Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.01.2010, Blaðsíða 11

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 01 — 2010
11
pay. This was the second bill, now re-
ferred to as Icesave 2, the first one hav-
ing been declined by the British and
the Dutch. At the time of writing, the
nation had just learned that President
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson declined
signing the bill – thereby effectively
vetoing it and subjecting it to a national
referendum.
As Grímsson pondered his move,
he must surely have looked into the
burden of debt, to the constitutional
ramifications of his signature, but also
to his own legacy. Grímsson, a real po-
litical animal who used to be the chair-
man of the socialist People’s Alliance
up to the early nineties, has managed
to become the only president in the
history of the Icelandic republic who is
actively unpopular and a figure of ridi-
cule. Many of his sayings during the
boom years are now a source of embar-
rassment and he and his wife, wealthy
socialite Dorrit Moussaief, are said to
have become groupies of the finan-
ciers, the so-called 'venture Vikings’.
Indeed, shortly after news of his
veto (and subsequent news of harsh
reactions by Dutch and UK govern-
ments), loud and strongly worded calls
for his resignation had already started
echoing through local discourse.
Grímsson's veto might spell the end
of the present left-wing government—
ironically, as he comes from the left
wing himself—but it might also turn
into a constitutional crisis as Icesave
goes back and forth from the govern-
ment, to the parliament and then to the
president, hitherto a symbolic figure in
the vein of the Scandinavian monarchs
in their Lego palaces.
The moment of truth should come
on February 1st, when a special com-
mittee, appointed by Alþingi, will
deliver a 1.500 page report on the col-
lapse. The members of the committee
are still held in a measure of respect
by the public, but it must be noted that
two of them are also members of the
old guard: one being the parliamentary
ombudsman, the other a judge of the
High Court who, as a law professor,
used to do a lot of work for the former
government. The third is a relatively
unknown Harvard-trained economist.
The chairman of the committee
was quoted last year as saying that he
would have seriously bad news for the
population. Even so, many dread that
the findings will be, maybe not a white-
wash, but that they will be so muddled
as to be an endless source of interpreta-
tion, strife and spin.
Those who have most to lose from
the report have already organised
themselves. In one of the most bizarre
twists Icelandic politics has seen, for-
mer PM, former Central Bank man-
ger, the force behind the privatisation
of the Icelandic bank system—and,
some say, architect of the collapse it-
self, Davíð Oddsson—was made editor
of Morgunblaðið, formerly the most
prestigious newspaper in the country.
In a matter of weeks the paper
turned into a vehicle for Oddsson
and his cronies, the subscribers dis-
appeared in droves and now little re-
mains of the old prestige. This is not
only a battle for political power, but also
for what will be written in the history
books.
What then about the legacy of the
pots and pans revolution?
In a way, it reminds one of T.E. Law-
rence, who in the early pages of The
Seven Pillars of Wisdom talks about
the fate of his own revolt in the desert.
The old guys came back and stole the
revolution. After the burning of the
Oslo Christmas tree things quickly
fell back into place. Parliamentary elec-
tions were held, and the old political
parties—the ‘four parties’ as they are
called in Iceland—basically held out.
We got a left-wing government but it is
not doing things very differently from
what the old government would do. Ice-
land is subject to a strict IMF program;
most of the government’s moves are
forced.
Icesave has yet to boil into riots. Up un-
til now the protests in front of parlia-
ment have been muted; the strongest
sign of protest being a list of signatures
against Icesave 2 with a sizable part of
the electorate putting their names on
it. Taxes have been raised on the bet-
ter off—very few people are really rich
in post-collapse Iceland—so we might
yet see the upper classes coming down
to rattle their jewellery down in Aus-
turvöllur square, in front of Alþingi.
This doesn’t seem likely, though.
For now, the nation seems rather set-
tled in its grumbling ways; a cloud of
depression and discontent hovers over
the country. But mood changes can
be swift in this Nordic place where the
arctic night now holds the reins. This is
a great change from the silly euphoria
of the boom years, with all its imagined
victories on the stage of global finance.
Many now say that the best we can do is
to keep on fishing and churning out al-
uminium from our smelters; that this
is a good enough vision for the future.
Even the IMF talks about Iceland being
a production economy for a long time,
while debts are being paid.
But, it has to be admitted, that for
the young people of this country this
seems to be a rather gloomy outlook.
Politics | 2009
JULY
As support for the
initial Icesave deal
waned, support for
the conservative Inde-
pendence Party grew
to being the strongest
in the country. Parlia-
ment voted to apply for
EU membership. Some
new cases of swine flu
were confirmed in Ice-
land. A top-secret document neatly outlin-
ing the identities of 205 international enti-
ties in receipt of individual loans exceeding
€45 million (the largest of which totalling
€1250 million) from Kaupþing was leaked to
the internet July 29th via WikiLeaks.
