Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.05.2006, Blaðsíða 3

Hello,
Regarding your undated article in
http://www.grapevine.is/undirf lok-
kar.aspx?id=7 (REVERSING HIS-
TORY, an interview with Salmann
Timini, chairman of the Icelandic
Muslim Association), I would like
to refer you to the following quote
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
West_Bank (Wikipedia).
Prior to 1967, there was no
full-f ledged university in the West
Bank. There were a few lesser
institutions of higher education; for
example, An-Najah, which started
as an elementary school in 1918,
became a community college in
1963. As the Jordanian government
did not allow the establishment of
such universities in the West Bank,
it was necessary for Palestinian
students to travel abroad to places
such as Jordan, Lebanon, or Europe
to obtain their undergraduate and
graduate-level degrees. After the
region was captured by Israel in the
Six-Day War, several educational
institutions expanded into full-
f ledged undergraduate institutions,
while others opened up as entirely
new universities. In all, no less than
7 Universities were commissioned
in the West Bank since 1967
This is in stark contrast to your
article, and ref lects on the author’s
tendencies (to slander Israel) or lack
of professionalism (in not checking
the facts)
Regards,
Ehud
Tel-Aviv
Ehud,
You are referring to an introductory
paragraph to an interview, in which
the following is stated: “Born in
Jerusalem in 1955, Tamimi experi-
enced his country go from bad to worse
when the 1967 war broke out. The
Palestinian university system wiped
out, he decided to go to the United
States to study. In 1971, he stopped in
Iceland on his way over and promptly
stayed here.”
This was written in early 2005,
under the guidance of a different edi-
tor. However, I see no error. First off,
Mr. Nikolov didn’t write universities,
he wrote university system—those
studying in neighbouring countries
during the invasion were unable to
return home.
Still, I don’t typically consult the
Wikipedia for historical fact. The
Wikipedia is edited by the public at
large, it is not an academic enterprise.
In addition, the very article you quote
has a large disclaimer pointing out
that “the neutrality of this article is
disputed.”
The previous editor had greater
interest in this case than I, but is your
argument that the Palestinian situa-
tion greatly improved after 1967? I’m
afraid you’d have a hard time finding
a source that wouldn’t “slander Israel”
on that topic.
Hello,
My name is Sarah Allen and I am
an Icelandic-American. I just fin-
ished reading your article entitled
Key Facts About Iceland and I was
very impressed. The issues that
you covered are very distressing and
give our country a bad reputation.
I have felt distressed for some time
about the negative publicity Iceland
has been receiving. (I saw that
Oprah episode when it aired and
felt very angry about how it was
handled.) I just wanted to send you
a pat on the back for how you han-
dled this article. Very well written
and appreciated. Thank You!
Thank you, Sarah Allen. Everyone
else can read our facts about Iceland
at our website, www.grapevine.
is, which hopes to overcome stereo-
types perpetuated by guide books and
advertising. I might also point out the
writings of our columnist Þórdís Elva
Þorvaldsdóttir Bachmann as an excel-
lent source for challenging stereotypes.
RE: Happy Hookers
I’m glad Ms. Þórdís is OK with
prostitution. Living in a country
like Iceland - with a low incidence
of poverty and a relatively inex-
pensive drug treatment system
- it’s no surprise that her notions of
prostitution are her cherry-picked
examples of people who gleefully
sell themselves for movie tickets or
airplane f lights.
Þórdís should maybe take a trip to
west Philadelphia, or New Delhi,
or East Los Angeles, or just about
any other major city in the world
where you’ll f ind both a high
incidence of poverty and poor drug
treatment resources. For poor wom-
en, especially poor women who are
addicted to drugs, their options are
very few in such cities. I can assure
that they’re not happy to be turning
to prostitution. For her to assert
that “those who trade sex for money
are often no more enslaved than” a
girl who blows a security guard to
get a seat on a plane is just f lat-out
inaccurate and a testament to how
sheltered she must be.
Additionally, it’s a shame that
the same woman who discussed
prejudice against Thai people in
the previous issue should per-
petuate the old stereotype of Thai
women being sex workers in this
column - without even stopping to
consider why the women offering
her boyfriend a “happy ending”
might be in the situation they’re in.
I’ll continue to look forward
to reading Grapevine, as all your
staff are doing a fantastic job. My
only hope is that Ms. Þórdís learns
the difference between starting
a discussion on a topic with an
intelligent argument and just plain
demonstrating her ignorance of
reality outside of our tiny island.
Sóley Jónsdóttir
Þórdís will respond in time. Until
then, I would like to point out that she
referred to the assumption of… that
is… I would like to… what’s that?
Dinner’s ready? Yeah, mom. I’ ll be
right there. Sorry, my mother’s calling,
I have to go.
