Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2007, Blaðsíða 3

REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_OPINION_0504_RVK_GV_ISSUE 06_007_LETTERS
Dear writers,
reading your comments on the Jyllandspostencartoons
we are sure you in Iceland never had to deal with neo-
fascism called islam.
Hereby I would advise you to read the koran and specially
sura 9 and after that the only conclusion you can draw
is that islam is the problem, not the cartoonists.
Hoornblazer
bugel@vrij-en-onverveerd.org
Hoornblazer,
Such a well-articulated and argued position deserves a
well-articulated and argued response. No, wait! My mis-
take, your letter is neither well articulated nor argued. Or
particularly intelligent at that either. I have no tolerance
for racism and I have lost all patience with people who
generalize based on religion, race or gender. Christian
fundamentalists have proven to be such a particularly
lenient and accommodating group or what? Religion or
race has little to do with the fact that dickheads are freely
available around the world. Stop the hate brother.
Editor
Grapevine can fuck off and die you racist homosexuals!
Supporting paul nikolov you commies stop wasting the
time of people with lies and propaganda
anepof@gmail.com
Wow! Two such intelligent letters in the space of two
weeks. Apparently, we are doing something right if
we are pissing of the extremists. Anepof, I don’t know
how you reached the enlightened conclusion that we
are racist homosexuals – and frankly, judging from your
punctuation, I am amazed that you managed to spell out
such a long word with out screwing it up – but obviously
you have no idea what these big and complicated words
mean. I suggest you call the doctor and tell him that it
is time to fill out that prescription again.
Editor
Dear Grapevine,
Iceland has rather strict rules on immigration. Therefore,
I was very happy the other day when I saw a sign of a
milder legislation in Fréttablaðið (070504). There was
an article about a Latin American girl who had come
to Iceland in October 2005, just one month after I first
arrived here, and she had already received an Icelandic
citizenship. In the interview she told that she knew she
could become a good Icelandic citizen because she was
well-educated and energetic, and furthermore she loved
traditional Icelandic food and the beautiful landscape
here. It was also stressed that the fact that her boyfriend’s
mother, Mrs Jónína Bjartmarz, is a Minister in the Ice-
landic Government, hadn’t affected her application for
citizenship at all.
“Perfect”, I thought, and went straight to the Min-
istry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs, the authority in
charge of immigrants’ applications for citizenship, to take
advantage of the new more liberal policies myself. But to
my huge surprize the woman working in the reception
informed me that I would have to spend another two
and a half years on Icelandic soil before I was entitled
to membership in this exclusive club.
“But I’ve already been here one month more than
she has”, I said, showing the newspaper with a photo
of the smiling girl posing in lopapeysa. “And I’m also
quite a fan of the Icelandic nature.”
“Aha, the minister’s daughter-in-law”, the woman
said and excused herself and her office. “We weren’t
the ones deciding about that.”
So, to keep the readers of Grapevine, of which some
surely are waiting for an Icelandic passport themselves,
updated on the latest laws on how long time you have
to stay in this isle to get citizenship:
* Seven years for people from southern or eastern Europe
or the rest of the world.
* Four years for us from other Nordic countries.
* Three years for the ones who are married to an Ice-
lander.
* Some seventeen months for the ones who are together
with children of Icelandic ministers.
And to make it even more absurd, this girl will be able
to vote for her mother-in-law in the up-coming Alþingi
election, 12 May. As George Orwell put it, all are equal,
but some are more equal.
Best regards
Joakim Lilljegren
PS. A greeting to the geographical illiterates of the Young
Independence Party, who published an election add
with a mal-treated map of Europe in Grapevine #5-07:
Serbia and Montenegro are no longer the same country,
“Litvia” is more known as Latvia, and “Bulgaria” is not
another name for
Macedonia.
Dear Joakim,
Of course, some are more equal than others. I have a
very hard time believing that the girl’s mother in-law
had nothing to do with her being granted a citizenship.
But that is just another example of Icelandic politicians
misusing their position of power. Not new there really. I
am more worried that the Ministry of Education, which
of course, has been ministered by the Independence
Party for at least the last 12 years now, will have to take
a long hard look at how geography is taught in this
country. Although, Young Independents are often too
focused on America to realise that Europe is continent,
not a country.
Editor
Cappuccino + bagle + yoghurt = 650 kr.
One of the worst things you can go through is
an anti-climax, because it is important enough
to make you cringe at the onslaught of tu-
multuous emotions that occur afterwards.
However, these dreaded moments are never
enough to justify a diatribe you just end up
looking like the archetypical, self righteous
jerk in need of a hug.
