Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2010, Side 10

Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2010, Side 10
On the morning of November 6th, the entrance to Borgarleikhúsið could have easily been mistaken for a busy New york sidewalk. people from every corner of the world had assembled to converse in several languages about the common bond they share; they each call Iceland home. The coffee was hot and the spirit was communal as the as- sembly was warmly welcomed to the first Reykjavík Multicultural Conference organized by the city’s Mayor, Jón Gnarr. THE FIRST MULTICULTURAL CON- FERENCE Attendance exceeded expectations with over 160 city residents of foreign ori- gin meeting for two purposes: to elect a five-person panel to advise the city’s Human Rights Council and to discuss the how the city can better serve ‘new citizens’ living in Reykjavík. This is the first meeting of this type to take place in Reykjavík where almost 10.000 city residents are foreign born. The event’s announcement was vaguely worded, inviting foreigners to discuss Reykja- vík’s "efforts to improve its services for immigrants." Staged as a round table discussion, and divided by language, the question and answer format was well organised and very structured. The format left little time to voice con- cerns about fundamental issues such as discrimination, specific instances of injustice, and overall bias in our com- munity, causing some—who had been hoping to address them—to leave at the first break. A CALL FOR INFORMATION The areas of discussion were education and pre-schools, culture and travel, ÍTR (the Reykjavík sports and recreation authority), social services, service of- fices and the web division. The ques- tions were somewhat repetitive and the answers to each quite similar. In retro- spect, the answers to most questions can be interpreted as a call for informa- tion. More information, better informa- tion, and information in a language ac- cessible to new citizens is badly needed. For example, questions were asked about what improvements should be made in the area of the city's schools. It was pointed out that most commu- nication to parents from the city's el- ementary schools is in Icelandic. This means that children of immigrants receive a less positive educational ex- perience during the transition period while their parents are learning Icelan- dic. Meanwhile, both the University of Iceland and the city’s play-schools have changed their policies to make all com- munication available in both Icelandic and English. In other areas, the questions were designed to assess why participation rates are lower with immigrants than native Icelanders. Simply put, the infor- mation delivery structure is lacking. It is assumed that people know what ÍTR is, or that all children receive a schol- arship for recreational activities, that most city museums are free, and even where their local social service office is located and what purpose it serves. Often this information fails to reach those who do not read daily newspapers, do not participate in cof- fee room talks and have no Icelandic relatives. Many simply do not know the what, where, how, and why of navigat- ing life in Reykjavík despite having lived and worked in the city for years. As conference attendee Letitia B. John- son, M.A. student at H.Í., remarked, ''Iceland is an assumption culture, which is to say that, it is assumed ev- eryone knows or knows someone who knows.'' THE ALWAyS-CONFUSING dIREC- TORATE OF IMMIGRATION The most common complaint heard during the discussion was overwhelm- ingly against Útlendingastofnun (the Directorate of Immigration). The Di- rectorate of Immigration is a federal institution, not a city service, and was thus not on the list of discussion topics. Therefore, the complaints made against it would have been ignored if not for the fact that their practices are in many cas- es hindering use of the city’s services, especially social services. According to those present, the institution creates a “culture of fear,” and its guidelines are “subjective” and “unclear.” Due to these factors, foreign-born residents, especially those from outside the EU, are afraid to seek services at risk of complicating or voiding their work and residency permits. Barbara Kristvinsson, lawyer and counsellor at the Immigrant Informa- tion Centre—and long time champion for immigrant rights—stated that some services are exempt and that foreigners should not be afraid to seek help. Bar- bara refers anyone who has questions about these issues to contact her of- fice at Þjónustumiðstöð Miðborgar og Hlíða. However, the rules about which so- cial services are OK to use, and which services are off limits, are not stated clearly either at the social services offic- es, or at utl.is [the Directorate of Immi- gration’s website]. Documentation is required to be included in your annual application for renewal from your local social service office which states that you have not received assistance. This is confusing and many do not wish to complicate the already difficult process of reapplication for work and residency permits. THE MULTICULTURAL COMMITTEE IS ALREAdy AT WORK One of the assembly’s main purposes was to appoint a Multicultural Com- mittee that will assist and advise Reyk- javík’s Human Rights Council regard- ing immigrant affairs. After tallying the votes, it was announced that the new committee would be composed of Akeem-Cujo Oppong (Ghana), Shuhui Wang (China), Toshiki Toma (Japan), Juan Camilo Román Estrada (Colum- bia), Angelique Kelley (United States), Raúl Sáenz (Mexico) and Katelin Marit Parsons (Canada). These people are already at work. According to the city’s website, the newly elected panel had its first meet- ing on the 23rd of November. Human Rights Officer Anna Kristinsdóttir met with the committee to discuss the fu- ture goals and to