Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.01.2011, Page 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2011
(+ ‘WELCOME NEW DECADE’!)
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
WHAT IS HAPPENING
RIGHT NOW?
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
A Call For Intelligent Innocence And
Transparency
[Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir]
The year began with devas-
tating earthquakes, pro-
ceeded on to a volcanic
eruption in, and ended with
a lunar eclipse. It felt like nature reiter-
ated how big systems are crashing, and
how the dirt and dust of lies and corrup-
tion surfaces, creating a mixed emotion
of hope and despair.
Unsustainable financial systems
crumble or are kept alive like a patient in
an iron lung. Religious and pedagogical
institutions are ridden with sexual abuse
scandals, and fundamentalist fanatics
threaten hard-won tolerance in religious
matters. Instead of service to humanity
“industries” and mere commercialism
within all kinds of spheres, be it arts, sci-
ences, health or technologies, become
increasingly apparent.
The WikiLeaks-phenomenon prom-
ises to herald a new era, reviving the
promise of the Enlightenment of an en-
lightened population. Of people who are
informed about the movers and shakers
of the world, about the driving forces
that only have one goal, to secure their
wealth and might, regardless of how the
Earth fares.
Politics stand on the one hand as a
Berlusconian type of corporate power,
and on the other hand as the power of
people, who wake up from consumerist
apathy and act up. There is smoke and
fire in the inner cities. The paint-stained
car of the Prince of Wales getting stuck
in the midst of a crowd of demonstrating
students is symbolic for the rage against
the regime(s).
Against the lies and the corruption
there is a call for intelligent innocence
and transparency. For a new kind of
politics and for a better-informed popu-
lation. In post-crash Iceland we see an
opening of cracks where the light shines
through, but there is also a widespread
disappointment over how the murky old
forces seize power again.
On a global scale, the openings of
the new are threatened by powers that
resist to disclose their secrets. The next
decade will tell whether they will domi-
nate or burst due to the contradictions
inherent to them.
[Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir is a professor of
Philosophy at the University of Iceland.]
THE NEXT TEN YEARS:
“Morality and something… oh yes,
trust”
[Elísabet Jökulsdóttir]
In stores, businesses and
public spaces, security cam-
eras have long ago become
part of daily life and no one
says a word about it. The cameras are
supposed to protect us but they do more
than that, they rob us of all trust, as we
become like animals in a zoo who are
not trusted to behave unsupervised. Un-
der these conditions, morality does not
come from within, but is created and
enforced only externally. After the eco-
nomic collapse, there were loud calls for
ethical reform in politics and business.
But why is it that this surveillance of the
public is left unchallenged? Between
Christmas and New Years I received a
call from a collection agency. The voice
on the phone said: “Please be aware that
this conversation may be recorded.”
Why? Can’t two people be trusted to
solve a problem?
It is also with regard to nature that
value judgments are created externally,
rather than being allowed to grow in our
hearts. If the same course becomes es-
tablished as in the rest of the western
world, we are in danger of seeing our
nature lost and our connection to it rup-
tured. In Völuspá it says that the land is
made from the body of man. The land is
thus a part of man, and when man in-
teracts with the land, he interacts with
himself; he is connected to the land
and sympathises with it, and in return
the land sympathises with him. In this
way, our forefathers sought comfort and
strength from our nature.
When I stood in protest because of
the Kárahnjúkar dam project, I would
get calls at night from women in tears
because they couldn’t stand how the
Hellisheiði area was being destroyed
by the Hellisheiði power plant. I believe
this relationship to nature is deeply in-
grained in us humans, and it has en-
dured in Iceland up until these past few
years.
Moral consciousness is a feeling,
and the trust it creates is a feeling also.
And if feelings live in the heart then our
hearts are being torn out, along with our
liver and lungs.
[Elísabet Jökulsdóttir is an author.]