I am obviously guilty of the above. I prob-
ably have a “roller coaster inside my brain” and
therefore I am putting myself out on a limb,
so here it goes: Eurovision sucks. Everything
about it is so bizarre and surreal in a bad way,
like Mister Mxyzptlk or Leave it Beaver. It just
reeks of plebeian music taste, although there
have been a few redeeming qualities such as
Abba, Ágústa Eva as Silvía Nótt, Páll Óskar
and then there are the annual parties each
year. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but
I find our contribution to be contrived, sort of
like a poor man’s version of Meatloaf. Mind
you this is coming from a man who loves the
tunes from Karate Kid II and Say Anything.
However, this roller coaster of emotional
taxation has more to do with the “upcoming
elections” or, by the time this is published and
if you have not skipped over this page, the
election results. My anti-climax has already
begun. I have already voted in the Icelandic
embassy in London, although my futile attempt
at voting was almost thwarted by West Ham’s
premier star, Eggert Magnússon, who almost
skipped ahead of me in the queue the queue
being me and my Fante book. After voting I
felt and still feel an odd sense of relief, as if
I did my duty, stood up and cheered for my
team. Essentially “the tiger trapped inside the
cage” had been let out with this catharsis of
a simple pencil stroke.
During the past months politicians have
“Said Anything”: Empty promises, belligerent
comments and riveting performances of how
terrible things will be or become if the other
individual and his party come to power. You
can almost hear some candidates whispering in
your ears: “I am the man who will fight for your
honour; I’ll be the hero that you’re dreaming
of. We will live forever”. If that doesn’t work
there are always scare tactics such as: “If we
get such terrible results in the elections then
we won’t form a government”. Gee, do you
think so, darling? Real progressive and against
the grain thinking going on there.
Another example of a myriad of bad tac-
tics is that if the left leaning parties come to
power, i.e. Social Democrats and Left Green,
where you can expect a total collapse of the
economy or to paraphrase Clinton’s “It’s the
economy, stupid” becomes: “Stupid, they are
stupid about the economy”. Nevertheless,
none of this really matters. You can always
recollect the good things that the government
has done for the last twelve years, because it
won’t really matter anyway. Ditto for the bad
things, which in my opinion are almost enough
to warrant a massive eBay shopping spree of
guillotines for unnamed crooks, sorry, I mean,
politicians. It is completely irrelevant, of course.
Short term political memory does play a part
but it is allegiance that is the most important
factor here in Iceland regarding both football
clubs and politics.
Politics here in Iceland are lot like Eurovision
and English football teams. It doesn’t matter
who has the best song or best team. You just
always pick your team, for good or for worse,
although sadly enough most people forget
rather suddenly why they chose their par-
ticular party or team. A good example would
be Manchester United supporters and the
Independence party fanatics. Go ask a person
in downtown Reykjavík why they like both. To
avoid looking foolish, the social construct of
the conversation would of course depend on
whether or not it was sports or politics. So here
is an example: “Hi, what is your favourite foot-
ball club, brother? “Oi, tis Manchester United!
Rooney!!” “Eh, why, brother?” “Because they
are the best!” Now the same principal can be
applied to politics. “Why do you vote for the
Independence Party?” “Because he/she is such
a great leader and they have such great poli-
cies (line-up)”. “Huh, can you name some?”
“Shut up, you are an Arsenal (Left wing) fan,
of course you cannot begin to understand
such greatness”. Evidently this also applies to
all the political parties. It almost makes you
yearn for some votes to be more equal than
other ones. Or at least some sort of test to be
held before each person is handed a ballot
because you should at least know why, and
be able to articulate why, you support or vote
for you team.
But when push comes to shove, maybe I
shouldn’t hyperventilate over the fact that I
have voted; things will probably just stay pretty
much the same, even though we convince
ourselves differently and think that “in the
eyes of our teams or parties we are complete”.
Meanwhile, everyone else cheering for the
other side is an Other. Maybe I am just the
only one who feels that Icelandic politics are
lost and stagnated. However, I do know one
thing I would have loved to cast as many votes
as I wanted for 99 ISK, just like we all do in
Eurovision.
Be my Valentine “Lost”
Text by Marvin Lee Dupree
Sour Grapes
Say your piece, voice your opinion, send your letters to letters@grapevine.is.
WWW.GRAPEVINE.IS
Make me an offer I can’t refuse
or better yet, take the Grapevine readers’ survey!
