Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.07.2013, Qupperneq 8

Like when your parents
tell you at dinner that they
like their guppies more
than you?
Well, maybe not quite that surprising. For-
mer Minister of Education, Science and
Culture Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who is the
leader of the opposition Left-Green party,
brought up this change in parliament and
asked what the reason for this change was,
and what exactly the new government
understands national culture to be, as op-
posed to culture in general. Illugi Gun-
narsson, the current minister for education
and culture, replied that he would not de-
fine the term national culture and that the
reason for the portfolio transfer was that
the prime minister was really interested
in national culture, whatever that may be.
You know who else was
really interested in national
culture?
The spectre of fascism was alluded to by
the leader of the opposition Bright Future
party, as part of the gloriously unfocused
parliamentary discussion that ensued,
where MPs brought up Latvian and Dan-
ish folk songs, Polish fried dough, and the
prevalence of flatness in Icelandic baked
goods. I assume the politicians were hun-
gry and wanted to dance.
Perhaps they had eaten
some special brownies?
Probably not as they are not part of the
Icelandic national baked goods heritage,
which you can tell by their non-flatness.
If you want to get an inkling of what the
new government means by national cul-
ture, you have to look at the organisational
charts for the ministries.
Oh good, nothing gets me
more excited than govern-
ment organisational charts.
The Prime Minister took over a bunch of
things that could broadly be construed
to be national heritage, i.e. archaeology,
historic buildings, ancient manuscripts,
though with some weird extras like farm
names.
If I want to name my goat
farm Antichrist Superfarm,
the prime minister has to
give his permission?
Sort of, at least from the ‘Place Name
Committee’ which has been moved from
the Ministry of Education and Culture to
the Prime Minister's Office. Whether Sig-
mundur Davíð will personally approve ev-
ery last farm, street or island name with a
signature of his pen depends on how meg-
alomaniacal he gets. I suppose we will
know if a new volcanic island appears and
he christens it Sigmundur's Pen Island. In
case you were wondering, the committee
that approves baby names is still a part of
the Ministry of the Interior.
So that's where I go if I
want to name my baby
Antichrist Superman?
Yes, though I doubt they will approve it,
as neither name is on the list. Yes, there
is a list of approved baby names, but that
is a subject for a future column. It was
not just politicians who were startled by
the organisational change, but also art-
ists and writers. Most spoke out on Face-
book, but several wrote articles about it.
The most widely-read one is by novelist,
editor and columnist Guðmundur Andri
Thorsson, who noted the influence of Jó-
nas frá Hriflu.
Wasn't that a character in
John Carter of Mars?
You are probably thinking of Thuvia of
Ptarth. Jónas frá Hriflu was the leader of
the Progressive Party in the ‘30s and ‘40s,
which is now led by Sigmundur Davíð.
Jónas had strong opinions on culture and
did things like write a fairly nationalistic
history of Iceland which was taught to
schoolchildren for seven decades, and or-
ganised an exhibition of art he considered
to be fake art.
Not to harp on this, but that
sounds like something You-
Know-Who would do.
As far as I can remember Voldemort nev-
er did anything like that. However there
is an old tale, probably apocryphal, that
the King of Denmark, then also King of
Iceland, asked Jónas if he thought he was
Mussolini. Guðmundur Andri's point was
that once you start creating a distinction
between "culture" and "national culture,"
the risk is that you start considering
that which is not "national" to be "anti-
Icelandic."
Lock your doors, the Fas-
cists are coming!
Calm, calm, the secret police is not com-
ing for your abstract art collection. How-
ever, as journalist Ingi Freyr Vilhjálmsson
pointed out on his blog, it is worrisome
insofar as it could indicate a nationalistic
turn by the current government, which
goes with the recent decision of the new
Foreign Minister to end accession talks
with the European Union. No one is seri-
ously expecting to see Blackshirts march-
ing up and down the street anytime soon,
but it would be nice if the politicians in
power would not do and say things that
put you in mind of He-Who-Shall-Not-
Be-Named.
After any election there are always surprising developments. One of those after the last election in Iceland was that
the new Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, added a "national culture" portfolio to the responsibilities
of the prime ministership. Like with any surprise announcement, no one quite knew what to make of it at first.
So What's This National Culture
I Keep Hearing About?
by Kári Tulinius
Iceland | FAQ
Ari Trausti writes regularly about
geology and hiking on these pages.
He is the author of many books and
ran for president last year.
An article on the Reykjavík Domestic Airport printed
in issue 8 of the Grapevine needs clarification. First
of all, the boring, cliché commentary about a plane
crashing into the parliament is long since a useless
one. Planes approaching an airport can crash into im-
portant buildings in cities the world over. An aircraft
passenger, a dead parliamentarian or any dead citi-
zen due to an air crash are all equally badly off and,
in principle, equally heavily mourned. Second, a long
article on the airport in the only large English news
media in Iceland should address at least three issues,
besides the need for space to build more housing
within the city. Please note that the city’s area and
distribution of buildings is no accident. It has grown
for decades according to a city planning policy im-
ported from our Nordic neighbours in the 1960's. By
now the deed is done and we have to be careful about
how we try to rectify the many mistakes that have
been made.
1) It’s our Central Station
The airport has the same function as a central hub for
trains has in any big city in the majority of countries.
For hundreds of thousands annually, the centrally
located airport facilitates business, official errands,
tourism and trips made for medical purposes, for Ice-
landers, East-Greenlanders and the Faroese. If you
are concerned with the space it occupies, think about
the long lanes with ten, twenty or more parallel train
tracks cutting through the world's cities. You simply
wouldn’t close a capital’s Central Station.
2) It’s access to our medical centre
Iceland’s medical facilities are concentrated chiefly
in Reykjavík, which brings heavy traffic to the city.
This traffic includes emergency transport, which is
far from being done only by helicopters, as well as a
large number of visits by patients seeking all sorts of
consultation and aid, not only high-tech operations,
as the article implies. People are entitled to easy ac-
cess to medical facilities for their needs. Our Green-
landic friends are also happy to have the Reykjavík
landing strips when they need some medical assis-
tance. So will future seamen and passengers in high
Arctic waters.
3) It’s an important workplace
A great number of people work at the airport and in
businesses related to the facilities, services and the
air traffic control. It is one of the largest workplaces
in Reykjavík. Some 5-7,000 future apartments do not
automatically justify a rather sudden closure of im-
portant businesses and workplaces.
Finally, the proposed Hólmsheiði airport is expen-
sive and almost certainly less suitable than the one
in Reykjavík. The idea of an electric train to Keflavík
Airport has to be based on a far larger population
than we now have in Southwest Iceland. It might ap-
pear one distant day to ease the car traffic between
Keflavík and Reykjavík. Environmental issues related
to directing all air traffic to Keflavik are far from clear.
Maybe the time may come when vertical take-off
and landing aeroplanes will dominate the domestic
traffic, but until then there is no better solution to
the "airport dispute" than keeping the airport in town
with all the important functions it has had and will
have for decades to come.
The Reykjavík
Airport: There’s
More To It
A response to “So What's
This Airport Dispute I
Keep Hearing About?”
Illustration: Inga María Brynjarsdóttir
8The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 9 — 2013
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