AUGUST
The Ministry of For-
eign Affairs signed
an agreement with
Chinese authorities to
take part in the EXPO
2010 in Shanghai, and
parliament continued
to cobble away at Ic-
esave. Not a really
eventful month, except
for the fact that the
normally reserved Prime Minister wrote a
column for the Financial Times. There she
said that Icelanders were willing to make
sacrifices to rebuild the economy, but
added, “Iceland will not be deterred from
resolving issues that stand in the way of
economic reconstruction at home and con-
fidence-building abroad. It is to be hoped
that the people of large countries such as
the UK and the Netherlands are aware of
the lasting impact their governments can
have on small countries such as ours at a
time of great distress.”
SEPTEMBER
Iconic Icelandic pro-
tester Helgi Hóseas-
son died at the age of
89. The shadowy group
known as Skapofsi
continued to vandalize
the homes of Iceland's
captains of finance.
The Skapofsi group is
still at large and oc-
casionally sends out
messages with photos of its latest con-
quests. Political party Civic Movement was
forced to re-invent itself after an embar-
rassing inter-party e-mail was leaked to the
media, revealing back-talking and bicker-
ing that ultimately led to MP Þráinn Ber-
telsson leaving the party altogether. But the
top story of the month was former Central
Bank chairman and legendary conserva-
tive politician Davíð Oddsson being named
the co-editor of newspaper Morgunblaðið,
while over 40 journalists were fired from the
paper. The move gained international atten-
tion, scorn from journalist unions at home
and abroad, and cancelled subscriptions by
the hundreds.
News | Paul Nikolov
The Year In Brief
“Grímsson, a real
political animal who
used to be the chairman
of the socialist People’s
Alliance up to the
early nineties, has
managed to become the
only president in the
history of the Icelandic
republic who is actively
unpopular and a figure
of ridicule."
2009 | Haukur Már Helgason
Prestissimo
“Andóf” is Icelandic for resistance. As so much
of Icelandic’s abstract vocabulary, it originates
among seafarers. Once an open boat had ar-
rived at its destination on open sea, and the
sailors had laid their lines, two men in back
kept rowing against the stream to keep the
boat put. Thus andóf is not meant to change a
situation, but to work against a current for the
sake of the status quo.
Most of last winter’s andófsmenn may not
have wanted to simply support the status quo
with their action, but that may be all the move-
ment did. Effectively, the protest movement’s
demand now seems to have been: Stop us or
we might do something. And the state obeyed,
did what it could to hold back a people scared
of its own potential and called an election.
Through a change in government, the
republic held. So far, no constitutional con-
vention has been announced. The new gov-
ernment is making some left-wing amend-
ments, reinforcing taxes on wealth that were
abolished to make Iceland a ‘capitalist’s para-
dise’ as one banker phrased it in his recent
memoirs. Fundamentally, though, everything
remains the same: As soon as the banks, na-
tionalised in autumn 2008, had been relieved
of their losses, the socialists re-privatised the
profitable parts of their business—swiftly, even
without hesitation. As 70% of Icelandic busi-
ness is de facto bankrupt, this means that pri-
vate interest will determine their fate, and not
public interest—they are already beyond politi-
cal debate.
Adagio
Total national debt amounts to €28 billion.
This is not incomprehensible, you only have to
divide with the population to realise the mean-
ing of the figure: one way or another each of
the country’s 300 some thousand inhabitants
must donate € 96 thousand worth to pay these
debts. Of these, € 37 thousand will be collect-
ed from each by the state, through taxation,
cuts in services and other measures, while the
rest will be privately collected, through higher
prices, lower wages—any means of exploita-
tion will do. In a country with no tradition of
sacrificial ceremonies, co-dependency with
the debt holders is likely to become a silent,
shameful part of everyday existence, breeding
contempt and resentment.
Financial minister Steingrímur J. Sigfússon
may very well be right that ‘Iceland will get out
of this,’ thanks to what is often mislabelled as
‘hard work morals’ but is better described as
a tradition of obedience. Whereas the right
wing employs analogies with seafaring, Sig-
fússon refers to farming: the farmers thought
they could spend their days on the town! There
exists another left, which never adhered to
the cause of making everyone a worker, but
in freedom, as the opposite of forced labour.
There also exist honest people in the right-
wing constituency who really thought that
capitalism meant hard work would bring re-
wards. Both groups are now disillusioned to
the point of apathy. At the end of a messy year,
in a heap of stale words, this one thing remains
clear: no matter who is in charge, a great num-
ber of Iceland’s inhabitants will be consider-
ably less free to choose what to do with their
time for at least the next decade or two, than
they would have been if that psychotic mon-
ster neoliberalism hadn’t run amok.
Rubato
It was not the collapse that was catastrophic,
but the build-up and the blindness. A coun-
try blindly adhered to the outrageous dogma
that if money only had its way, good things
would follow. Whatever would not come about
through sheer monetary magic would then be
taken care of by the inherent greatness of Ice-
landers, by way of racial magic. The economic
collapse merely unveiled the scale of the in-
tended exploitation.
Protestors stood up to the shame of the
past decade and helped cover up the gap of
impossibility by bringing about an election.
