Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.06.2009, Síða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2009
Danny and Sandy (of
Grease, of course) had a
really awesome summer.
So awesome that they
told their friends about all
the phenomenally romantic
things they experienced through song.
It’s a long song so they obviously did
a lot of stuff together during their
summer vacation and expended a lot
of energy doing said stuff – not that
strolling and drinking lemonade is
particularly strenuous, but I digress.
I would venture to guess that
had Danny and Sandy been North
American transplants living in
Reykajvík while the days grew
longer before their eyes and the
nights were so bright that the light
penetrated both their complimentary
Icelandair sleeping masks and their
god-given eye-lids, keeping them
awake or sleeping very lightly for
several consecutive nights, their days
would have been exponentially less
romantic and Grease would not have
enjoyed the same box office success.
A song about not having the energy
to drag yourself out of bed and then
spending your days with bags under
your eyes, drinking infinite amounts
of black coffee and fighting cravings
for cigarettes to calm shot, sleep-
deprived nerves doesn’t ooze the same
commercial appeal.
Long Story Short
I can’t fucking sleep.
Now, this isn’t my first time at the
daylight rodeo. Prior to arriving in
Iceland I spent a fair amount of time
in a town in central Finland only two
latitudinal degrees south of Reykjavík.
I have experienced the waxing and
waning of daylight and I have come
to the conclusion that I prefer the
latter. Darkness I can handle. I can
force myself to wake up when the
sun is still down, I can relish in those
minimal hours of light and I can easily
drift off to sleep in the pitch-black
of the evening. I love my sleep and
if darkness is conducive to doing
something I love then, damn it, I love
darkness.
I recall this time last year being
more bearable in Finland. Probably on
account of the imposing wall of trees in
every direction that worked to fend off
the sunlight for a few moments longer
each morning. I have no trees outside
my window here. And my window
faces East. This is a bad combination
and, while I would still choose living in
Iceland over living in Finland any day of
the week (my sincere apologies to any
Finns reading this), it diminishes my
overall enjoyment of life in Reykjavík.
The long days make for beautiful green
landscapes and greater possibilities
for getting outside and experiencing
nature, but if I can’t sleep at night to
regenerate my body and mind it’s all
kind of pointless, no?

To sleep, perchance to dream… but
I’d take just the sleep, thanks.
I’m not a negative person, I swear. I’m
just admittedly ridiculously vain and I
like looking well rested while having
maximal energy to start my day. Plus,
I slept awkwardly on my shoulder
last night and my neck is stiff and I
could really use a massage right now.
Seriously, if a masseuse were to walk
into the Grapevine offices right now I’d
be so happy that I might even muster
the energy to sing about it. Then I’d
have a nap. And it would be awesome.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what
Grease has to do with me not being
able to sleep… well nothing much,
actually. But the film’s soundtrack was
inexplicable and painfully lodged in my
brain between precisely 4:19 and god-
knows-when this morning and it made
sense to me at the time.
Opinion | Catharine Fulton
Politics in Iceland is a very poor
phenomenon. Political maturity is rare
and maybe only found among those who
are intelligent enough to stay away from
the game. Like all other former colonies,
the cultural group that inhabits the
island inherited a political system from
its colonists. That included a democratic
system based on party politics. The
alienation of politics has increased fast in
the last few years since all political work
is based around party politics and those
who are not part of that feel like politics
is something that does not concern them
or has anything to do with how people
live their lives at all.
Every opinion voiced is found a place
within the party politics. Young people
“with interest in politics” look for their
opinions within party manifestos or
adapt their opinions to them. Careers
within politics begin at college. A “career
politician” is an even more distasteful
phenomenon than a celebrity career
based on drunken paparazzi sex because
the career of the political celebrity
leads to power and influence. Another
sad aspect of this is that the public ś
interest in politics has been stolen from
them, versus public interest in celebrity
culture.
The beauty of the protests that began last
fall lies in the fact that the protests were
not connected to any political parties,
but rather as an opposition to what party
politics stand for, and that they were
not lead by anyone. Protest organisers
are only those activists who have taken
on the task of organising. Most of the
influences within the protests were
anonymous. The critics, who were
finger-pointing leaders within the
movement, have probably learned from
the media who are also unable to discuss
anything political without naming a
front (party leader).