present the committee with their first tasks. While the tran- scriptions recorded at the multicultural conference are still in the process of translation, "extracting and condensing the data gathered,” is the Multicultural Committee’s first project and current challenge. According to the newspiece on Reykjavík.is, the committee also dis- cussed the importance of using the information gathered in a positive way, and expressed desires that the Multi- cultural Conference becomes an an- nual event. One of the recurring topics at the conference pertained to how the city can better deliver information to its new citizens. The committee is already working on this, announcing plans to set up a Facebook page that would me- diate information easily, as well as act- ing as discussion forum for the group. The committee welcomes suggestions and inquiries by email ( fjolmenningar- rad@reykjavik.is). HOME Overall, it seems the conference was a success. The people who attended the meeting were mostly people who care deeply about Iceland and have a vested stock in creating an environment more welcoming to its new citizens, because this is where they live, work, love, and raise their families. This is home. 10 “Many simply do not know the what, where, how, and why of navigating life in Reykjavík despite having lived and worked in the city for years.” Article | New Icelanders in Reykjavík B.R. NEAL CITy OF REyKJAVÍK We love our New Icelanders here at Grapevine HQ (in fact, a lot of our rag is written by 'em). If you are a New Icelander and think we could serve y'all better, you should most definitely drop us a line. The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 18 — 2010 Well, it looks like we've once again made history: last weekend, we held elections for representatives compris- ing a constitutional assembly and ended up with the lowest voter turnout ever. By some counts, just about 37% of eligible voters actually turned in ballots. Why anyone is surprised by this is a mystery to me. There has been decid- edly low enthusiasm for the prospect for a long time now, as the Grapevine has reported. Foreign media showed greater interest than domestic media (and ad- mittedly, our own coverage could have been much better), which was itself pretty entertaining—all those mildly condescending articles from US news sources that basically amounted to "look at how quaint those Icelanders are, let- ting commoners—peasants, if you will—actually write a new constitution," when America's constitutional assembly was comprised mostly of tobacco farm- ers and slave traders. Political scientists are falling over them- selves to explain why this election was a failure, and aren't hesitating to blame the media. Poor coverage was definitely a part of this, but ultimately there were two main factors that I believe contrib- uted to this. First of all, there's the system itself. Parliamentary elections have a process of elimination: primaries narrow down the number of available candidates, and districts narrow down the number of available candidates you can vote for. This makes it decidedly easier than wad- ing through the platforms of some 500+ candidates in one go, and trying to nar- row that down to 25. This probably had a greater effect than the oft-complained- about and inexplicable decision to assign each candidate a four-digit number to be entered, instead of just a list of names and checkboxes. In fact, this experiment has impor- tant implications for Icelandic democ- racy as a whole. Many pundits in the past have expressed interest in the idea of "one country, one district", and that primaries themselves should fall to the wayside. Here, we have an election that did those things, that is probably as close to direct democracy as Iceland can get, and it proved to be a dismal failure. The more cynical interpretation would be that people were given too many choices, and that even a country of about 310,000 people isn't ready for direct democracy. Well, maybe not. Maybe next time, instead of saying "anyone who can get X number of signatures by this date will be a candidate", the cap could have been placed on a "top 100 candidates who re- ceived the most number of signatures" on top of the signature minimum. This would have had the effect of having a pool of candidates that the people as a whole were the most enthusiastic about from the very start, instead of creating an overwhelming pool of candidates who were, for the most part, complete unknowns. The fact that most of the people who won a seat are well-known public figures underlines this point. This leads to the second reason why this failed. We all like the idea of direct democracy, but in the end, it's just not how we're brought up. We naturally gravitate towards well-known figures, and will choose famous people with vague platforms over unknowns with clear ones. Last spring's city elections in Reykjavík are a great example of this: the Best Party wasn't the only alternate party running, but none of these other parties had a famous comedian topping the list. None of this is to say that we shouldn't do this again, and that direct democracy just can't work. On the con- trary, I believe the failure of the elec- tions for the constitutional assembly proves that we need to do this again, and more often. You cannot change a po- litical system without changing the way people think about politics. If we want direct democracy, we're going to have to keep moving towards it, until the idea is considered less a radical experiment and more simple common sense. Maybe then picking from 500 candidates from all over the country, some of them ut- terly unknown to us, will seem like the way elections should be. Iceland To Write New Constitution, Nobody Cares Opinion | Paul F. Nikolov Looking back on Reykjavík's 'Multicultural Conference' Let’s Talk!

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