Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.08.2007, Side 11

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REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_INFO_ISSUE 13_007
(imba)
Out to conquer NYC.
B6
Partying is a serious business. At least, in
Reykjavík it is.
On an average Friday or Saturday night,
police officials estimate that as many as
10,000–15,000 people congregate in the
city centre to relax after a strenuous week at
work. Reykjavík city is infamous for its robust
nightlife, documented in countless newspaper
articles, travel magazines and Internet blog-
posts. There is an abundance of bars, cafés,
nightclubs, bistros, or any other kind of water-
ing hole you may care to name, in downtown
Reykjavík. There is music, there is wine and
there is dance, and most importantly, there
are people. Lots of people.
It should be no surprise that when up to fifteen
thousand people gather in the same spot and
drink alcohol, violence is likely to follow. And
in Reykjavík, it routinely does. Every weekend,
police officers interfere with fights, assaults,
domestic violence, disturbances of the peace,
vandalism and drunken driving. Fifteen-thou-
sand drunken individuals are also going to
leave remnants of their stay, such as broken
bottles, cigarette butts, and empty beer cans.
There is no reason to condone this behaviour,
but so far at least we will have to accept this
as a fact. Pretty much the way it has always
been, for better or worse.
However, in recent weeks, the “situation”
in downtown Reykjavík has become increas-
ingly dominant in certain Icelandic media
outlets. Judging from the coverage, down-
town Reykjavík resembles a war zone every
weekend and ordinary citizens are wise to sit
at home, or otherwise put them self in harms
way.
An editorial in Iceland’s biggest daily, the
conservative paper Morgunblaðið, on August
1 stated that it was time to increase law en-
forcement in downtown Reykjavík, pointing
out that the public feels decreasingly safe
in the city centre: “People are simply afraid
to walk around there when they get regular
news of assaults and mayhem such as last
weekend.” And later, that “[t]he public has a
right to demand that violence in the city cen-
tre will be dealt with, so it becomes a safe
place for all.”
On August 2 another editorial in Morgun-
blaðið declared: “Rampant drinking [as] a ma-
jor problem in Reykjavík’s City Centre,” citing
public intoxication, disorderly conduct and
general filthiness as symptoms of a city where
respect for the law and human decency was
utterly vacant.
Bloggers also directed their attention to
violence in the city centre. Widely read blog-
ger and social critic, Egill Helgason, host of a
popular political debate show on television,
echoed Morgunblaðið’s view in blog posts
on August 1, and again on August 2, 3, 9,
16, 18, 19, and twice on August 20 (it was a
Monday) claiming that Reykjavík City centre
was ravaged with dope fiends, drunks and
violent maniacs. And he was not the only one
in blogsphere to raise the issue, either.
Follow the Leader
On August 13, the Police Commissioner in
Reykjavík, Stefán Eiríksson, wrote an op-ed in
Morgunblaðið where he addressed the issue,
and suggested ways to improve the conditions
downtown in cooperation with city officials
and bar owners in the area. Eiríksson’s article
opened a floodgate of articles on violent be-
haviour in Reykjavík, public drunkenness and
the poor image of the city centre.
City Council member Svandís Svavarsdóttir
wrote an article on August 16, stating that:
“[t]he situation in the city centre is such that
people are hesitant to attend bars and enjoy
the summer nights with other people. Vio-
lent crimes are a daily phenomenon and the
behaviour is very bad – cans and shattered
glass everywhere. People wander around in
a drunken stupor and all constraint is relin-
quished. Drug use is general and has increased
say those who know best. People are scared.
Parents are worried. The Police demand ac-
tion and the city government must react.”
Another city council member, Björn Ingi
Hrafnsson, praised Morgunblaðið in a blog
post for fighting the good fight, while scolding
the other big daily newspaper, Fréttablaðið,
for not treating the issue with proper serious-
ness, while appearing in every available print
and broadcast media with the Mayor of Reyk-
javík, Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, to pledge that
the situation would be reigned under control.
Seriously, What the Hell Happened?
As a frequent visitor to downtown Reykjavík,
the discussion of the situation in the city cen-
tre surprised me. It has not been my experi-
ence at all that the situation is any worse than
it was five years ago. Did I miss something?
According to the statistics, I didn’t. On the
contrary, the statistics indicate that violence
is on its way down. The crime rate has de-
creased in recent years, and assaults and se-
vere violence is on the retreat.
