Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.09.2010, Blaðsíða 12

12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2010
“Anyone capable of getting themselves
elected as President should on no account be
allowed to do the job”. So said the late author
Douglas Adams. To Reykjavík’s credit, it did
the next best thing and elected someone who
didn’t really seem to be trying.
Here in London, we recognise something familiar
in the unexpected rise of Jón Gnarr and The Best
Party. We too have a mayor elected primarily be-
cause it seemed like a nice idea at the time. While
I have high hopes for The Best Party, who seem to
me like a thoughtful and progressive bunch, I fear
that the inexplicable rise of these two men—one
a comedian and accidental politician, the other a
politician and accidental comedian—tells us more
about the state of our society than it does about
them.
At first glance, Boris Johnson, the right wing
Mayor of London, and Jón Gnarr, the anarchist co-
median and accidental mayor of Reykjavík, have
little in common. Jón, an Icelandic ex-punk singer
turned anarchist comedian, rose to fame with his
avant-garde comedy and his appearances in films,
television and radio. Boris is a bona fide member
of the British aristocracy famed for his unkempt
appearance and inexplicable ability to charm his
way out of a scandal.
Both men have established themselves as
people who don’t play by the rules and defy our
lazy shortcuts to classify politicians. Jón Gnarr
has an innate dislike for classifying people and
deliberately refuses to be placed in a box. Boris
meanwhile is the opposite of the modern polished
politician. Famed for being dishevelled, disorgan-
ised and muddled, were he a Green Party member
he would be written off as an environmentalist cli-
ché. But since he is a Conservative, and breaks the
stereotype, he can do what Boris does.
But it goes beyond simply not obeying the
rules; they’ve created their own rules. And when
you create your own rules, no one judges you by
the same standards as other politicians. That
might explain how every scandal Boris inexpli-
cably stumbles through makes him seem more
charming and more loveable, but also explains the
freedom that Jón has to be creative without fear
of being judged by same standards as other politi-
cians.
In part it may be symptomatic of a greater ill.
Politics has become so discredited, and society so
celebrity obsessed, that we care more about who
a person is than what they’ll do. Neither Boris
nor Jón ran on any real platform, but somehow
it didn’t matter. The main thrust of Boris’ cam-
paign was to bring back the famous London red
bus—a sincere pledge, but one no less ludicrous
or irrelevant to the people than Gnarr’s promise
to put a polar bear in the city zoo. Most people
who voted for Boris were either unaware, or simply
didn’t care, that behind his shocking blond mop
and affable demeanour lay a hard right politician.
Nor did the voters of Reykjavík care that most The
Best Party’s platform was either vague or silly—at
least they were entertaining.
And here lies the nub of the matter. The poli-
tics of the centre ground killed political theatre
and it took the heart out. People are tired of the
same old plastic mould politics with rent-a-face
politicians, which means when anybody differ-
ent comes along we jump aboard—whatever they
stand for. Politicians argue more and debate less.
The strategy meetings, polling data and focus
groups have identified the small minority of f loat-
ing voters who swing an elections and now noth-
ing else matters.
But the fault is as much ours as it is theirs.
What Boris and Jón Gnarr show us is that while
we continue to hold notions of what a politician
should be and constrain what they can say and do,
we’ll be stuck with the same old second rate hacks,
refusing to engage in anything more meaningful
that a short term expediency. Meanwhile, thought-
ful and intelligent individuals will continue to
shun politics, leaving us with the same old second-
rate hacks running our countries.
Opinion | Dominic Rowland
Response | THE GOOGLE
What Do Jón Gnarr And Boris Johnson Have In Common?
A Letter to Victor Blaer
Dear Victor Blaer,
I was surprised by your article in the last edition
of this fine publication [Reykjavík Grapevine, issue
14: ‘Foreign Investment Racism and Grapevine’s
Leftist Communistic Hippies’]. I laughed at your
loaded headline that you fail to back up with any
reference to the Grapevine’s coverage of the debate
surrounding the private ownership of natural re-
sources and Magma Energy Canada/Sweden. Call
me a leftist communistic hippie, to use your own
words, but I’m starting to feel more like a con-
spiracy theorist—something about your article just
didn’t sit right.