The protests were very anarchistic
in nature and the natural anarchy of
the protesters (no dear reader, I am not
calling everyone who took part in the
protest against the power and stupidity
of state and banks an anarchist; I am just
pointing out the fact of anarchy being
organising without authority) becomes
visible in the distrust towards the fronts
of the local parties. The democratic state
is rotten and all of us can smell it; the
stink makes the public angry (or bored
if you live life without imagination) and
makes the career politicians desperate.
Until January 20, Helgi Hóseason
was the only person who had ever come
to the parliament with honest intentions.
When the democracy is shaken, the
hierarchies are disturbed and the public
realise their hopeless status within their
own politics. When those that have taken
over the distribution of food and goods
go bankrupt and the banks run the
homes, we realise our hopeless situation
within the economy.
Everyone knows that the new
elections will not change a thing. It
simply is the only thing the political
poverty of the colony has to offer. You
can say that grassroots politics does not
have any answers but that is because
grassroots politics does not think like a
political party. The grassroots are more
busy finding ways to enjoy life and to save
our lives from self-proclaimed leaders
than sending out press releases. For
those of us who visualise lifelong down
payments, rebuilding trust within the
financial world is not a urgent problem.
Drumming the suits to hell and banging
their institutions is a natural defence
mechanism of a community which wants
to reclaim its politics, its independence
and its freedom and at the same time
reclaim the meaning of those words.
So be ready for drumming against the
politics of the European Union.
Opinion | Siggi Pönk
Summer Loving and I’m too
Fucking Tired
Light + Night + No Sleep = Not Cool
On the Poverty of
Colonial Politics
Opinion | Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
The View
From Afar
It has been six months since
I upped and left. Six months
since I said: "Hell no! I
won't be a part of this," and
packed my bags to start over
somewhere else.
Call me a quitter. I don't really care.
I just couldn't stomach the thought of
being a part of a system where a few
thoroughbreds were allowed to run
a whole country bankrupt under the
guidance and protection of a government
that I never wanted or voted for. It is not in
me to first say I told you so and then clean
up your mess.
For now, I've made my home in
Sweden. In many ways, this country is
everything that Iceland aspired to be. At
the same time, it is everything that Iceland
prided itself for not being. Allow me to
explain. Sweden has been the model for
the social democratic political economy
that Iceland always aimed for: a place
where the standard of living was assessed
by the quality of life for the worst off. In
Iceland, we always liked to brag that no
one was poor.
At the same time, it is home to
unbridled bureaucracy, safe bets and
boring restrictions. Far from the ideal
of the free-spirited daredevil of an
international businessman – the modern
day Berserker – who had become
synonymous with the Icelanders’ own
portrayal of themselves.
Safe, boring, or just within the reaches
of sanity; it doesn't matter. So far, Sweden
has been good to me. I get by and I don't
have to worry that the nation as a whole
might be deemed insolvent at any given
moment. Plus, it is warmer. What more can
a man ask for, really?
The other day, I was watching an
investigative journalism program on TV.
Swedish reporters were running down
the trail of a shady business mogul who
had bankrupted a large company through
dubious investments, and cost some poor
Swede his life savings. Obviously, the trail
ran through Iceland.
As the journalists drove through the
rain in Reykjavík on a grey winter day to
meet an Icelandic investor, or a banker,
or another shady business mogul, the
camera panned over Austurstræti, past my
beloved Café Hressó, where I used to sit
down for a cup of coffee in the company
of friends ever day. My wife looked at me
and said: "Do you feel remotely homesick
now?"
I wish I could have said yes.
Anarchist thought and practice has always been concerned with the
critique of politics, as the separation of one realm of human activity from
all others and a separation which helps create an expert political class
and professional politicians or militants.
Darkness I can handle.
I can force myself to
wake up when the sun is
still down, I can relish
in those minimal hours
of light and I can
easily drift off to sleep
in the pitch-black of the
evening.