Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.05.2004, Blaðsíða 26

26 the reykjavík grapevineISSUES
Crowded into a small room in the
basement of Kaffi Kúltúr, Mr.
Halldórsson was surrounded by
Icelanders and a few foreigners
who all share one thing in common
- none of them are happy about
these new laws. Sitting beside him,
I noticed his hands shaking as he
held his written statement, reading
the party line which has stirred up
so much outrage and bewilderment.
I certainly have to give the guy
credit for facing a room full of angry
Icelandic liberals. Even if there were
only fourteen of them.
A regular tightening of immigration
laws is nothing new, and when vari-
ous new restrictions were added in
2002 (including the compulsory at-
tendance of at least 150 hours of Ice-
landic classes - to be paid for by the
immigrants at a total cost 100.000
krónur; about a whole months´ wag-
es for many), resistance was limited
to foreigners and a few sympathetic
Icelanders. However, whether due to
growing sympathy among Icelanders
or the fact that these new laws effect
Icelanders themselves, resistance is
growing rapidly.
The new laws regarding immi-
gration bear many inconsisten-
cies. To name a few:
1) While it is perfectly legal for an
Icelandic couple to apply for a bank
loan to buy a house or apartment
when they’re as young as 18 years
of age, foreign couples, or couples
of one Icelander and one foreigner,
must wait until they are 24.
2) For the police to search the home
of an Icelander, they must make a
strong case for suspicion of a crime
to get a search warrant from a judge.
Yet for the police to search the home
of a foreigner, a member of the po-
lice force need
only suspect
that the foreigner has broken an
immigration law, and needs no such
search warrant.
3) Most bizarre of all, the parents
of a foreigner may not immigrate
to Iceland until they are at least 66
years of age.
Mr. Halldórsson was received
politely as he read his statement,
explaining that this set of laws was
being wildly protested based on a
“misunderstanding” of what the law
actually was. There was no misun-
derstanding, however, among this
group of people in attendance as to
what this new law had to say. As Mr.
Gunnarsson noted: “We contend
that these laws are flat-out racist.
They send a message to all foreign-
ers immigrating to this country that
we consider them to be dishonest,
and not worthy of our friendship or
our respect.” And then the meeting
began to get really hot.
An Icelandic woman, newly married
to an Italian man, recounted her
tale of frustration: “I thought that it
would be enough that my husband
was married to me. Yet because
of these laws, he’s not able to get
a kennitala (an Icelandic identity
number) and therefore can’t get any
legal work.”
From my own observation in my
home country - where we’ve passed
more and more restrictions against
immigrants - these laws actually do
nothing to reduce the number of
immigrants coming into the country.
Whether we’re talking about Iceland
or the United States, immigration
continues to rise despite of them.
One very real effect, however, is
that in order for these immigrants
to make a living wage, they are
forced to work illegally. This serves
to justify, in the minds of many
lawmakers, the need to add further
restrictions. And so the vicious cycle
continues.
Now that the law has been passed
and the media has moved on to what
it deems more important - laws
regarding itself - will this matter go
the way of the 2002 laws; stirring up
outrage in a few but ignored by the
public at large? Not if the Reykjavík
Multicultural Centre, among others,
can help it.
On Friday 21 May, the Reykjavík
Multicultural Centre held a public
meeting at Iðno. The attendance
faired far better than the Heimsþorp
meeting - some fifty people listened
intently as centre chairman Stefán
Jón Hafstein read aloud the purpose
of this meeting, which essentially
made it clear that the city of Reykja-
vík is reaching out to the immigrants
living in this city and actually asking
them what should be done to make
Reykjavík more multicultural. Cer-
tainly a step in the right direction,
and it didn’t end there.
One of the ideas brought by sit-
ting members of the committee
included a multi-language radio
station - stocking the library with
more foreign-language books and a
website which could serve as a single
source for immigrants to go to. Some
very good points about language very
also made:
“The fact that the immigrants
themselves have to pay for 150 hours
of classes, even the ones living in
some tiny little village hours away
from where any class is taught, is
bad enough. Even if you can afford
it, these classes are structured poorly
and not very much help in getting
integrated.”
Of course, there are a few bad apples
in every basket, as they say, and
when I saw some tell-tale flyers up
around town, my heart sank.