So I Googled you.
You see, Victor, you probably shouldn’t qualify
the superiority of your arguments over those of all
the “stupid people [who] continue to make noise”
by writing of yourself “I've worked as a geophysics
researcher and as corporate finance professional
focusing on geothermal power, dating back to
2001” in the age of Google if you don’t want people
to make some connections between you and the
foreign investors to whom we hippies show preju-
dice. And if you don’t mind the connections splayed
across the table then why not just spell them out for
the Grapevine’s readers to better understand whose
words they are digesting.
Victor, you have “been with Capacent since
2006,” if I may quote the Capacent website directly.
Your “area of focus is corporate and quantitative
finance.” Moreover, you are a research analyst for
the Centre of Systems Biology of the University of
Iceland. Your own LinkedIn profile confirms these
two positions. Also, I have it under good authority
that you were working in a men’s clothing store in
2001 and beyond, but that is neither here nor there.
My friend, it is people like you who give birth
to leftist communistic hippies. It is people like you
who work for Capacent, the very firm in Iceland
that advised Magma Energy on the purchase of HS
Orka, and then fail to mention this fact when writ-
ing a scathing critique of the “stupid” public’s noise
over the privatisation of their natural resources
and prejudice against foreign investors—investors
whose success in this country is your bread and but-
ter—who create the need for scepticism of Icelandic
business deals and foreign investors engaged in the
country.
I have written in the past [see Magma Energy
Lied to Us] on the need for more honesty, open-
ness and transparency in all business dealings sur-
rounding the sale of natural resources and all deals
that would see control of Iceland’s resources loaned
out to foreign investors or others for lengthy peri-
ods of time. If the “stupid” public wasn’t constantly
having the facts of the matter hidden from them
and if the “leftist communistic hippies” weren’t
constantly being lied to by businessmen and poli-
ticians with an inflated sense of importance and
power (all the while forgetting that is the “stupid
people” who elect them and truly hold all the power
if ever they cared to exercise it) then perhaps there
wouldn’t be this societal divide where resources are
concerned.
Victor Blaer, maybe you are a good guy and
maybe Ross Beaty and Magma Energy of Canada
are the cleanest that a businessman and his corpo-
ration can be, but until there is honesty and trans-
parency from the very start, you’ll have to forgive us
stupid people for making a little noise as we trudge
through the never ending LIES and nepotistic deal-
ings.
To move beyond your first paragraph, I, too, am
no fan of the governments’ action or lack thereof in
this Magma situation—my own belief is that much
hate is being spewed at Magma and Ross Beaty
personally when the reality is that Magma and Mr.
Beaty would not be in the position of being able to
purchase Iceland’s geothermal resources if the gov-
ernment grew a pair and stood up for the best long-
term interest of the Icelandic nation rather than al-
lowing private business to prioritise the short-term
financial gain of a few—but for you to write “The
more involved government gets in industries that
are supposed to be run on a competitive basis the
higher our taxes get, because they suck at it and
need our money to finance their failures,” makes
me laugh. Was it not the PRIVATE banks and PRI-
VATE business that sucked so hard at doing their
jobs that they have forced taxpayers to finance their
failures?
I respect your right to an opinion and I respect
your right to voice it within the larger sphere of
communication that is the media, but if you are
so sure in your opinion that you will spell it out in
1.783 words then be sure, also, that your personal
interest in the success of Magma Energy, and oth-
ers like it who are advised in Iceland by the compa-
ny that pays your salary, will raise some eyebrows.
Maybe if you and others involved were honest about
your affiliations stupid leftist communistic hippies
like me would quit making all this noise.
Then again, maybe if we really knew what was
going on we’d come to our senses and make even
more.
All the best.
From one of the Grapevine’s leftist communistic hippies
CATHARINE fuLTON
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
Tíu Dropar
Laugavegi 27
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