What you are currently reading is an opinion
column in a magazine called The Reykjavík
Grapevine. Said magazine is mostly aimed
at English-speaking tourists who happened
to think Iceland (of all places!) would be a
fun place to spend their hard-earned money
and vacation time. The growing number of
English-speaking immigrants in Iceland (who
greatly enrich our relatively young republic)
is also a large part of its readership, as is the
slew of Icelanders who have, through the
wonders of television and video games, ac-
quired a most excellent comprehension of the
English language.
The young (-ish: I’m 26 now) man writing
the aforementioned opinion column you seem
to still be reading is a former journalist of said
magazine. He is currently un-employed, stuck
with the apparently endless task of finishing
a philosophy thesis. He has held a number of
occupations since entering the job-market at
the tender age of twelve, more often than not
they have involved moving around boxes of
frozen fish in the frosty belly of huge trawlers,
or alternatively gutting untold tons of fish that
usually wound up frozen, in boxes that would
be moved around by somebody else at a later
date. He has also held jobs writing (mostly)
insignificant things in magazines, newspapers
and even political party propaganda literature.
He shares an apartment with three cats.
Anyone who’s been following Icelandic
news for the past two weeks will know that
current events lately should provide ample
fodder for one of those opinion columns that
I’ve been going on about for the last 300
words or so. We famously (at least ‘round these
parts) didn’t make it through the preliminary
round of the Eurovision song contest. We also
had an election last Saturday, an election that
proved beyond a doubt that 48% of Iceland’s
population is really, really happy with the way
things have been run for the past twelve years,
and would like to see another four years of
the same. At the time of writing, negotiations
between the political parties are still underway
so we still don’t know which parties will be
our unquestioned overlords for the next four
years.
I could probably write something seemingly
insightful on those topics (if I used enough big
words), but I won’t. I like the parties, general
tastelessness and abundance of pizza that Eu-
rovision provides, but am otherwise indifferent
to the whole spectacle. As for the elections: I
could care less. No matter what the outcome,
at the end of the day we’ll still be ruled by
POLITICIANS. And those who enter politics at
an early age (and our system has made it clear
that that’s the only way to succeed in the field)
are arguably (give or take a few exceptions)
those least qualified to run ANYTHING. In
fact, if democracy is ever going to live up to
its name, we really have to start representing
blank votes with empty seats in the house of
parliament. If, say, 20% of the population isn’t
satisfied with any of the parties running, and
voices that dissatisfaction by turning in blank
votes, then a fifth of the seats in parliament
should be empty. Don’t hire ‘em if they’re not
good enough, I say.
Being responsible citizens, we had of course
all turned in our votes earlier that day and were
thus excited to watch election night TV. We
had a legendary dinner (did you know that
raw strips of beef make for an excellent starter
if you dip them in a soy/wasabi concoction?)
after which we sat down in front of the TV
with some beers, red wine and soft drinks in
hand. We got really excited when it seemed the
government was going to fall; our excitement
waned considerably as the night progressed
and we realised that probably wouldn’t hap-
pen.
So we thought up some things to amuse
ourselves. The newscasters on channel one
(RÚV) would often read out loud witty poems
e-mailed to them by the audience. We noticed
that the poems’ chance of being read greatly
increased in direct proportion to how far away
they came from. A poem from a viewer in the
UK, for instance, was usually read instantly,
while limericks from places like Hafnarfjörður
and Skagaströnd had to wait a while.
So we wrote some poems. The first three,
we sent from a fictional diplomat in Rotterdam.
We got a mention, but they unsurprisingly
never read the thing (it was quite rude). We
gave it another go and sent one from a team
of scientists on some remote Asian islands.
Nothing. Desperate times call for desperate
measures, so at 3 AM, we wrote a poem and
attached it to a letter explaining that we were
four buddies stationed at a research facility
on THE MOON, following the elections via
satellite. “This will never fly”, we joked, but
the act itself was plenty funny to us.
To our great surprise and joy, reporter Elín
Hirst apparently bought our shtick, and started
reading the letter ON LIVE TV. “We just received
a letter from a research facility on the moon…”
she read, tired eyes betraying a sense of con-
fusion behind her smile. Our collective jaws
dropped. Election night had been saved.
However, our joy only lasted for about
five seconds, as her slick and sun-tanned co-
host quickly figured out our evil scheme and
changed subjects.
But those five seconds, boy were they
awesome.
A Letter From the Moon
Text by Haukur Magnússon
Politics here in Iceland are lot like Eurovision and
English football teams. It doesn’t matter who has
the best song or best team
At 3 AM, we wrote a poem and attached it to a let-
ter explaining that we were four buddies stationed
at a research facility on THE MOON, following the
elections via satellite.
“Grapevine can fuck off and
die you racist homosexuals!
Supporting paul nikolov you
commies stop wasting the
time of people with lies and
propaganda”