Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2011, Page 12

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2011 It has indeed felt odd to learn that Iceland is inspiring revolutions the world over when the general feeling around is that nothing
of any note is happening. Could it be we are to involved/ingrained to properly see? letters@grapevine.is. ALSO FUN FACT: This
article's author is a member of seminal Icelandic punk rock band Q4U, who are playing Airwaves!
Iceland | Export
Inspired By Iceland... no, really!
Words
Árni Daníel Júlíusson
Photo
Páll Hilmarsson
It is funny how things can turn around.
For decades, Iceland languished in
neoliberal hell, with signs of opposi-
tion few and far between. Meanwhile
the opposition to the neoliberal order
of things grew all over the world—with
massive protests in Seattle, Genoa and
elsewhere—and the beginnings of a
world-wide anti-globalisation move-
ment represented by the World Social
Forum, first held in Porto Alegre, Bra-
zil, in 2001. Almost nobody in Iceland
did or said anything to support these
powerful movements against the neo-
liberal order, with the exception of the
brave Saving Iceland organisation. Even
the considerable activism surrounding
the anti-imperialist campaigns against
American military presence in Iceland
seemed to die completely down in
around 1990. Neoliberalism reigned,
Iceland supported the Iraq invasion in
2003 and nobody said or did anything.
EVERYTHING CHANGES
In 2008, everything suddenly changed.
The Icelandic banks collapsed, and out
of nothing there grew an immensely
powerful protest movement, leading to
the collapse of the ideological hege-
mony of neoliberal order in Iceland. It
was symbolised by the January events
of 2009, when saucepans and pots
were taken into use by protesters, who
drummed the right wing neoliberal gov-
ernment out of office in the last week
of January. Suddenly everyone and
her brother was involved in organising
some sort of protest, with many thou-
sands turning up at rallies in the centre
of town on a regular basis, and hun-
dreds or thousands of people involved
in organising alternatives to the prevail-
ing neoliberal order.
Even the president of the country,
who had been one of the cheerleaders
of neoliberalism, suddenly turned into
an invaluable ally of the protest move-
ment against the financial system, en-
abling two national referendums on the
Icesave issue. Under the leadership of
Eva Joly a criminal investigation into the
whole neoliberal financial scam of the
nineties and noughties was organised,
and a very thorough investigation on
the causes of the collapse was initiated
by the Icelandic parliament. There was
even a Constitutional Assembly, which
was meant to write a new constitution
for the country.
RIGHT WING, LEFT WING: BOTH
NEOLIBERALS
To be sure, instead of the rightwing
neoliberal government a leftwing neo-
liberal government ascended to power
after parliamentary elections in April
2009. That was surely not the intention
of the saucepan revolutionary move-
ment, and the situation in Iceland has
been tense since. An important part of
the original protest movement has been
paralysed, as it has seen it as its duty
to defend the “left” government against
what it sees as attacks organised by
the right. So the most radical part of
the original saucepan protesters, those
who are of the opinion that the “left”
government is just another neoliberal
government, has found tactical allies
among the right wing parties, and this
alliance has had some victories, like the
rejection of the Icesave treaties.
But the Icelandic protest movement
against neoliberalism has been power-
ful enough to inspire people outside
Iceland. Yes, indeed, people abroad
have really been inspired by Iceland!
This was first evident around the Ice-
save referendum on March 6, 2010. The
international anti-globalisation move-
ment followed it closely, for example
the Jubilee movement, the international
Attac movement and the Tax Justice
Network.
Congratulations rained on Icelandic
activists after the Icesave treaty was
rejected, the so-called Icesave II trea-
ty, wherein Icelandic taxpayers were
supposed to pay large sums of money
to the citizens of the Netherlands and
the UK because of the collapse of the
Icelandic bank Landsbankinn. Icelandic
taxpayers refused to take responsibility
for the wheelings and dealings of the
international financial oligarchs, and
this was widely admired by anti-neolib-
eral activists everywhere.
RUMOURS
But there was more to come. In 2010,
rumours started to circulate on the
Internet among activists, especially in
those former provinces of the Roman
Empire comprising the present day
lands of Spain, Portugal and France,
that there had been some sort of a
quiet revolution in Iceland. This revolu-
tion was supposed to have been almost
systematically shut out of the world me-
dia, in order not to present a possible
model for revolution in other countries.