WORLD BANK, IMF, NATO, EU
[Einar Már Guðmundsson, author]
One year is a long time, es-
pecially in Iceland, even
though the years leap for-
ward and sometimes there
are leap years. It has been an exciting
year. The world slowed down and that
may be a good thing. Planes came to a
halt in the air or could not take off. Air-
lines counted their losses from volca-
noes but the volcanoes were not con-
cerned with airlines. The comedian John
Cleese took a taxi from Oslo to Brussels,
while comedians won the elections in
Reykjavík. They won not because they
were adept, but because the other con-
tenders were inept.
The government, which describes it-
self as ‘socialist’, listens with more inter-
est to the banks’ resolution committees
than to the people of their country, and
the financial sector owns the govern-
ment’s mind and heart. Still, it is the na-
tion’s first purely left-wing government,
elected in the wake of the greatest riot
that this country has seen. The one party
</2010 REVIEW>
So this is the New Year. Again. Ex-
cept this time is slightly different,
because we are also ringing in a
new decade. Oh yes, say good-
bye to ‘the noughties’—it’s time for
us to mess up ‘THE TEENS’ (or is
it ‘tweens’? ‘tens’? Whatever you
want to call them).
By now, we have established a tradi-
tion of devoting our entire first issue
of the year to introspection and na-
vel-gazing. These are our attempts
to examine what happened in the
previous twelve months and how we
feel about it all.
The idea is seek out and combine
some of the multitude of perspec-
tives that make up our society in
order to map out the space we are
currently occupying and, hopefully,
gather insight into where we might
be heading.
We do this by looking to our com-
munity and asking several of its
respective members to contribute
their thoughts, opinions and points
of view on “what has been happen-
ing” and “what will happen”.
To that end, we approached a great
number of people from all walks of
life and asked them to help us with
the task. Some chose to send lon-
ger pieces that somehow touched
upon our subject, some answered
the specific questions we posed
(“what about 2010?” and “what’s in
store?”) while others relayed their
thoughts over the phone.
All of us humans have distinct ways
of perceiving the world and pro-
cessing our perceptions, and in do-
ing so we construct it every day of
our lives. Thus, you might consider
this our attempt at a snapshot of a
small community at the edge of a
new decade—combining the pixels
of thoughts into a bigger picture.
We urge you to read the thoughts
contained within the following pag-
es while at the same time reflecting
on your own ideas on the subject
(if you get any good ones, do send
them along). Some of them are eye-
opening, some of them are optimis-
tic, others are grim, while all of them
are unique and fun. Enjoy!
</2010>
For me personally I think 2010 was the beginning of something new. I think it
marked the end of an era of old politics and old ways of thinking and approaching
problems. I myself have had just about enough of this anger and frustration; we
need to start focusing on the positive things we’ve got going for us. I think we
desperately need to start laughing more... by laughing it’s not that we’re not tak-
ing things seriously; we’re just making things a little bit lighter... brighter maybe?
<A new decade...>
I think this will be the decade of less crap and more fun and creative thought.
[Heiða Kristín Helgadóttir, Managing Director, The Best Party]
</2010>
2010 was the year we were recovering from the shock of the economic collapse,
and re-evaluation in all spheres of life took over. We realised that life goes on. We
didn’t even get food stamps sent in the mail, though surely the numbers grew in
the group of people who are in need of assistance from charitable organisations.
The economic collapse was maybe the best thing that could have happened to
Icelanders. A new way of thinking and creative energy has emerged among many.
Many people started to think about what really matters in life. At the same time
we suddenly remembered that there are people in the world that really have it
bad, in countries where there is no running water and too many children are
infected with HIV. We saw that we have it pretty good, despite everything.
<A new decade...>
The next decade will prove good to Icelanders. We will soon be energised and
full of optimism. I look forward to the day when every car in this country will be
propelled by domestic and clean energy, and we can use all the billions that go
toward fuel towards something much more useful. We are starting to understand
that our primary resource is our hot and cold water. It has been too easy to let it
gush from our faucets, so we took it to be of little or no value. It will bring results
when luxury spas are established across the country, and people race to the
country in search of refreshment and rest. First and foremost will we be happier
and after all the self-scrutiny and creative energy this year, we will slow down the
tempo and better enjoy living live in the present.