RE: Column By Thórdís
So you and your boyfriend didn’t
know about these traditional mas-
sage places that lined your street in
Berlin.
You guys had no idea what goes on
in them. Every guy[except yours]
knows what goes on in them.
Your boyfriend had no idea...
The other day i was going to one, I
patted my dog good-bye, told him
where I was going, and he barked
out to me, “ruff ruff ”. Which
meant wear a rubber.
Your boyfriend had no idea...
The other day I was visited by a
space alien. He said, “Take me to
your leader. But I’ve had a long
trip, could we stop at a Thai mas-
sage place first?”
Your boyfriend had no idea...
He sounds like a keeper, marry
him.
But be warned, danger lurks else-
where...
In case your boyfriend is walking
down a street and a girl on a corner
calls out to him, “Hey handsome,
want to have a good time?” She’s
not looking to go to the ballgame.
And if your boyfriend is surfing the
net, let him know there have been
cases of people finding pornogra-
phy without even trying. Shocking
but true.
Harry
Detroit
Oh shit. No you didn’t. No you didn’t.
Dear Editor,
I wish to apply through you to
publish my name and address in
your most popular newspaper for
me. I have to state that I am a real
African who wants Pen Friends
from your country so that we may
share ideas and know each other’s
culture, etc.
Publication has therefore neces-
sitated my application and I shall
be extremely grateful if my request
will be given an exceptional con-
sideration to enable me to achieve
my aim.
Below are my particulars:
Name: Lydia Wood. Address: P.O.
Box DA 654, Akim Oda, E/R
Ghana, West Africa.
Language: English. Marital Status:
Single. Hobbies/ Interests/ Wishes:
Here I am, lonely single me! My
name is Lydia wood and I am 26
years old. I have an impressive
body with nice hair and eyes. I
have never been married and enjoy
music, travel, reading, sports, visits,
cooking, fun, beaches, nature,
culture, etc. I would like to meet
and correspond with a special,
kind, loving, caring, honest, sincere
man for beautiful friends, love and
marriage. Any race, age, national-
ity and religion. Write soon.
Please, kindly try as much as pos-
sible to help me to meet or have
someone special. Also, you can
extend my advert into any company
you know in your area.
God Bless You.
Yours Respectfully,
Lydia Wood
P.S: I enclose U.S. $5.00 as my
little contribution so that you may
consider me and truly help me.
Thank you.
That’s it. There is no fucking God.
Lydia, your $5 will sit somewhere in
the office, until it is unceremoniously
stolen by the many visiting journalists
who come here to ask us about elves.
I’m taking a vacation. But before
I do, let me tell you all, those who
question Þórdís will suffer the
wrath of Þórdís. It’s as true today
as it was when I got it in a fortune
cookie in 1986, in Berlin.
SOUR GRAPES
Complaints, criticism, suggestions, praise, money, anything at all: Contact letters@grapevine.is or send
your mail to: The Reykjavík Grapevine, Faxagata 2, Faxaskála við Faxaport, 101 Reykjavík.
‘The Nanny State’ is a British turn
of phrase, used to describe the gen-
eral tendency of people in power to
continue to legislate ad infinitum, or
until every conceivable and incon-
ceivable form of risk is eliminated.
There is an Icelandic equivalent in
‘forræðishyggja’, or governmental pa-
ternalism, which refers to a govern-
ment policy of deciding what is best
for you as an individual at virtually
every turn. Sometimes, intrusively so.
There are a lot of intrusive, anti-
libertarian and frankly unnecessary
Nanny State laws in Iceland. One
such law actually makes it illegal to
mention tobacco or tobacco products
in any way that is not unequivocally
negative and condemning. Presum-
ably, then, writing: “I encourage
everyone to violently overthrow the
government and then have a deli-
cious cigarette afterwards” is not al-
lowed, but “I encourage everyone to
violently overthrow the government
and then think seriously about the
dangers of smoking-related diseases”
narrowly evades the wrath of the
authorities. Then again, there are
no doubt also laws against speaking
in favour of rebellion, as well. Our
masters think of everything, you see.
They know best.
It is, to some people, completely
unthinkable that a person could ever
independently come to the conclu-
sion that smoking was bad or that
leading an armed contingent into
Alþingi mightn’t be smart. To make
correct decisions they think other
people need the wisdom of govern-
ment to decide exactly how to behave
and even how to speak and think. In
the minds of many of our legisla-
tors, the mere mention of revolt or a
nice relaxing cigarette is so danger-
ous that the very words describing
the concepts must be regulated and
monitored by them.
