Greenland PM Múte Egede has announced its proposed Parliamentary election day, March 11 – a bit earlier than originally expected. They’ve wisely also just passed a law banning foreign and anonymous donations, so that this decision can be their own.

Thus today’s poem is Greenlandic (English below). The poet and statesman Aqqaluk Lynge, is Kalaallit (Greenland Inuit) and the poem was translated into English by Ken Norris and Marianne Stenbaek in collaboration with him. He’s been president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, a member of the Greenlandic Parliament (Inatsisartut) and a founder of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party that supports Greenlandic independence, which PM Múte Egede now leads. Here’s a recent (2022) interview with him about the importance of literature and language. 

Ataqqeqatigiittut

Qanga – ila qanga
nammineq inuugallaratta
uagut nammineq nunatsinni
Taamani tusartarpagut
avani qannguluk
ullut pingasut sioqqullugit
tuttorpaat ingerlaarnerat
*
Qanga – taamani
kisitsineq atunngilaq
nalunngittuarparpulli
ullut unnuallu arfineq-marluk
qaangiuppata
kuuk ikaareersimassagaat.
*
Pisassavut nalunngilavut
ilisimavarpullu malussarissup
tusassagaa meeqqap qiarpalua
naajannguulluunniit qarlorpalua
*
Qanga – taamani
suna tamarmi
naammattusaarineruvoq
ataqqeqatigiilluta
uumasut uagullu
*
Ullumikkulli tigusatut inuuvugut
sissuertut sumut pigaanni
qalliuniartut pasivaatigut
unnerluussatullu killisiorluta
*
Nuna assiliorpaat
uanngaanniit uunga titarlugu
aana killissaa
aana ilissi aana uagut
Tuttut uaniipput
aaku timmissat
aamma aaku aalisakkat
*
Suna tamaat killormut pivaat
uagutsinnullu uppernarsaqqullugu
apeqquserlugulu
ilumut inuusugut
nunalu tummaarigipput
*
Ataqqeqatigiittut aaku kisimik
uagut uumasullu.
A Life of Respect

In the old days
when we still lived our own lives
in our own country
We could hear
a faraway thunder –
the caribou approaching
two or three days in advance
*
Then we did not count the animals, but knew
that when the caribou herd arrived
it would be seven days
before all the animals crossed the river
We did not count them
We had no quotas
We knew only
that a child’s weeping
or a seagull’s cry
could frighten the animals away
*
Then we knew
that there is a balance
between the animals and us,
lives of mutual respect
*
Now it is as if we are under arrest
the wardens are everywhere
We are interrogated constantly.
In Your hungering after more riches and land
You make us suspect,
force us to justify our existence
*
On maps of the country
We must draw points and lines
to show we have been here –
and are here today,
here where the foxes run
and birds nest
and the fish spawn
*
You circumscribe everything
demand that we prove
We exist,
that We use the land that was always ours,
that We have a right to our ancestral lands
*
And now it is We who ask:
By what right are You here?

 Link for poem

Image credit: Arctic fox siblings. Two young Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) stay close together on the hill outside their tundra den. Credit: Lisa Hupp/USFWS.