[Bergþór Pálsson, Opera singer]
</2010>
2010 was an interesting year. I often had the feeling that we were living in histori-
cal times, both because of the political upheaval and also because of the Eyjafjal-
lajökull eruption. The eruption presented a grave danger that our tourism industry
would be badly hurt. We managed to prevent this from happening, and one of the
explanations is certainly the Inspired in Iceland project, which might be consid-
ered the project of the year—a marketing campaign that harnessed social media
to put forth a message, and it worked.
The people of Reykjavík sent a loud message in this spring’s municipal elec-
tions, and new people from outside the conventional party system entered the
city government. Their critique of conventional politics entailed that political
promises and platforms were irrelevant, because they are never really followed
or cast aside when parties enter coalition governments. This criticism isn’t nec-
essarily merited in every way, but it will nonetheless be interesting to observe if
things change for the better as a result.
<A new decade...>
Let’s say that the coming decade will be one of the best in the history of this na-
tion. It’ll be a post-banking collapse decade, where people enjoy their existence.
Culture will blossom like never before, and will be our main strength.
[Áslaug Friðriksdóttir, Managing Director, Sjá ]
CONTINUES ON PAGE 8
The general consensus around here about
2010 seems to be “good riddance”. Where
2009 gave us hope that we’d be able to
emerge from the rubble of our ruined econo-
my, 2010 was more like striding proudly from
said rubble, and falling flat on our faces. Let’s
have a look at the stories that made this year
that special Icelandic blend of disappoint-
ment, rage and wry laughter.
JANUARY
The previous December,
parliament narrowly
passed into law the Ice-
save deal. Wait, we
mean the first Icesave
deal. From the begin-
ning, people hotly de-
bated on the one hand
that taxpayers shouldn’t
bail out bankers, and on
the other hand, that we’re sorta kinda bound
by international law to pay up. In the end, Ice-
land’s elected representatives would find the
President play his trump card for the second
time in Icelandic history when he told the na-
tion that he was not going to sign the bill into
law, but refer it instead to national referen-
dum. In fairness to the President, though, the
Icesave bill was overwhelmingly rejected by
the Icelandic people in the referendum, and
the new deal on the table will cost us billions
less.
FEBRUARY
This month saw the af-
termath of the Icesave
deal’s veto, with Dutch
and British authorities
fuming with rage and
accusing the Icelandic
government of lying to
them. There’s just no
pleasing some people.
Iceland also extended
help to Haiti, following a devastating earth-
quake, by sending rescue workers and tonnes
of bottled water to the country. The brightest
story of the month, though, was the introduc-
tion of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative,
a parliamentary resolution guaranteeing pro-
tections for whistleblowers and investigative
journalists from being pressured by the
wealthy and powerful. This resolution would
have implications later in the year, when
WikiLeaks became one of the top stories in
the world.
MARCH
Icesave referendum
time! Grapevine live-
blogged media cover-
age of the event, and the
results confirmed what
numerous opinion polls
in the previous month
had been indicating—
this thing was dead in
the water. Sure enough,
over 90% of those who voted on the Icesave
deal voted no. The biggest story of the month,
however, is undoubtedly the eruption of Fim-
mvörðuháls in Eyjafjallajökull. It was a “tourist
volcano”—pretty plumes of lava shooting up in
the air, doing no real damage to anyone or
anything. Many pinned their hopes on this
eruption of bringing much-needed tourist
revenue into the country. Boy were they in for
a surprise...
APRIL
With municipal elections
coming up, a joke party
started by comedian
and actor Jón Gnarr
called ‘The Best Party’
began to get more at-
tention. The Special In-
vestigative Commission,
which examined the
possible causes of the
2008 bank collapse, released its report. Ev-
eryone looked at the report which said that
conservative ministers were incompetent, the
Central Bank turned a blind eye, and that
bank managers were insatiably greedy and
said, “Duh.” The Eyjafjallajökull eruption—
which had gone from pretty lava fountain to
giant ash-belching machine later in March—
shut down air traffic across Europe and parts
of North America, making everyone angry at
Iceland again.
News | Paul Nikolov
The Stories That Made 2010
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