In his article, Police Commissioner Stefán
Eiríksson pointed this out in plain Icelandic,
stating that the correct information and a
realistic analysis of the situation was lacking
from the discourse, providing statistics and
using refined graphs that should have erased
any doubts. City Council member Gísli Mar-
teinn Baldursson said the same thing in the
news magazine TV show Kastljós the same
day Eiríksson’s article was printed. The mes-
sage was clear. Crime is down.
How did this get confused? Why is it that
at the same time that violent crimes are de-
creasing the public feels less and less safe in
the city? Why is it that the discussion is always
focused on the dangers of walking the streets
at night while the likelihood of you being a
victim of a violent crime in the city centre is
considerably less than it was five years ago?
And somebody has yet to explain to me
the contradiction why, if the average citizen
is scared to go downtown, the city centre is
flooded every weekend? Am I to believe that
among 15,000 people – 10% of the popula-
tion in the greater-Reykjavík area – there are
no average citizens?
A Cyclical Discussion
According to Helgi Gunnlaugsson, profes-
sor of sociology at the University of Iceland
and an expert on criminology, this is a cycli-
cal discussion that comes up every two years
or so. “Sometimes, you could think you were
reading about Baghdad when you read about
the city centre in the Icelandic media,” Gunn-
laugsson said when the Grapevine reached
him. “There has always been a negative dis-
cussion of the city centre. I remember when I
came home to Iceland in 1987 after studying
abroad, there was the exact same discourse
on the downtown area in the media. The
Mayor then (Davíð Oddson) demanded that
the police should deploy dogs to be better
fit to handle the violence. This comes up very
regularly, and every time it comes up, the at-
mosphere is that this is the worst it has ever
been. It was always better, five, ten years ago,
let alone 20 or 30 years ago.”
Gunnlaugsson states that after carefully
reviewing police statistics, hospital records
and victimisation reports, this is not the case.
“The situation now is no worse than it has
been. It was decidedly worse around the turn
of the century, in 1999–2000, when the po-
lice dealt with many more cases for example.
When the opening hours changed in 2000 we
saw marked improvement.” Gunnlaugsson is
referring to changes in regulations in 2000,
which allowed bar owners to keep their bars
open longer. Before that, all bars closed at
03:00 AM, and thousands of guests poured
into the streets at the same time. “That
change was for the good, since violent crimes
decreased drastically. We are nowhere near
the mark where we were in 2000, and there
is nothing that indicates that the situation is
getting worse.”
Gunnlaugsson adds that statistics indicate
that extremely violent attacks have decreased,
although there is always room for improve-
ment. “Every now and then, there is a case re-
ported that you’ll find unusually ugly. But that
is nothing new. That has always happened. I
don’t want to give the impression that this is
OK. Of course violence in the city centre is in-
tolerable, but from a physical standpoint, in the
city centre, it is so crowded, it is such a small
space and so many people, that I can hardly see
how violence could be avoided entirely.”
According to Gunnlaugsson, studies con-
ducted in Iceland and abroad indicate that
violence is mostly confined to certain small
groups of people. “When you look at the data
on violence, you’ll see that it is mostly young
males beating up other young males, and it
often seems to be arbitrary who is the victim
and who is the antagonist. That is, the same
person can be a victim one weekend and an
antagonist the next weekend. This is related to
a certain lifestyle among young males, where
violence is considered acceptable. This is not
necessarily a large group, but if you look at
the big picture, this is the group that is most
likely to use violence, and the group that is
most likely to suffer from violence. That is, this
group is fighting amongst themselves.”
Guðjohnsen Attacked
– Violence Soars in the City Centre
Naturally, there are exceptions, and Gunn-
laugsson points out that random attacks still
occur and that this kind of discussion is likely
to soar whenever a particularly heinous crime
is reported in the city centre. “It does happen
that unsuspecting citizens are attacked. And
that always gives rise to this sort of discussion.
In particular if a woman is involved.”
The first weekend in August, two attacks
made the headlines. In one case three women
attacked another women standing in a line
outside the bar Sólon, biting off a sizeable
chunk of her ear – unpleasant, but hardly re-
markable, other than the fact that those in-
volved were all women.
In another instance, Eiður Guðjohnsen,
Barcelona’s ace forward and captain of the
national football team, was attacked in down-
town Reykjavík. He was pushed to the ground
and punched in the face. Again, unpleasant,
but hardly remarkable, other than the fact
that Eiður Guðjónsson was involved. The Bar-
celona striker escaped unharmed from what
otherwise could only be described as a scuf-
fle.
