Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2007, Qupperneq 4

06_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 06_007_INTERVIEW/POLITICS
Paul F. Nikolov was born in America, but im-
migrated to Iceland seven years ago. After
working as a journalist for the Reykjavík Gra-
pevine for several years, Nikolov resigned his
post and decided to enter politics last spring.
In the recent elections, Nikolov was voted
as a vice M.P. for the Left-Green Movement.
While the Grapevine has never gone out of
its way to endorse the candidacy of Paul F.
Nikolov, we felt that now, with the elections
behind us, we could safely sit down and dis-
cuss his political career, without putting him
in a position where he would be accused of
using his personal/professional relationship
with us to further his own political agenda. A
Grapevine journalist sat down with Nikolov on
what turned out to be a proud day for him, as
he had just received his Icelandic passport – a
confirmation of his new nationality.
Maybe you could start by telling our
readers how you came to enter Icelandic
politics.
The municipal elections in 2006 pretty much
convinced me to get involved. I was not really
happy with the results. I was not happy with
the way many people behaved themselves
and I believed that the immigrant community
in Iceland was sorely under represented and
no party was serious about representing us
so we would have to do it ourselves. For that
reason I started the New Icelanders Party in
July. Suddenly, other people began to take
interest in immigration issues. The Social De-
mocratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) contacted
me and another immigrant representative to
a meeting and basically asked: what do you
people want? We went down a long laundry
list of things that we wanted to change, but
then I did not hear from them again. Then
I was approached by people from the Left-
Green Movement (Vinstri grænir) and told very
specifically that they wanted to integrate our
immigration platform, that they wanted to
represent the immigrant community and they
wanted me to help them write a platform. I was
familiar with their platform, but not entirely,
so I looked over it and found I was in more
agreement with their platform then anyone
else’s, so there was no conflict of interest for
me to join them.
So, you were a Left-Green before joining
them?
Yes, I voted for the Left-Greens in the municipal
elections. I had met [party member] Hlynur
Hallson in Akureyri back in 2003 and I inter-
viewed him for this little online magazine I had
at the time and I came away very impressed
with him. So, yes.
How would you describe going through
this process, being a foreigner and running
in an election in Iceland? Did you feel you
were being treated differently at any time
because you are an immigrant?
No, actually, I got more shit for being an Ame-
rican for working for the Grapevine, to be
honest. When I would get complaints, or read
complaints on websites like malefnin.com, [a
political discussion forum] there would be a
cult of people who hate the Grapevine. The
complaints were usually about my American
political correctness. This cracked me up. But
during this campaign, whether people really
liked me and supported me or whether they
despised me, my nationality never came in
question. For that I am really grateful. I do not
want to be treated differently because of my
nationality. Whether people like me or despise
me, I want it to be because of what I stand for,
not because of what country I am from.
Early on, especially around the primaries,
some concerns were raised over your Ice-
landic skills. Did you ever feel that it would
be a barrier?
Not really. I mean, I do speak Icelandic and you
can see on my blog that I write in Icelandic. The
other people in my party have spoken nothing
but Icelandic with me. Language has not been
a problem for me. I enjoy speaking Icelandic.
It is the language of this country and it is the
language that is spoken in the Parliament, so
to me it is a non-issue. Of course, I would be
speaking Icelandic in Parliament.
Now you are in a position where you are
a vice-M.P. and you are likely to take a
seat in Parliament at some point during
the next four years. What do you hope to
accomplish once you get there?
Our immigration platform. The only platform
that we have now in the Left-Greens is one
that was made through the combined efforts
of literally dozens of people who got together
in meeting after meeting after meeting, week
after week, for months on ends and culmi-
nating it its final approval on our National
Convention last February. I think it is by far the
best immigration platform in the country and
what I am going to be focusing on is getting
this platform passed. Getting the things that
are detailed in this platform approved first
and foremost.
What do you think are some of the main
issues that need to be addressed as far as
immigration issues go?
There is a long list of changes that we do want
to make, but if I was to pick the top three…
Language classes would be the first one. We
want to make it free, more widely available,
and available in the workplace when possible.
