Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.04.2010, Side 8

Welcome to Iceland
Here’s how to find
www.ja.is
WHAT?
WHO? WHERE?
People Businesses Maps Direction
Quick guide to the information
you need while enjoying your stay
Through the foreign media we learned
that there was an emergency in Iceland.
True, the main airports were closed,
the inhabitants of a whole region in the
south of the island had to be evacuated.
The alarmists at Fox News even picked
up some dubious science and proph-
esised imminent danger for the whole
globe.
And, well, the volcanic eruption in
Fimmvörðuháls, a popular hiking trek
between the glaciers of Eyjafjallajökull
and Mýrdalsjökull, dominated the
news in Iceland for some days.
To the population this came as a re-
lief from the incessant nagging, gloom
and ill feeling that has increasingly
characterised local discourse since the
economic collapse in October 2008.
The Icesave scandal, on top of the me-
dia agenda for almost a year, was sud-
denly quite forgotten—just a few days
after a high profile national referen-
dum, closely followed by foreign media,
that was supposed to be a turning point
in Iceland's struggle with its creditors.
However, it was not—and the issue
seems to be just as muddled as before.
But an eruption—that is something
you can feel and see, something tangi-
ble and clear-cut, with brilliant images,
physical danger; opportunities for me-
dia people to shine with violent nature
as a backdrop.
No spin, half-baked truths or lies.
A small and cute eruption
The media in Iceland love their volcanic
eruptions. And they are very good at re-
porting them, as there were numerous
eruptions in the last 60-70 years, more
so than in other periods of Iceland's re-
cent history.
However there never was a real
emergency. The alarm was due to over-
zealous members of the National Emer-
gency Centre, who foresaw a scenario
where aircrafts would be engulfed by
clouds of ash coming from the eruption
and farms being flooded by melted ice,
rocks and debris from the area around
the volcano.
This could happen with a major
eruption of a volcano of the magnitude
of Katla in the south of Iceland. Katla
is due to erupt sooner than later, the
last famous outbreak in the mountain
occurred in 1918. But this definitely
was not a catastrophe. Indeed Ómar
Ragnarsson, Iceland's most famous
reporter of natural phenomena—as
well as an environmentalist, pilot and
popular entertainer—said that this was
a "small and cute" eruption, "one of the
smallest" of the twenty or so he had wit-
nessed.
But of course volcanic outbreaks
in Iceland can be deadly serious. The
most famous one is the eruption of
Lakagígar, close to the glacier of Vat-
najökull, in 1783. This resulted in a
period of unspeakable hardship, gener-
ally referred to as Móðuharðindin (The
Mist Hardships), because of the smog
engulfing the country at the time of the
eruption. Scientists now believe that
extreme weather in the northern hemi-
sphere, both in Europe and America, in
the aftermath of the eruption was due
to fumes spewed out by this volcano.
A poisonous cloud spread over Europe;
the emissions of sulphur dioxide are
estimated to have been 120 million
tonnes, three times the annual Euro-
pean output in recent years.
The population was decimated,
possibly a forth of it died in the ensu-
ing famine and more than half of the
livestock. People who had lost their live-
lihood roamed around the countryside
begging for food. At this period Iceland
was probably the poorest, most desolate
country in Europe. The time of Móðu-
harðindi is generally considered the
lowest point in the nation's history.
Some spectacular eruptions
Since then there have not been erup-
tions of this magnitude, and in fact
very few lives have been lost in volcanic
outbreaks in Iceland in recent history.
Some eruptions have however been
quite spectacular.
The eruption of Hekla, Iceland’s
most famous volcano, in 1947 lasted
for a year and is in some ways the first
real media outbreak; pictures of its
clouds reaching high into the sky were
ingrained on the minds of Icelanders.
In 1963, there was an eruption in the
sea just south of Iceland, lasting for
three years and creating the island of
Surtsey, a paradise for geologists. The
1973 eruption of the Vestmannaeyjar
Islands was not big, but it posed real
danger as it happened next to a thriving
fishing town with more than five thou-
sand inhabitants.
It is maybe the finest moment of the
Icelandic republic when the inhabit-
ants of the islands were rescued over-
night and given shelter in homes on
the mainland. The town was eventually
saved, through great effort—including
using water to cool the lava flow from
the volcano—and this is still a shining
example of national solidarity.
A tourist eruption saves the govern-
ment
Back to the present outbreak of Eyjafjal-
lajökull, which is now being referred
to as a "tourist eruption"—good for
attracting tourists and bringing sorely
wanted foreign money into a country
suffering from a total collapse of its
currency, unemployment unheard of
since the 1930s, internal strife and an
unprecedented lack of confidence in
a nation that usually has rather high
ideas of itself.
