Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.10.2010, Síða 30

Opinion | Íris Erlingsdóttir
Earlier this year, Iceland made headlines
around the world by vowing to enact
the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative
(IMMI), in effect agreeing to become the
world’s free speech haven. This important proposal
has extensive protections for journalists, including
protection from libel tourism, and limitations on
prior restraint.
Whether members of the Icelandic Parliament
passed the resolution in the spirit of George Wash-
ington’s words that “[i]f the freedom of speech is
taken away then dumb and silent we may be led,
like sheep to the slaughter” or they saw in its pas-
sage an opportunity for positive PR—sorely needed
since our harebrained bankers led the country off a
cliff—is not clear, since Iceland has hardly been a
model of a society that values free speech. Iceland
still retains on its books extremely restrictive libel
laws, adopted from our Danish overlords in 1940,
that criminalise truthful statements offending the
subject of the communications. The laws permit
imprisonment for up to two years for presenting a
“defamatory insinuation,” and for up to one year for
“injuring the personal honour of another” or for in-
sinuating “something which would be to the detri-
ment of his/her respect.”
Iceland’s constitution guarantees the right to
free expression, and these archaic laws are rarely en-
forced by the prosecutors, but the rich and powerful
continue to use these relics to intimidate those who
dare impinge their “honour.” My public criticism, of
the current administration’s hiring of former high
level bank officials, was answered with a swift de-
mand for an apology and an indirect referral to defa-
mation laws.
On top of this, nearly all the major media are
owned and operated by the oligarchs and politicians
who led us to the point of perdition. Iceland’s bank
secrecy laws prohibit everyone—even legislators at-
tempting to investigate the misdeeds of the 2000s—
from viewing records. Iceland has no open meeting
laws, no ACLU to take up the gauntlet in free speech
cases, no anti-SLAPP legislation to penalize those
who bring baseless suits to intimidate and silence
critics by burdening them with legal costs.
As has been reported elsewhere, I was recently
the target of intimidation by a bank official. The
newspaper DV had reported that Íslandsbanki had
written off a $3.5 million loan made to a company
with close ties to one of its bank officials. I cross-
referenced the DV story on my blog on Eyjan.is—an
Icelandic-language website—along with a comment
about another “disgusting” instance of unethical fa-
vouritism by the taxpayer-bailed-out banks.
Since DV’s news story was related to another sto-
ry I was working on, I directed follow-up questions
to the bank regarding its official policies towards in-
sider loans and what the criteria were for loan write-
offs. This last question is of particular interest to the
Icelandic public, as the banks are adamant in their
refusal to write-off residential and personal loans for
the unwashed masses.
The bank, unsurprisingly, evoked bank secrecy
laws regarding the specific case, but referred to the
bank’s “General Rules” which answered none of my
questions.
What did surprise me, though, was a vehement
attack against me by the officer’s attorney, Dögg
Pálsdóttir. As reported in DV, Ms. Pálsdóttir called
the Reykjavik Grapevine to warn its editor that I was
going to provide him with a libellous story about her
client, saying she was “sure that nothing she [Íris]
says will be true if she writes anything at all.” [Refer
to page 6 for a write up of the incident]. She added it
would be best the paper was aware of this, to avoid a
situation necessitating legal action.
Fortunately, both DV and the Grapevine are in-
dependently owned and have not succumbed to the
intimidation. But it makes me wonder how many
questionable deals were never investigated, how
many stories have never seen the light of day, and
how many follow-ups have been deep-sixed because
of these bullying techniques.
The IMMI is a promising start, but more must
be done. The intimidation does not come just from
the overt threats, but from the general societal atti-
tude. We are told not to rock the boat, to keep our
disagreements among ourselves, and to think about
the effects of speaking out on our families and our
careers.
As a new Constitutional Convention approaches,
we must reaffirm our absolute commitment to free
expression. We must continue to push for quick pas-
sage of the IMMI, as well as for the repeal of obsolete
laws. We must create anti-SLAPP measures to fight
back against the intimidators. And we must support
without hesitation those who dare to speak out, even
if we don’t always agree what they’re saying. As Vol-
taire said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will
defend to the death your right to say it.”
Protecting Free
Speech in Iceland
16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2010
dr. Gunni's History Of Icelandic Rock | Part 24
By Dr. Gunni (Based on his book Eru ekki allir í stuði from 2001).
GO SEE S.H . DRAUMUR AT AIRWAVES! THEY ARE AMAZING!
S. H. draumur (1982 – 1988): kicking Against The Pricks
In 1982 I had been in bands for three years with ba-
sically the same guys in Kópavogur. Myself on bass
(and sometimes guitar), Steini on guitar and Haukur
on drums. The first band was an unfocused early
teen band called Dordinglar (“The Spiders”). Then
came F/8, which was influenced by The Ramones
and the local version of The Ramones, Fræbbblarnir.
This sharp and simple music gave way for "deeper"
and more "difficult" stuff in 1981. We formed Geðfró
(“Mind-relief”, later called “Beri-Beri”) with female
singer Sigga Beinteins. Sigga and I weren't on the
same wavelength though—and it bothered me how
much time she spent on doing her make up before
gigs (!)—so I eventually fired her. Sigga would later
become a pop star in Iceland. Haukur threatened
to quit when I suggested that I should just sing, but
maybe because "bad" singers like Mark E Smith
and Einar Örn (of Purrkur Pillnikk) were around, he
didn't.
THE BIRTHdAy PARTy
Our first gig as S. H. Draumur was at the very first
night of the battle of the bands-type thing Músik-
tilraunir, which has continued annually since 1982.
