survivors each received approximately 31,000 francs in compensation—a pittance for their shattered lives.

Forced Sterilizations: A Crime Against Humanity

Between the 1960s and 1990s, Denmark orchestrated a birth control campaign in Greenland. At least 4,000 women and teenage girls had IUDs inserted without their consent. Nearly half were never able to have children. It wasn’t until 2025 that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued an official apology. The victims can now seek compensation. But money will never restore what was stolen from them: the right to choose, the right to be mothers, the right to bodily integrity.

When I read these numbers, these dates, these facts… I don’t know what to feel anymore. Anger? Disgust? Sadness? All at once, probably. Because these women, these children torn from their families, these lives destroyed by colonial policies… they are not abstractions. They are human beings. With dreams, hopes, and plans. And everything was taken from them. In the name of what? “Modernization”? “Progress”? The desire of a colonizing state to mold its subjects in its own image? It’s unbearable.

A Racist Legal Principle

The Doctrine of Discovery, a 15th-century legal principle, asserted that European Christian nations automatically acquired sovereignty over “discovered” lands inhabited by non-Christians. In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court used this doctrine to rule that Native Americans could live on their lands but had no right to sell them to anyone except the federal government. They were treated as occupants, not as owners. This logic provided the legal basis for the massive dispossession of North American Indigenous peoples.

John Locke and the Theory of Improvement

The English philosopher John Locke theorized that land became legitimate property when people “improved” it through visible labor: plowing, building, or fencing. Land not used according to these European criteria could be claimed by others. This theory justified the appropriation of Indigenous territories in North America. Seasonal cycles of hunting and gathering, collective resource management systems, and different agricultural practices—none of these counted as “improvement.” Thus, according to this logic, the land was available.

And that’s how a system of oppression is built. We create definitions. We establish criteria. We decide that only OUR way of living, working, and organizing society is valid. And everything that doesn’t fit into our boxes? It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t count. It’s a void to be filled. Untapped potential. A resource to be seized. The genius of colonialism lies in having dressed up theft as law, violence as civilization, and racism as philosophy.

2016: The Sioux Struggle

In 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline that threatened their primary water source and crossed sacred sites. Federal agencies had approved the project without obtaining their consent. Thousands of protesters gathered for months in extreme winter conditions. The crackdown was violent. This conflict illustrated the persistence of the system established in 1823: the U.S. government retains final authority over decisions affecting Native American lands and resources, even when those decisions threaten their survival.

Greenland Faces the Same Logic

Trump’s remarks on Greenland follow this same pattern. He speaks of national security, strategic position, and the need to control this territory to “protect the world.” But he never mentions the right of Greenlanders to decide their own future. He never acknowledges their sovereignty, their history, or their legitimacy. For him, as for the colonizers of yesteryear, what matters is the geopolitical interest of the great powers. The inhabitants? Merely bit players in a game beyond their control.

I think back to those images from Standing Rock. Those people standing in the cold, facing water cannons, tear gas, and dogs. Those people defending their water, their land, their dignity. And I tell myself that nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing. It’s 2026, and we continue to treat Indigenous peoples as obstacles to be circumvented, problems to be solved, voices to be silenced. It’s exhausting. It’s outrageous. It’s… so predictable.

Rare Earths and Strategic Minerals

Beneath Greenland’s ice lie vast reserves of rare earth elements—metals that are essential to modern technologies such as smartphones, electric batteries, wind turbines, and defense systems. The island also contains zinc, lead, gold, diamonds, and uranium. As the climate warms, these resources are gradually becoming more accessible. Trump may claim that “that’s not the reason” and that mining requires “drilling through hundreds of meters of ice,” but no one is fooled. The economic stakes are enormous.

The New Arctic Sea Routes

The melting ice is opening up new shipping routes in the Arctic, significantly reducing the distances between Asia, Europe, and North America. Greenland lies at the heart of these strategic passages. Controlling the island means controlling a portion of future global trade. It also means monitoring the movements of Russia and China in the region. Trump said it explicitly: Greenland is “exactly” located between the United States, Russia, and China. “Right in the middle.” Arctic geopolitics is being redrawn, and the major powers want their piece of the pie.