“Stop the immigrant invasion,” they
read (in Icelandic), “Protect the
purity of your country. Love your
white skin.” And so on and
et cetera. What disturbed
me most was that these people were
promoting a meeting which they
planned to have at Stjórnaráðið, the
very seat of government, right across
the street from where Hitt Husið
and Heimsþorp were planning on
throwing a street carnival against
racism. The two events were sched-
uled to begin at the same time.
I showed up at Stjórnaráðið at the
appointed time, filled with dread.
Across the street, the carnival was
setting up. It was a cold rainy day,
but nevertheless the carnival organis-
ers seemed in high spirits. I took a
breath and tried the door - it was
locked. I looked inside and saw no
one there. I left the area to get some
coffee.
When I came back half an hour later,
the carnival was in full swing. That
is to say, as full as the swing could be
in the cold, pouring rain. So despite
the elements, there were some 100
people huddled under umbrellas and
listening to a slightly-out-of-tune
but very well-meaning band. Also
entertaining the crowd was a stilt-
walker, a fire-breather, a juggler, and
a fire-dancer. At one booth a Chi-
nese man was writing people’s names
in Mandarin characters. At another,
there were some international snacks
for sale, such as sesame crackers
from the Philippines, couscous from
North Africa and banana nut sticks
from Thailand. A few volunteers
were leading people to a world map
and encouraging foreigners to place
small orange stickers on their city or
country of origin. There I saw stick-
ers marking Honduras, Mozam-
bique, Sri Lanka, most of eastern
Europe, and numerous other locales.
Baltimore was already tagged, so
I placed a sticker on Bulgaria, on
behalf of my wife.
As Musíktilraunir “battle of the
bands” award-winners Lada Sport
set up on stage to perform next, I
caught up with Sigga Birna Valsdót-
tir, the coordinator of this event. She
told me that one event in particular
was the inspiration behind this
carnival:
“Not too long ago, there were some
fights between gangs of Icelan-
dic kids and Asian kids living in
Breiðhólt. The news coverage of
this focused very negatively on the
Asians. I work at Hitt Húsið with
young people in the 16- to 25-year-
old range, including some of these
Asian kids. I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve had to practically demand
that these kids go to the police when
some racists vandalise their homes.
There’s too much of this ‘let’s just
pretend it didn’t happen’ attitude.
But when I began to put this event
together, I received a very positive
response. So many of
these kids wanted to
take part, and did. It
went far better than I
expected.”
I asked her if she knew
anything about the
flyers from the “rac-
ists”. It turns out that
it was, in fact, part of
performance art piece that was done
separately from the carnival. Ap-
parently, there were a few people of
different races dressed as angels, who
beat a piniata which was supposed to
represent racism. The idea was to at-
tract racists to the area and perform
this piece for them. I was told that
no racists actually showed up. So
much for that then.
Many immigrants reading this article
might be asking themselves at this
point, “Fine, but what can we do?”
Every political party in this country
depends on volunteer support to
campaign. People to hand out flyers
and pins, to stuff envelopes, to host
public meetings and the like. What
we immigrants can and must do is
lend our volunteer support to that
party which defends us and repre-
sents our interests in Iceland.
Also, there is the offer made by the
Reykjavík Multicultural Center.
Those with some ideas to get across
as to how to make Reykjavík more
multicultural can contact Halldóra
Gunnarsdóttir by phone at 563
2000, or by e-mail at halldora@rvk.
is.
Immigrants will keep coming to Ice-
land. We work hard, we pay taxes,
we obey the law. Unless immigration
restrictions make earning a legal
wage nearly impossible, we will con-
tinue to live as honest members of
this society. Most Icelanders would
be inclined to agree. Given the
growing response to and participa-
tion in this issue, it´s safe to say that
this matter is far from over.
JUST ONE BIG MISUNDERSTANDING?
by Paul Fontaine-Nikolov
On May 5th, I attended a public debate regarding a new set of
immigration laws, passed by Alþingi on May 1st.
The meeting was sponsored and publicised by Heimsþorp, a group
of Icelanders working to end racism. The keynote speakers were
Sigurður Hólm Gunnarsson from Ungir Jafnaðarmenn and Jón
Hákon Halldórsson from Ungir sjálfstæðismenn.
Public Reaction to the New Immigration Laws
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