We have hate speech legisla-
tion here, too, which is to me not
just a blatant affront to our right to
freedom of speech, but an insult to
our intelligence. Outlawing people’s
right to publicly humiliate them-
selves with racist or homophobic
rhetoric is not going to do anything
to help them change their pathetic
little minds about the issue, it just
shuts them up for the sake of our
comfort. It also does a disservice to
those of us who might like to know
exactly how crazy and evil these
bigots are when free to speak their
minds. If the guy whose anti-war
rhetoric you like so much also hap-
pens to think the world is run by
seven Jewish bankers from a vault in
Switzerland, you’re probably going to
want to be informed so you can steer
well clear of him in the future. The
best defence against patently ridicu-
lous lies is to expose them and tear
them apart publicly, not to throw
people in jail for telling them.
To be fair, very few people have
actually been convicted for talking
nonsense in Iceland, the unspoken
understanding being that most of
the nation would be behind bars
if our anti-idiocy laws were widely
enforced. Alcohol importers are even
starting to get away with letting
people know about their beer, albeit
under the guise of promoting visually
identical cans of non-alcoholic beer.
These kinds of laws are there for a
reason, though—the government is
seeking to raise the helpless masses.
Putting all our Nanny Laws
to shame are the laws, still on the
books, regarding blasphemy. While
the punishment isn’t forty lashes
or public stoning, the idea that the
police can knock on your door and
arrest you for blaspheming against a
religion you might not even belong
to is seriously disturbing to me. It’s a
symptom of the fact that our suppos-
edly secular society still has a state
church into which every citizen is
born by default. The notion that the
government has a responsibility, or
even a right, to protect God himself
against defamation by harassing its
citizens is an anachronism and an
absurdity.
So the next time the govern-
ment passes a thought-crime law or
does something silly, irresponsible,
criminal or immoral, just remember
this: There’s nothing quite as sweet
and refreshing as that first post-revo-
lutionary cigarette.
So Sue Me
EDITORIALS
Bart Cameron, Editor
Once upon a time, the Reykjavík
Grapevine was packed with Germans,
Dutchmen, Finns, Canadians, and
the occasional American crank, all
joining together to voice our curiosi-
ties about Iceland and to try to create
a community of foreigners interested
in sticking around for the long haul.
Scanning the pages of this issue of the
Grapevine, I can’t help noting: we lost
our foreigners.
I know the foreigners are there, or
at least some are there. In fact, I even
know the foreigners are reading our
paper, as they email regularly, and our
pick up rates are doing well.
The question is, why aren’t
foreigners writing in the Reykjavík
Grapevine? On the one hand, we are
political and we don’t pay well. But
we never paid well and we were always
political—though we used to stick to
one side more than we now do. And
then, we’re not any less popular, we
have constant applications for writers
and staff, they just all happen to be
Icelandic.
The answers to where the foreign-
ers went became apparent as I read
Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson’s interview
with Intercultural Center Director
Einar Skúlason. Skúlason points out
that foreigners should really be stand-
ing up, especially after a private citizen
paid for a Gallup Poll to see if Iceland-
ers were interested in a nationalist
party. When the results came back
that 30 per cent of Iceland was ready
to ship people out, Skúlason booked
a series of meetings for foreigners to
voice their complaints.
I believe Skúlason’s heart is in the
right place, but, as a foreigner, in the
weeks after this Gallup Poll, I sure as
shit wasn’t going to congregate with
other foreigners, just as, in the weeks
after Toshiki Toma, priest for foreign-
ers, received a death threat, I was a
little edgy. Come to think of it, in the
last year there was also an extended
campaign to deport “professional
protestors” who came from abroad,
there has been constant coverage of
foreigners and drug trade, including
coverage of Eastern European mafias
in a popular local newspaper.
It’s a mixed bag. As the ground
has gotten more hostile, the Grape-
vine, which is essentially a symbol of
immigration and foreigners, has been
growing in power, prestige and staff.
With more money, we’ve reached
out and found that foreigners don’t
want to be anywhere near a vocal
paper. The joke I get from writers or
educated people, which is less and
less amusing, is “I barely get my work
permit stamped without making any
waves.”
This is something to think about
this Election Day. For tourists,
welcome to a seat of democracy and
a progressive country that is going
through an awkward transition. For
immigrants, please consider voting
or getting involved in the discus-
sion—maybe by writing for us, maybe
by getting over to the Intercultural
Centre, maybe by sponsoring a Gallup
Poll. For Icelanders, thank you for
supporting us and joining our team,
but, please, take a look around. Immi-
grants made the Grapevine and a few
other cultural institutions here, and
now those key members of Icelandic
society are disappearing. That should
tell you something.
Seeking Foreigners
Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson,
Journalist
Soup of the day + 1/2 panini + koffee = 870 kr.
The luck is
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