Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.03.2007, Blaðsíða 18

RVK_GV_03_007_OPINION_19
“It was the worst experience!” said
a young man who came to talk to
me the other day. “I have never
seen such disrespect. I wouldn’t
have been able to stand it if my
wife and kids had been with me.”
He is from one of the countries that
joined the EU a couple years ago.
It was the first time that I had met
him, and so far he was very polite,
friendly, and lively. I asked him what
had happened. He said he was in
a home electronics shop and was
looking at a product he intended to
buy. The sales attendant was kind in
the beginning, but after this young
man mentioned where he was from,
the friendly manner evaporated and
the sales clerk was no longer willing
to answer questions or spend time
with the young man. Why? Nobody
knows except the sales clerk him-
self.
One of the privileges of being
a pastor is getting to hear peoples’
stories, and it is also my privilege as
pastor for the foreign community
to be able to talk about prejudice
in Iceland. Of course, many differ-
ent groups of people can be targets
of prejudice, but here I am going to
talk only about prejudice towards
immigrants and foreigners. Now
March 21st is the International Day
for the Elimination of Racism and it
is a good occasion to reflect on this
matter.
Prejudices manifest themselves
in different ways. The kind of preju-
dice that the young man from the
new EU member state experienced
is called “hidden” prejudice. Hidden
prejudice is expressed in a non-ver-
bal, somewhat indirect way. Exam-
ples might be ignoring or failing to
greet someone, giving substandard
service, or treating someone like a
small child. Hidden prejudice is very
common in Iceland (probably every
single immigrant has experienced it
at some time), as well as probably
in every other society on earth. Nev-
ertheless, it is rather hard to point
it out or to discuss it in a public
forum, unlike the vivid, aggressive,
and blatant prejudice expressed in
racially discriminating statements or
speeches. Why is this?
First of all, hidden prejudice
shows up in people’s behaviour dur-
ing routine, everyday encounters.
When it happens, we do not usu-
ally have our video camera running.
So we cannot rewind the scene and
examine it later on.
Secondly, it is not so easy, even
for us immigrants ourselves, to rec-
ognize hidden prejudice as preju-
dice right away when it happens.
This was not prejudice, we think,
just some misunderstanding or ac-
cident. Let me give an example that
really happened to me. I bought a
TV set for my children. It was a small
one, but still cost some money. Af-
ter I paid, with my Visa card, the
sales clerk literally threw the card
back to me, not even saying “gjörðu
svo vel.” Afterwards, I asked myself
how I should understand this ges-
ture. It seemed to me there were at
least four possible answers: 1. The
sales clerk does this to every cus-
tomer. He is just rude. 2. He hap-
pened to be in a bad mood. 3. He
knew me personally and he didn´t
like me. 4. He is prejudiced towards
immigrants, at least Asians. Prob-
ably the only way to know for sure
would be to ask him on the spot.
But this is difficult in practice. It is
already almost a declaration of war
to ask someone such a question:
“Excuse me, but did you do that
because you are prejudiced against
me?” Most of us avoid this kind of
conflict as much as we can.
And even if I had asked the sales
clerk this question, there is no guar-
antee that he would have answered
honestly. He might say: “What are
you talking about?” Others around
us often join in a kind of denial that
acts of prejudice actually happen.
I know that in many cases, when
an immigrant complains about ex-
periencing discrimination, people
around her/him say: “I think you
must have misunderstood some-
thing,” “Oh, no, that couldn’t have
happened!” or “You are too sensi-
tive, don’t be paranoid!”
So where is the way out? Is there
any way to engage the problem of
“hidden” prejudice? Or do we have
to be just quiet and endure it?
Of course I think we can do
something, and we need to do
something. Here “we” means both
native Icelanders and immigrants. In
my view, our main goal should be to
develop our sense of what kind of
words and attitudes can hurt other
peoples’ feelings. This is a much
larger project than I have time to de-
scribe in this article, so now I would
like to return to the experience of
those people who are experiencing
prejudice. Here are some sugges-
tions for how to react:
1. Let us encourage those who ex-
perience prejudice to speak up. As
with sexual crimes, silence serves
mostly just those who cause hurt.
Silence helps neither the victims nor
the community.
2. Let us not hesitate to speak about
apparent incidents of prejudice just
because we cannot prove what was
in the other person’s mind. It is im-
portant to express feelings of hurt
or disrespect even while we allow
for the possibility of having misun-
derstood the situation.
3. Let us not repress or block out our
experiences of prejudice in daily life,
nor deny automatically that such
attitudes exist, nor call those who
experience prejudice oversensitive,
unless we have truly good reasons
to doubt what they say.
4. Let us acknowledge that each
of us bears prejudices, and that
those who carry prejudices may be
wealthy, or not; well educated, or
not; highly respected, or not.
5. Let us remember that those who
are in weaker positions in society
find it more difficult to speak up
about prejudice than those who are
in more powerful positions.
6. If you want to talk about your
experience of prejudice but cannot
find anybody to listen, please con-
tact me. I am honoured to listen to
you. I may not be able to act in your
case, but I can and do act on the
understanding I gain from listening
to many people like yourselves.
