Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.05.2006, Page 13

Issue 06, 2006 8 Page Listings Section in Your Pocket
it’s
free
In 2002, the voter turnout for the City of Reykjavík was
an impressive 84%. As it turns out, democracy in this,
the home of the world’s oldest parliament, the Althingi,
is a point of pride. And, as we mention repeatedly in this
edition of the Grapevine, if you have been a resident of
Iceland for five years, (three for the Nordic residents), you
too are entitled to vote in the local elections.
Beyond voting, this year the Íslandsvinir, or Friends
of Iceland, are organizing a massive march and concert
to protest actions of the government ranging from the
promotion of heavy industry to bizarro city planning. The
march begins at 1 pm at the Hlemmur Bus Terminal, and
it ends at Austurvöllur, near the Alþingi, with bands in-
cluding KK, Hjálmar and Benni Hemm Hemm perform-
ing a free show.
In all, 50,000 people are expected to join the protest,
and roughly 80,000 are expected to vote. You’re guaranteed
to see democracy in action.
By Bart Cameron
May 27: Election Day
the negotiations carefully, before they even
started.
“One of the thing that the media has not
picked up on is that the companies seem to be
building one half of aluminium smelters. Al-
can say they will close the plant if they cannot
enlarge it to 500,000 tons. Which means that
500,000 tons has become the smallest unit of
efficiency. Norsk Hydro is, for example, build-
ing a smelter in Dubai or Quatar, which is
500,000 tons, with the possibility of enlarging
it to 1,500,000 tons. Here Alcan claim they
need 500,000 tons, just in order to function.
In Húsavík, they want to build a 250,000-ton
aluminium smelter, which is really just half a
smelter. It needs to be bigger to be efficient,
and everybody knows this. The smelter in
Reyðarfjörður is two thirds of a smelter, and
the aluminium smelter being planned in Hel-
guvík is a half an aluminium smelter.
“We are creating this huge infrastruc-
ture; the companies are planting their feet
and setting up workers who will become an
immensely powerful lobby group when the
companies announce that they will need
to increase production capabilities. This is
power that we are loosing control of. It is as if
nobody realises the structure we are creating.
The Minister of Industry previously said in a
speech that was published on her website that
the limit of production here in Iceland should
be one million tons and we should not exceed
that mark. Six months later, without any dis-
cussion taking place, she said that limit should
be one and a half million tons, and the earlier
speech vanished from her website. The fact of
the matter is that, in order to accommodate all
the future enlargements of these plants that are
now being built, that limit would need to be
two and a half million in 20 years time.”
The argument that is routinely provided
for the continued development of aluminium
smelters here in Iceland is that the amount
of clean and renewable hydro energy places
a moral obligation on us to use that to build
up heavy industry that would otherwise be
powered by less eco-friendly energy. That is,
we should sacrifice our nature for the sake of
nature. More and more, this sacrifice is seen as
pure and simple waste. The Icelandic Na-
ture Conservation Association, for instance,
recently claimed to have from ‘very reliable
sources’ that the Kárahnjúkar dam’s economi-
cal viability is in fact negative.
“Everything is hidden in the words, ‘it
is our obligation to use our clean energy
resources.’ This is a ridiculous argument.
We are always asked to make ethical moral
choices. This is bad business, but we should do
it anyway on moral grounds.” This is enough
for Magnason to lose his cool. “Alcoa has no
fucking morals. Aluminium companies have
never made a moral decision. They just look at
the price of the energy and base their decision
upon that. If coal is cheaper, they will use coal,
if the nuclear energy is cheaper, they will use
nuclear energy. There is no morality involved.”
In his book, Magnason slowly reveals this
very fact, that there has been no morality,
and almost as little horse sense, in the selling
of Iceland’s nature. The conclusion reveals a
nation duped. It leaves you feeling both angry
and betrayed.
“A lot of people explain their feelings to me
in those exact terms,” he tells me, on hearing
my reaction. “They feel angry and betrayed,
ridiculed even. People feel humiliated, and
they feel they are seen as inferior.”
Did the author himself get angry or feel
betrayed?
“Yes, a lot of the time I got really angry. I
think one of the most difficult things about
writing this book was to read through all the
sources, and to discover all the content in the
book. I had to keep that bottled up for a year.
The hardest thing was to be so angry, and yet
to be able to write a constructive book, and not
get lost in name calling, to keep my integrity,
although I was not really impartial. The book
is created from a lot of anger and the main rea-
son behind me writing it was that I was angry.”
“If you were to do a little test on people concerning
Iraq, what they now know about, and what they knew
before, there is no new knowledge. People might be
able to name Fallujah. That is it. People know nothing
more about the culture, the literature, and the history.”
“We see headlines like ‘the people of Húsavík are
happy,’ or ‘ the inhabitants of East Iceland rejoice’ ac-
companied with a picture of people from East Iceland
raising a flag. This is just a product of fascism.”