So that’s the heart of the matter. Not security. Not the protection of the free world. No. Money. Power. Control over resources. As always. Just as it has been from the very beginning. Empires don’t change; they modernize. In the past, they wanted gold from the Americas, spices from the Indies, rubber from the Congo. Today, they want Greenland’s rare earth minerals, the Arctic sea routes, and strategic positions vis-à-vis China. Same logic, new clothes.

A People That Refuses to Be Intimidated

Faced with Trump’s ambitions, the Greenlanders have responded with remarkable determination. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has stated unequivocally that, between the United States and Denmark, his government would choose Denmark. Thousands of protesters gathered in Copenhagen and Nuuk to express their support for Greenlandic self-determination. Local political parties, usually divided on the issue of independence, have formed a united front. The message is clear: Greenland is not for sale.

Europe Mobilizes

The European Union and NATO have also responded firmly. Military reconnaissance missions have been sent to Greenland. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte negotiated a mysterious “framework agreement” with Trump, the details of which remain unclear. But Copenhagen has reiterated that only Denmark and Greenland can make decisions that affect them. This European solidarity has surprised and reassured the Greenlanders, who often felt isolated in their demands vis-à-vis Denmark.

And now, for the first time since this story began, I feel something that resembles hope. Because the Greenlanders aren’t looking down. They aren’t letting themselves be intimidated. They’re saying no. Clearly, firmly, with dignity. And Europe stands with them. It may not be much. But it’s a start. It’s proof that we can resist, that we can reject colonial logic, that we can assert our sovereignty in the face of empires. It’s not enough, of course. But it’s a start.

Colonialism Is Not Dead

Trump’s remarks on Greenland are a stark reminder that colonialism is not a thing of the past. It is still here, alive and well, in slightly updated forms. The same mechanisms of dispossession, the same pseudo-legal justifications, the same rhetoric of superiority. Only the actors and contexts change. The logic remains the same: the powerful decide, the weak suffer. Territories are resources to be exploited; peoples are obstacles to be circumvented.

Collective Responsibility

We all bear responsibility for this history. Not just Trump, not just the United States. All of us—citizens of the former colonial powers, heirs to systems built on dispossession and exploitation. We must acknowledge this past, understand its continuities in the present, and take action to build a different world. A world where Indigenous peoples are no longer treated as negligible quantities. Where territories are no longer commodities. Where history no longer repeats itself in an endless loop.

But are we capable of it? Really? Because look around you. Look at how migrants, minorities, and Indigenous peoples are still being treated all over the world. Look at how we continue to exploit, dominate, and despise. Look at how Trump can call them “a piece of ice” in front of the world’s elite without anyone standing up to walk out. Without unanimous outrage. Without it sparking a global scandal. We’ve gotten used to it. We’ve normalized it. And perhaps that’s the worst part.

A Mirror Held Up to Our Times

Greenland is not just a chunk of ice. It is a living, inhabited territory with a history stretching back millennia and a future yet to be built. It is a people who have survived the Vikings, Danish colonization, policies of forced assimilation, and non-consensual sterilizations. A people who are fighting today for their self-determination in the face of the ambitions of the great powers. Trump’s remarks are not an isolated aberration. They are a symptom of a system that has never truly disappeared, one that continues to shape international relations and persists in treating certain peoples as less legitimate than others.

The Choice Before Us

We are at a turning point. Either we continue down this path, repeating the mistakes of the past, letting colonial logic dictate the future. Or we choose something else: the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples; respect for their sovereignty. Listening to their voices. Building an international order based on true equality, not on power dynamics. It’s possible. It’s necessary. It’s urgent. But it requires courage. Political courage, moral courage, collective courage. Do we have it? I don’t know. But I do know we have no choice but to try.

So I end this column with a strange feeling—a mix of rage and hope, despair and determination. Because yes, Trump called it “a piece of ice,” and that outrages me. But the Greenlanders said “no,” and that gives me strength. History isn’t predetermined. It’s built, day by day, through our choices, our actions, our refusals. Greenland is watching us. It’s asking us: whose side are you on? On the side of empires or on the side of the people? On the side of domination or on the side of dignity? It’s up to us to answer. Now.

Signed, Jacques Provost