![\"Protesters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b6c3-614.jpg\"\/)
\nProtesters outside the US consulate building in Nuuk last March<\/p>\n
In 1963, the anthropologist Jean Briggs spent over a year studying the Inuit, the indigenous people of the Arctic.<\/p>\n
She lived with them for 17 months – sharing their igloo in winter, pitching her tent beside theirs in summer.<\/p>\n
What she discovered, documented in her landmark 1970 book ‘Never in Anger’, was a culture of profound emotional restraint.<\/p>\n
The Inuit avoided conflict at almost any cost. Expressions of anger were vanishingly rare. Children were taught from infancy to control their emotions.<\/p>\n
I thought about Ms Briggs’s work today as I arrived in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. On some level, I was expecting to find defiance.<\/p>\n
Surely Greenlanders – a people facing threats from the world’s most powerful military – would be standing up to US President Donald Trump with anger and determination.<\/p>\n
Instead, what I found was fear.<\/p>\n
People here are frightened. And their cultural instinct toward calm, toward avoiding direct confrontation, seems to be colliding with a moment that demands exactly the opposite.<\/p>\n
It has been hard to get politicians to talk here. But what struck me the most was how difficult it was to get ordinary people to speak on camera.<\/p>\n
Some told me they were worried about repercussions. Others simply didn’t want to engage.<\/p>\n
The very act of speaking out felt like an escalation they weren’t comfortable making.<\/p>\n
“They have no respect for us, for my country, for our country.”<\/p>\n
But their silence doesn’t mean they don’t care. If anything, the reluctance to speak is a measure of how profoundly unsettling this moment feels.<\/p>\n
“I don’t like to talk about [Donald Trump] because he spoils my sleep. I don’t sleep very well because I’m afraid,” one woman, a retired university lecturer, told RT\u00c9 News.<\/p>\n
“They have no respect for us, for my country, for our country.”<\/p>\n
Another retired woman, said she had dreamt about Mr Trump last night.<\/p>\n
“It was a nightmare – that he was coming with the ship,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It was awful, that dream. I’m scared for his plans. We are scared. We are all scared.”<\/p>\n
\nProtesters outside the US consulate building in Nuuk last March<\/p>\n
But not everyone shares that fear. Or, at least, not everyone draws the same conclusions from it.<\/p>\n
Some politicians here believe the answer isn’t to resist Mr Trump’s pressure, but to engage with it directly.<\/p>\n
Today, the leader of Greenland’s main opposition party said the country should bypass Denmark and negotiate directly with Washington.<\/p>\n
Pele Broberg, the leader of Naleraq, is not a fringe figure: in last year’s elections, his party won 25% of the vote running on a platform of rapid independence from Denmark.<\/p>\n
Greenlanders react as US piles pressure on the territory<\/p>\n
![\"Vivian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023b6c2-614.jpg\"\/)