Dear readers, especially Icelandic
readers, I understand it must be te-
dious to hear somebody talk about
prejudice in this country. But those
of us who are forced to speak about
prejudice also find it difficult and
burdensome. I wish that we could
just say “Allt í lagi,” smile, and see
things improve on their own. But it
doesn´t work like that.
I believe that most of us immi-
grants want to join with native Ice-
landers in improving our society and
our understanding of each other. To
do this, we need to talk about our
difficulties as well as our successes.
Toshiki Toma, pastor for immigrants:
toshiki@toma.is.
Prejudice or Paranoia?
By Toshiki Toma
Ekki
vEra súr
Eru tennurnar í sýrubaði oft á dag?
Sýran í sykruðum og sykurlausum gos-
drykkjum getur eytt glerungi tannanna –
og hann kemur aldrei aftur. Það er ekki
bara súrt heldur líka sárt.
Drekktu vatn – líka kolsýrt vatn!
18_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 03_007_REVIEWS/MUSIC/CDS
This album is kind of like eating roast mutton off plastic
tupperware. The ingredients are all there, you know it’s good
stuff and it certainly tastes expensive, but something’s just
not quite right; something is flat, sterile and too watered
down, too squared away and plasticky. It’s not quite reggae
and not quite pop, but doesn’t really manage to be a little bit
of both either. Highlights that rise above their formulas in-
clude the pacing title track and the mellow, straightforward
So Easy, but the rest seems kind of half-assed. SE
www.myspace.com/petterwinnberg
Grandiose and epic in scale, Sail To The Moon is still hardly
more than a tired rehash of songs we’ve been listening to on
indie radio stations for ten years, only more pretentious and
self-involved, with some very unwelcome showtunes and
blues influences thrown in to make it even less listenable.
Bedecked in the vast amount of trinkets one has come to
expect from Ampop (string orchestrations, wurlitzers, trum-
pets, theremins, mellotrons, etc.), Sail To The Moon barely
makes it off the floor, never mind the moon, as hard as You
Could Be Lovely, Two Directions and Carry On try to keep the
whole thing afloat. Shallow and dull. SE
www.myspace.com/ampopband
Ampop
Sail To The Moon
Petter & The Pix
Easily Tricked
Reviews by Sindri Eldon and Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
There’s some fair songcraft on this very adolescent debut re-
lease from the Reykjavík fivesome, but boy, does it drag on
forever. Still, despite being cliché-ridden and unoriginal to say
the very least, it doesn’t try to be anything other than what
it is: five guys playing guitars and rockin’ out. The production
is adequate, and the very competent instrumentation more
than makes up for the singer’s nasal whine. SE
www.myspace.com/envyofnona
“THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT. SHINING, ILLU-
MINANT, GLORIOUS GUSGUS.” ...or so proclaim the open-
ing words on the promotional package for this, GusGus’ fifth
studio album, and they might just be right. Bastard spawn
of a long-dead movement, GusGus have managed to outlive
their acid & house contemporaries by far, and time has only
aged them to perfection. The beats are more biting and min-
imal than ever, the hooks more shamelessly poptastic and
infectiously catchy and the Ecstasy just as dominant in the
bloodstream as it was twelve years ago. It’s always satisfying
when a band reaches the age where it becomes capable of
filtering all the bullshit out of their music and stick to what
matters most. While Forever hardly treads new ground for
GusGus (or anyone at all, for that matter), it’s not like any-
one ever asked them or expected them to do anything new.
More of the same is only a bad thing if the same sucks. SE
www.myspace.com/gusgus
Although its cuteness occasionally sinks to unforgivable stu-
pidity, Dirty Paper Cup is a triumph as far as original song-
writing goes, and brilliantly showcases the fact that no mat-
ter how much fashionable gimmickry is strewn over a song,
it doesn’t count for shit unless it has the bones to support
its own weight, and this album certainly has bones aplenty.
Hafdís bares her soul on almost every track, making even the
ditsyest lines ring with such bittersweet honesty that the ho-
hum production is rendered irrelevant; even the banjo hooks
sound heartfelt. The end result is an album so personal and
well-intentioned that you feel like you’ve made a new friend
after listening to it. Granted, your new friend might be a
hopeless fashion victim and a bit of a drama queen, but a
good one nontheless. SE
www.myspace.com/hafdishuld
Faroese fivesome SIC never stray far away from their nu-met-
al/post-trash roots on debut album Pandemonium. Although
they are not exactly breaking new ground for originality, it
is hard to fault them, for what they do, they do well and
what they lack in consistency, they make up for with energy.
Influenced by bands such as genre favorites Slipknot and Me-
shuggah, they sound tight behind bass-driven and riff heavy
string section, while singer Mikkjall, evokes memories of a
young Phil Anselmo.13 tracks in all, the first two songs, Reach
Inside and Done Pretending, are early highlights, while Keep
it to Yourself is an easy favorite. The experimental Number 6
misses the mark completely though. SIC’s chief fault, youth,
is at the same time their biggest upside. This is a highly enjoy-
able and strong debut, full of promise, and it will be exciting
to see how they manage to build upon it. SBB
www.myspace.com/sicsix6
SIC
Pandemonium
Hafdís Huld
Dirty Paper Cup
GusGus
Forever
Envy of Nona
Two Years Birth
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