In 1995, the Progressive Party promised to
create 12,000 new jobs before the turn of the
millennium. Based on 3% economic growth,
[…] it was a given that the jobs would be
created automatically, but the promise was
made, and the party “kept its promise.” They
were able to say “We Progressives talked about
creating 12,000 jobs before the millennium. It
now looks like it might exceed 13,000...”
You could just as well campaign on the
promise that grass will grow next summer and
that 4000 children will be born. Then you
could call yourself the Almighty Father of
Children and Growth.
The focus here is on economic growth.
Words matter, they control our thoughts.
Words that almost no one understands appear
on the front pages of our newspapers every
day. I conducted an informal poll the other
day: “Do you know what the words economic
growth mean?” Almost no one could give me
an answer. Everyone seemed to agree though,
that it signified something positive and good.
Growing economy.
“Economic growth is good, we need
economic growth,” was a common reply.
Economic growth is an example of a word that
that controls people.
On a TV debate show, the winner is
the one who offers more economic growth.
During a debate on the future of Þjórsárver
the politician said: “… but we must ensure
economic growth.” The naturalist tried to
object and said: “… but do we necessarily need
economic growth?” Thereby, his case was
dead, but the politician smiled kindly. The
politician was “realistic,” he based his opinion
on perspective and arguments, but the natu-
ralist was blinded by romance, idealism, and
the narrow special interests of his knowledge.
Both of them misunderstood the words.
Economic growth is the yearly increase
in the production of a whole nation, but the
increase in production is generated by increase
in population, technical advancement, and
more valuable knowledge with better-educated
generations. A milking machine is economic
growth. Education is economic growth.
Politicians don’t hesitate to steal the
words and claim the honour for increasing
the production of a whole nation. “The party
created the economic growth,” is considered
an acceptable thing to say. This is because the
phrase allows it. If we dissolve the phrase, the
results become interesting.
“If you don’t vote for me, people will
become lazier, computers will slow down,
artificial limbs become peg legs, hotel rental
will go down, and lawyers, doctors, police-
men, business administrators, teachers and all
the other people who maintain the system will
go on a rampage and destroy everything.”
A person who would say this would be
considered crazy, people would be insulted:
“Did you invent the computer, you fool?”
Economic growth is a complex interplay
and it does not hinge on one company or one
possibility.
Economic growth only measures eco-
nomic sizes, it does not evaluate consequences
or long-term effects, the intrinsic value or
quality of things. Economic growth does not
measure people’s time with their children or
their family. Whoever purchases a private lap
dance instead of fooling around with his wife
at home has a positive effect on the economic
growth.
Economic growth does not measure
exploitation or war or if we are burdening
future generations with excessive borrowing or
pollution. War, exploitation, natural catastro-
phes and running excessive debts can produce
economic growth.
Economic growth is like qualifying a
world record in 100 metres sprint without ever
taking a drug test. Economic growth will only
measure how fast the run was, not whether the
runner will live to see forty. We have no con-
cept of benign or malignant economic growth.
We never see headlines like: “Malignant
Economic Growth Identified Last Year.” A
person who quits his job in order to continue
his education reduces economic growth, even
if that person is strengthening and growing
for a longer and shorter period of time.
The words economic growth have
acquired a meaning that far exceeds their
capabilities as a unit of measurement. It is
so significant that the words by themselves
can be used to disarm a biologist on a TV
talk show. Economic growth is combined of
various different and complex elements but
you might wonder whether it is applicable as a
category or a grading system for the condition
or the success of a whole community.
The world could lose Langisjór and
Þjórsárver [Some of Iceland’s most beauti-
ful locations] for a 0.1% increase in economic
growth in one year, which would automatical-
ly generate a compliment from a lowly intern
sitting in front of a computer in the OECD’s
Small States Department, that would become
a headline in the newspapers: “OECD Praises
Iceland.”
From that perspective, you might actually
argue that the word is detrimental, even dan-
gerous. If we throw out the word and establish
a ten point grading system, then people might
perhaps be able to discuss things without be-
ing constantly pro- or anti- economic growth.
Pro-education, Pro-technical advancement,
pro-growing population, pro-indexes that
measure the vocabulary of teenagers as a
proportion of the increased natural reserves in
Þjórsárver to the second power.
I should mention that I don’t understand
the word, whoever is capable of explaining in
detail how economic growth is created or not
created should receive a Nobel Prize in eco-
nomics. It is good to measure things, it is fun
to line up units on a scale, but the scale should
serve the people, not the other way around.
“Örvar! Did you spend 100,000 on a strip
joint, you bastard?”
“What, are you against economic growth?”
“Economic growth is like qualifying a world record in
100 metres sprint without ever taking a drug test. Eco-
nomic growth will only measure how fast the run was,
not whether the runner will live to see forty.”
Economic Growth
Excerpt from Draumalandið by Andri Snær Magnason
translated from the icelandic and edited by sveinn birkir björnsson
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