Gunnlaugsson believes that these attacks
did a lot to get the current discussion off the
ground, and although it is natural for people
to be anxious over such news, these incidents
are out of the ordinary. “If you look at the
big picture, the reality is much closer to what
I have described before. Out of between
1000–1500 reports of violence in downtown
Reykjavík every year, a great majority is young
males fighting with other young males. The
violence is not totally random, although that
is the message we keep receiving, that each
and every one of us could be the victim of a
violent attack in the city centre. That is not ex-
actly the case. Although random attacks oc-
casionally happen. But these are the attacks
that find their way into the news, and make
us scared.”
Gunnlaugsson also points out that the
number of incidents often has little to do with
the discourse. “When this sort of discussion
comes up, it is not necessary because the
number of cases is spinning out of control. If
you look at the data, twenty years back, you
will see that there is no necessary correlation
between the number of cases and when this
discussion comes up. There is something else
behind this, and sometimes it can even be po-
litical, especially around election time.”
Who Gains From Your Fear?
Gunnlaugsson raises an important point. If we
are to understand the contradiction that citi-
zens feel less secure while violence decreases,
we need to look beyond criminal statistics and
look at different statistics entirely.
According to the independent media mon-
itoring company Fjölmiðlavaktin (The Media
Watch), coverage of violence and drug use
increased by 41% in 2006 compared to the
same period a year earlier. Coverage of “po-
lice matters” increased by 16% in the same
period and has increased by 10% between
2006 and 2007 so far.
While the crime rate goes down, the media
devotes more and more time and space in
news to cover violence, drug use and crimes.
The same marketing principles apply to the
Icelandic media and the Hollywood film in-
dustry. Violence sells.
Is it safe to assume that politicians might also
use this issue for political grandstanding, mak-
ing heroic gestures, declaring to stomp down
on the violence and make the city safer, in pur-
suit of public acceptance? Is it a coincidence
that City Council member Björn Ingi Hrafns-
son scolds Fréttablaðið for not drumming up
the discussion of city violence? Lesser people
have reached bigger political offices under the
‘tough on crimes’ mantra. That much is sure.
The Minister for Justice, Björn Bjarnason,
has often made downtown violence the sub-
ject of speeches and blogposts. His interest
in police matters is well documented. Since
1997, the government has doubled funding
to the police. Obviously, this increase needs to
be justified, but I would have thought that the
decreasing crime rate should be justification
enough.
Whose Problem is This Anyway?
In preparation for this article, The Grapevine
contacted several people with knowledge of
the situation and all of them expressed sur-
prise over the public discourse regarding vio-
lence in the city centre. Sigurður Harðarson,
a nurse at the emergency room at the city
hospital, claims that the situation is no worse
during the weekends than it was when he first
started working there five years ago.
Trausti Valsson, professor of planning at
the University of Iceland, expressed more
concern over traffic congestion and available
routes for fire trucks, ambulances and police
wagons in the city centre than violence.
Professor Gunnlaugsson also pointed out
that comparative to its size, downtown Reyk-
javík is even far from being the most violent
town in Iceland. Statistically speaking, you are
much more likely to the victim of violence in
some small fishing village in the West Fjords,
than you are walking the streets of Reykjavík.
Police commissioner Stefán Eríksson told
me that his article was mostly intended to
analyse the problem and point out that the
police is not the only responsible party when
it comes to the “situation” downtown. “I
think there is a reason to improve the image
of the city centre that has suffered for pub-
lic drunkenness and bad conduct recently,”
Eiríksson told the Grapevine, but added that
bad conduct and littering are not directly the
concern of the police.
“There were 30 serious violent attacks last
year, there have been ten the first six months
this year. It is impossible to draw wide-rang-
ing conclusions from such low numbers, but
they do not indicate that the situation in the
city centre is becoming worse. One of the
reasons I wrote that article was to get that
message across loud and clear,” Eiríksson
said.
Nevertheless, the discourse has gone
thoroughly off the tracks.
Violence in Reykjavík is a sad fact. It
should not be tolerated, but the situation is
still no more of a problem now than it was
five years ago. Even if we commend all ef-
forts to eradicate violence, it does not justify
certain media people, politicians and blog-
gers in portraying downtown Reykjavík as a
public war zone and manipulating people’s
fear of violence to their own ends.
PS. The photo on the cover was staged in an
effort to boost our pick-up rate.
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
Photo by Gulli