Through a quixotic effort the andófsmenn
kept the island in place. As acceptance sets in
and words lose their effectiveness, the volun-
tary leaders of last winter’s uprising turn into
nagging eccentrics again. The new captain’s
promises to distribute the rowing demanded
from each fairly, according capabilities. To
make new oars for those who have none. That
the sailors will be kept alive and breeding. That
their offspring will be nurtured and taught to
row as well. And so, those with oars keep on
rowing, rattling their oars to celebrate the New
Year beneath fireworks in the fog. An Icesave
approaches on larboard, please steer past it,
will you …
What else happened in 2009? Michael
Jackson died. His Neverland ranch was dis-
solved and auctioned, too.
The score of 2009
2009: Politics & Life
2009 | Valur Gunnarsson, Journalist / Writer
Ol’ Karl Marx said that history always repeats
itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time
as farce. Commentators particularly loved re-
peating that phrase after the collapse of the
Soviet Union. But this is Iceland. We do things
differently.
Previously, the only event in Icelandic his-
tory to be called a revolution took place in the
summer of 1809. An English soap salesman
and a Danish adventurer named Jorgen Jor-
gensen came ashore in the midst of the Napo-
leonic Wars, took over the undefended island
and announced that Iceland was now free and
independent and a national flag showing three
fish on a blue field would be introduced along
with human rights and such. They were soon
escorted away by the Royal Navy and Jorgen
was called the “Dog Day King” by bemused lo-
cals in honour of his roughly two months in of-
fice. Over a century later, the event was turned
into a stage farce by Jónas Árnason.
The revolution of 2009 certainly had its
farcical elements (singing, dancing, every-
thing said by ex-PM Geir Haarde). But in the
background was a national tragedy, eighteen
years of economic mismanagement by the In-
dependence Party which led to the economic
collapse of 2008.
After the Revolution
Were the events of January 2009 a true revo-
lution? Iceland seems, despite everything, to
have been pretty responsibly run for the past
year, which is in itself revolutionary. However,
no one is happy with the outcome. Inevitably,
the Independence Party now blames the rul-
ing Left Coalition for the effects of the eco-
nomic collapse, conveniently forgetting that
the whole disaster happened on their watch.
Now taxes must be raised and public spending
cut down. Everyone from sailors to filmmakers,
parents to seniors, denounce the government
as each group must in turn suffer cuts, blam-
ing the one pulling the trigger rather than the
one who loaded and aimed the gun.
Many of the leading protesters of January
have already left the country while the main ar-
chitect of the collapse, former PM Davíð Odds-
son, is busy rewriting history as the new editor
of Morgunblaðið. The same people who bank-
rupted the country are still largely in charge of
their indebted business empires. On the face
of it, little has changed.
The Rainbow Revolution
And yet, something did happen in January
2009. Not quite like Red October 1917 or the
first Bastille Day in 1789, but something of
consequence nonetheless. Perhaps it can best
be compared to the colour-coded revolutions
in Eastern Europe, where people rose peace-
fully to eject elected leaders who were doing
the country harm and could not be gotten rid
of in any other way.
The people of Iceland showed, for once,
that they could and would take matters into
their own hands. Everything that has hap-
pened since has been a direct consequence of
January. The election of a new Icelandic gov-
ernment last spring, following Obama’s oath of
office on the very day the Icelandic Revolution
started, inspired hope of a brave new world for
many.
Then, everything got bogged down. Over
here it was Icesave, whereas Obama has had
to spend most of his time arguing with reluc-
tant countrymen about the benefits of health
care rather than changing the world with
broad strokes.
The Big Squeeze
By December, the beacons of hope that were
lit (and frequently extinguished by police) on
Austurvöllur last January had grown ever dim-
mer. The biggest surprise of the aftermath
of the revolution was not that people felt let
down. Expectations are raised and not every-
thing can be changed overnight. Nor was it all
that surprising that the Independence Party
has largely succeeded in rewriting history to
their own benefit. As the name implies, this is
precisely what they do best. No, the biggest
surprise came in the run up to Christmas,
when shopping seemed as busy as ever. With
prices at a record high, rising unemployment,
tax increases and wage cuts, this should be
the most expensive Christmas yet for punters.
But that did not deter them. Even before the
collapse, Icelanders had to pay more than any-
one else for most products, and yet its con-
sumerism was unparalleled. Now they have
to pay even more. With longer working hours
than most countries, I had always assumed
that Icelanders were being squeezed to the
limit. It must have come as a pleasant surprise
to the happy few who control the monopolies
to see their countrymen can be squeezed quite
a bit more. Longer hours, worse pay, pricier
products. This is the promise of a new year.
It’s going to be a cold January once the
credit card bills start coming in. Hopefully,
things will heat up a bit in February, when the
long promised report on the reasons for the
crises is due to be published. That might not
only be the fulfilment of the hopes of January
2009, but also the nation’s last hope for justice.
If this too fails to deliver, we can expect
stories set in our times to be more tragic than
farcical.
2009: The Year of Revolution