If employers want to offer language classes,
we want to provide them every opportunity
to do so. We believe that there should be a
standard to how Icelandic is taught as well as
the qualifications somebody needs to teach
Icelandic. That is very important. We also want
a separate curriculum for teaching immigrant
children Icelandic from the one that is used to
teach Iceland born children, because if you are
born here and brought up by Icelandic parents
you hear it every day for six years before you
started school. If you just came to this country
and you are already 12-years old, your compre-
hension needs to be focused on other areas.
You cannot start at the same level so there
needs to be a separate curriculum.
Second is working rights. I point out the
Confederacy of Icelandic Labour Unions (ASÍ)
have written these pamphlets that detail the
working rights of foreigners and is translated in
close to 20 different languages. We would like
to see that when people come to this country
to work, they are given this kind of document
in their native toungue.
The third one also regards immigration.
Many people who come to this country have
a university education. But unfortunately, this
education is often not recognized. We think
that should not be the case. The University
of Iceland is a fine university, but there are
other fine universities in the world that provide
equally good education. We are poorly lacking
educated people, for example in health care
where there is a shortage of nurses. Of course,
a lot of that has to do with how poorly the
nurses are paid; they definitely need a pay
rise, of course. But we also need to get more
educated people into the market, definitely.
There are a slew of other immigration issues
that we want to address and it is all available
online where anybody can read it.
What do you think is the reason for the-
se shortcomings? Is it because people
in Iceland generally lack an interest in
immigration issues, or were we not pre-
pared for the increase of immigrants to
the country?
I think it is a number of reasons. The general
attitude has been that people were coming
here temporarily or they cannot vote anyway,
so who cares? But in the last year, the gover-
nment took an active interest in immigration
issues and I think a lot of that has to do with
the efforts of people like Toshiki Toma and
myself and groups like Iceland Panorama and
the Intercultural Center, as well as the Left-
Greens and the efforts that we have pushed
forward. I think immigration matters to the
average Icelander. I describe them as multicul-
tural moderates, OK? They do not necessarily
like the idea of the government playing a role
in making Iceland more multicultural. But at
the same time, they are very uncomfortable
with people who start discussing immigration
issues with a nationalistic tone.
Icelanders in general do not agree with
racism. They do not agree with nationalism at
all. So they shy away from discussions about
immigration issues because no one wants to
be thought of as being racist. But if you have
concerns, of course they need to be talked
about. There is nothing wrong with that. But
when particular people raise questions like:
what if Muslims move to Iceland? And do not
seem to realise that there are already thousands
of them living here. You know, that already
makes people want to shy away from the
discussing the issue altogether. But I think
it does matter to Icelanders and most of the
people I know, whether they are to the left or
to the right, have the same attitude, that is,
everybody should have the same opportunity
to make it in our society. It is all a question of
how you go about doing it. It is a question
of process, so there is a difference to how
different parties approach it.
The Liberal Party [The only party in Iceland
to speak out against immigration] toned it
down before the elections. I don’t know if that
was because they were being politically wise, or
if they actually wised up a little bit. But in gene-
ral, I think people are not comfortable bringing
up the subject because they do not want to
express certain words and are concerned with
being thought of as being über-nationalistic.
That is understandable, but we do need this
discussion. Both sides need to be able to com-
municate with each other because [the lack
of communication] is exactly why there have
been problems in other countries like Denmark,
Germany and France. If you open the doors to
your country and allow the people to come in
and you let them do all the shit jobs but you
don’t do anything to actively integrate people
into the society and you don’t do anything to
teach nationalists about the culture and the
people who are moving here, then you are
just asking for trouble. That does not have to
happen here. The answer is not to close the
borders or putting some arbitrary number on
the number of people who are allowed to move
here, that actually accomplishes nothing and
would do a lot of damage to our economy as
well.
The Immigrant Representative
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Skari
Whether people like me
or despise me, I want it to
be because of what I stand
for, not because of what
country I am from.
Drífa ehf, Sudurhraun 12 C, 210 Gardabaer, Iceland, Tel +354-555 7400, Fax +354-555 7401, icewear@icewear.is
since 1972
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