These rumours appeared on French
and Spanish websites, and at last they
acquired some sort of critical mass. In
December 2010 and January 2011, At-
tac Iceland started to receive a lot of
questions about the quiet revolution in
Iceland from members of Attac France
and Attac Spain. Activists even started
to visit Iceland to find out about the
quiet revolution.
When Attac Iceland was slow to
respond—and when it did it would not
be ready to agree that there had been
any sort of revolution in Iceland—it was
pointed out by the international activ-
ists that the Icelandic banks had been
nationalised, that the government had
been forced from power, that the gover-
nors of the Central Bank of Iceland had
been replaced, that Iceland had shown
true grit by the rejection of the Icesave
treaty. All of which was true, but At-
tac Iceland has not interpreted this as
a revolution, even if it certainly can be
viewed as a very powerful and success-
ful protest movement, one of the most
powerful popular responses to the col-
lapse of the neoliberal order, and up
until 2011 certainly the most powerful.
And quiet it was not, as those activists
who have come from Spain, Portugal
and France to Iceland to investigate
have found out.
ICELAND AS A MODEL OF REVOLT
Then in December 2010, Tunisia erupted
in revolt. Egypt followed, and the world
watched in amazement as country after
country in the Arab world arose in revo-
lution against the established order of
American imperialist rule and the rule
of US supported despots. There were
certainly some references to the Icelan-
dic revolt in these movements. And in
May 2011 Spain erupted, with the M-15
movement and the Indignados move-
ment forming as a powerful protest
wave against the neoliberal order. Here
the references to the Icelandic move-
ment were numerous and quite visible,
with public squares in Palma, Mallorca,
renamed after Iceland in honour of the
quiet revolution, the Icelandic flag be-
ing waved on numerous occasions and
Facebook groups organised in honour
of the Icelandic movement.
This was certainly a rather dramatic
turnaround in the position of Iceland in
relation to the neoliberal world order.
Suddenly Iceland had turned from a
model of the quiet, obedient neoliberal
outpost, to become a model of protest
movements around the world against
this same neoliberalism.
THE REVOLUTION THAT NOBODY
WANTS TO TALK ABOUT
Then in the summer of 2011 the indig-
nados started coming to Iceland them-
selves, organising TV-crews in order
to document the Icelandic revolution.
And, indeed, they did not find a quiet
revolution: In the words of Portuguese
document film maker Miguel Marques,
who was here in August and extensively
documented the activities of the Icelan-
dic movement, the Icelandic revolution
was anything but quiet. Another crew
came from Spain and interviewed the
Icelandic activists, and in October there
will be a Venezuelan crew document-
ing Icelandic activism for the big South
American TV network teleSUR.
So, for the Icelandic activists and
anti-neoliberalist, the situation is a bit
awkward. When finally Iceland pro-
duces something worthy of admiration
of the international activist community,
the activist groups in Iceland have been
reluctant to admit to it being what the
foreigners perceive it to be. Why is this?
Why is the powerful protest movement
in Iceland not lauded or presented in a
positive light by the Icelandic activists?
This is mostly because of the political
situation in Iceland.
On one hand, the media, mostly
right wing, the academics, mostly right
wing or centre left neoliberals, and oth-
ers of the talking and writing classes
have very limited interest in promot-
ing the Icelandic saucepan revolution.
On the other hand many in the protest
movement now support a neoliberal
“left” government in the vain hope that
it will eventually, in the distant future,
maybe deliver on something of value,
and this supports hinders any positive
evaluation of the protest movement af-
ter the ascend of the “left” government.
The radical parts of the protest move-
ment do not have a positive evaluation
of the results of the movement, exactly
because the results of the parliamen-
tary elections in April 2009 were that
the neoliberal dominance in politics
continued. So nobody seems interested
in taking credit for the very real and
positive results of the Icelandic protest
movement 2008–2011.
“So, for the Icelandic activists and anti-neoliberalist, the
situation is a bit awkward. When finally Iceland produces
something worthy of admiration of the international
activist community, the activist groups in Iceland have
been reluctant to admit to it being what the foreigners
perceive it to be. Why is this?”