We came in third out of four bands, but that did
not damage our passionate love for music. Every-
thing centred upon music in those days (as it kind
of does, still). Records were expensive, so me and
my friends used to lend each other stuff. Records by
The Fall, Joy Division, XTC, The Cure, Pere Ubu, The
Slits, Suicide, Swell Maps, and Icelandic bands like
Purrkur Pillnikk and Þeyr changed hands.
One day in early 1983 I bought The Birthday
Party's ‘Prayer on Fire’ album in a second hand
shop. To put it mildly the record blew my mind. S. H.
Draumur had mainly been influenced by The Cure
and Joy Division up until then, but now The Birthday
Party became our main influence and new songs
(in Icelandic, always) with titles like "Come To The
Woods!" and "She's A Suicide" started to pop up.
SPARSE CROWdS, STILL LOud
We demoed songs on a lousy cassette recorder and
put out a cassette album in 1983 called ‘Arts With
Worms’ (in Icelandic: ‘Listir með orma’). Gramm re-
cords made thirteen copies, and never more! We
did not have any fans for the first three years or so.
For a while in 1983–1984 Haukur quit and was re-
placed by a guy called Ágúst, who would later be-
come a film director (‘Popp í Reykjavík’, 1998) and a
camera man for Nirvana and Guns ‘n’ Roses.
Underground rock was in a slump in Iceland. We
played pretty regularly but the crowd rarely con-
sisted of more than fifty people. I started to corre-
spond with foreign fanzines and people abroad just
to find some action. The band went on an Interrail
trip in the summer of 1985 and met up with one
of my penpals, John Robb of The Membranes, in
Manchester. He got us a gig in Preston and we were
very grateful to play for some people we’d never
seen before in our lives. And they even liked what
we were doing!
We decided to make a real record when we
came home. We only had money for twenty hours in
the studio, so we made a four song 10" EP. It came
out early in 1986 and shortly afterwards Haukur quit
for good. Instead we got Birgir Baldursson, a friend
from Kópavogur who had helped us demo stuff be-
fore and was (and is) a fantastic drummer. We sup-
ported Einsturzende Neubauten and Crime and the
City Solution in Reykjavík in the summer of 1986. All
of a sudden we were playing for larger crowds, and
they were pogoing and stuff! I had graduated from
college in 1985 and in the fall of 1986 I went to Lyon,
France. My idea was to become a writer and I did
not even bring an instrument along. Within a week I
had bought a guitar.
THE uNdERGROuNd AWAkENS!
I returned in early 1987 and S. H. Draumur started
to rehearse again. I had written plenty of new songs
in Lyon and Steini, Biggi and I arranged them in the
garage and rehearsed them to perfection. We were
dead set on making an album. There was much
more happening in the Icelandic underground by
then, largely thanks to the fact that The Sugarcubes
were getting big in England. We gigged with bands
like Daisy Hill Puppy Farm (a Jesus and Mary Chain
influenced band lead by Jóhann Jóhannsson), Sog-
blettir (rude teen punks), E-X (an R.E.M.-ish rock
band), Mússólíní (a kind of C86-ish teen band), Ri-
saeðlan (Reptile) and Ham.
We recorded the Goð LP in about 50 hours in a
new studio located in a YMCA community centre.
The album was ready in September of 1987, and
was released in January of 1988, by my own label,
Erðanúmúsik, in association with a small English la-
bel called Lakeland Records. I guess everything we
had done so far got focused and poured into this
thing, Goð. Yes, I think it's good. It might even be my
very best record.
IT ENdS, IT ENdS
Being in a band as a hobby, not a steady job, takes
up most of your energy. Steini had a wife and a son
in 1987. He wasn’t all that interested in "rock" music
anymore and leaned towards classical guitar music.
He wanted to quit, but before he did we convinced
him of doing two things: making another record
and playing with The Sugarcubes on their first ma-
jor UK tour.
We played only three gigs on the Sugarcubes
tour, the biggest one being at the London Astoria
for about 2.000 people, which was of course the
largest crowd we'd ever played to. This was a nice
time for us; we got to eat exotic food, get very drunk
and get close to famous people backstage.
The record was fittingly called Bless and had
four songs. Sigurjón Kjartansson from Ham pro-
duced this 12" EP. I rehearsed with Ham for a while
in the summer of 1988, but played only one gig with
them though. With Steini out of the picture, Biggi
and I formed a new band (fittingly called Bless, to
promote the recently released EP, ‘S. H. Draumur’)
with Ari Eldon of Sogblettir.
IT’S BACk, IT’S BACk
In 1993 a CD with all the S. H. Draumur stuff came
out. In hindsight it was a failed release. The band
came back for one concert. We drew 500 people,
which was quite victorious for us, as we were used
to a lot less during our real life span. Now in 2010,
23 years after Goð was recorded, we come together
once more to promote our ‘Goð+’—a two CD pack-
age, just out on Kimi Records. It has the Goð LP
in super sound quality, all the other records and a
whole lot of demos and live recordings. We’re play-
ing at Airwaves and later on we plan to do two gigs
(in Reykjavík and Akureyri) where we perform ‘Goð’
in its entirety.
We’ve already rehearsed in Egilsstaðir, where
Steini is the headmaster of the local music school,
so I know we can still pull it off. I might even go as
far as promise it will be our best gigs ever!
By dr. Gunni
(bassplayer and singer of S. H. Draumur)
“Underground rock was in a
slump in Iceland. We played
pretty regularly but the crowd
rarely consisted of more than
fifty people.”
1 Playing in MH college in Feb. 1988
2 S. H. Draumur rehearsing in 2010: Never better!
3 The Goð LP sported Mr. Stefán Grímsson, who
was and is S. H. Draumur's main religious symbol.