Maybe it would be an overstatement
to say that the eruption saved the gov-
ernment in its moment of greatest per-
il, but it sure took some pressure off it.
After the Icesave referendum on March
7th, the government was perceived as
being on its last legs. The government
leaders, Prime Minister Jóhanna Sig-
urðardóttir of the Social Democrats
and finance minister Steingrímur J.
Sigfússon of the Left Greens, had not
bothered to show up for the vote. The
bill they had supported—stating how
vast sums of money should be reim-
bursed to British and Dutch owners of
savings accounts in the bankrupt Ice-
landic Landsbanki—was voted down
by an unheard majority of 93 percent.
The polls showed that their left
wing government, in place for little
more than a year, was as unpopular as
the centre/right wing government that
presided over the great collapse. Luck
seemed to have completely abandoned
the coalition parties.
But then suddenly it returned in
the guise of the eruption, which hap-
pened shortly before a long awaited
Easter break—after this winter of dis-
content—when people either go travel-
ling or turn their gaze inwards, to their
families.
There were also other factors. The
opposition sort of overplayed its hand
when it started calling for the govern-
ment to resign after the referendum.
People more or less thought: The gov-
ernment is not good, but they are not
the bunch to tell us so. For there is a
general dislike of politics and politi-
cians in the country—and it is not
quite forgotten that the present oppo-
sition parties, the Independence Party
and the Progressive Party, created the
conditions for the collapse in 2008, the
privatisation of the banks and the over-
blown financial markets.
Fish fight
Another group of people, not exactly
popular, also went too far, unwillingly
helping the government.
One of the main disputes in Iceland
is a very long and drawn out struggle
over fishing quotas. In a country where
fish is the main source of wealth, this is
very important. In stages, some twenty
years ago, governments decided to lit-
erally give the fishing quotas to ship
owners of that period, instead of, for
example, renting out these resources.
This created enormous riches in the
hands of a few people. It is now estimat-
ed that 70 percent of the fishing rights
in Icelandic waters are in the hands of
70 people who consider the quotas their
private property, even if the law states
that the Icelandic nation is the rightful
owner of the fishing stocks.
This has for a long time been like a
festering sore on the political body, but
previous governments have been too
weak or unwilling to do anything about
it. The quota owners are also probably
the fiercest interest group in the coun-
try.
What happened is that some years
ago monkfish increasingly started to be
found in the sea around Iceland. The
present government decided to rent
out monkfish quotas instead of giving
them rent-free to quota owners—who
could then rent them out themselves—
as is done with most species in the
Icelandic waters. Under pressure from
The Federation of Icelandic Fishing
Vessel Owners (LÍÚ), the Confedera-
tion of Icelandic Employers (SA) an-
swered by withdrawing its support for a
stability pact between them, the labour
movement and the government.
This gave the government an oppor-
tunity to shine. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
gave a rousing speech declaring she
would not cave into the demands of the
quota lobby. It was the best day her re-
gime had had for a long time.
But then, this is a very vacillating
government. So a bit later, when it
came to distributing quotas for mack-
erel, another recent and growing spe-
cies in Icelandic waters—maybe due to
global warming—the Minister of Fish-
eries decided to do almost exactly the
opposite, giving almost all the quotas
to the ship owners, thereby making the
government’s policies totally unintelli-
gible.
This is the case with many matters.
The government has problems agree-
ing on anything. The larger party in the
coalition, the Social Democrats, might
be said to be quite coherent in its focus
on joining the European Union and
collaborating with the International
Monetary Fund, policies that are not
exactly popular at the moment. But the
Left Greens are all over the place. They
do have a pragmatic pro IMF faction,
but the party also encompasses anti-
globalists, people who generally dislike
capitalism—who in some countries are
termed as the "loony left"—environ-
mentalists, but also a farmer’s faction
with strong nationalistic leanings.
This prompted Prime Minister
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir to say in a re-
cent speech that to work with the Left
Greens was like rounding up cats
which, of course, in the present climate
of suspicion, created a minor crisis
within the government.
Tourist Eruption Takes Heat Off
Government
EGILL HELGASON
JULIA STAPLES - ILLUSTRATIONS By LÓA
Analysis | Egill Helgason, Political and Social Commentator
8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2010 Egill Helgason is a man of many talents, in case you were wondering. Besides running a political
talk show on Icelandic State TV, he a also runs a literary programme there. And he blogs a lot for
web-site Eyjan.is. Kudos to you, Egill.