Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.09.2013, Blaðsíða 12

Former Supreme Court justice
Jón Steinar Gunnlaugsson told
radio show Harmageddon that it's
time for Iceland to consider a new
approach to drug enforcement—
called legalisation. "We're not
improving the situation by creating
an underworld," he said. The current
drug laws in place are not working
he contends, and the emphasis
should be placed on rehabilitation of
addiction.
By the same token, a recent poll
by Maskína for the Directorate of
Health shows that the public at-
titude toward the legalisation
of marijuana has been steadily
changing over the last decade.
While Iceland is far from a majority
in favour, the number has risen from
about 9.3% in support of legalisation
to about 11.3%. Meanwhile, about
36% of respondents confirmed hav-
ing tried marijuana or other cannabis
products, but only 6.5% consider
themselves "regular users." Jón may
just be right; the drugs aren't going
anywhere, regardless of their status
with the law.
And, as promised, we've got some
rock 'n' roll for you too. We've also
got some acoustic, some electronic,
some hip-hop, experimental, shoe-
gaze, trance, dance, and every
scene in between on our Grapevine
Iceland Airwaves website! Go check
it out: airwaves.grapevine.is for
your recommended daily dose of
righteousness.
NEWS IN BRIEF
SEPTEMBER
Continued...
Opinion | Tourism
Capitalising on John F. Kennedy's re-
mark that “the very word secrecy is
repugnant in a free and open society,”
Inspired by Iceland—a branch of the
government-owned Promote Iceland
initiative—is encouraging people to
reveal “what lies just beyond the realm
of the known in Iceland,” although they
may have good reason for hiding it.
Chair of the Icelandic Tourist In-
dustry Association Árni Gunnarsson
explained at the campaign's kick-
starting ceremony that the current
objective is to lure more wintertime
tourists whose numbers (and therefore
spending) pale in comparison to their
summertime comrades. Prime Minis-
ter Sigmundur Daví! Gunnlaugsson
echoed this at a speech for the Iceland
Investment Forum in London a week
later, exhibiting a state-of-the-art ex-
ample of transparency: “Hope to see
you—and your money—in Iceland.”
Born in the wake of the 2008 eco-
nomic collapse and the subsequent
Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption less
than two years later, the idea of sell-
ing entrance to the country as an all-
season theme-park and human zoo
has finally been taken to the executive
level. En masse tourism—with all its
fuel-intensive transportation, intru-
sive consumerism and the commodi-
fication of culture and nature—has
been promoted as a healthier, green
and humane way to increase economic
growth rather than, say, heavy indus-
try and banking.
At the very core of this immense
production of illusions and the non-
satirical performance of promoting
Iceland as Magicland, Amazingland
and Pureland is the use of gratuitous
human labour. Just like prior cam-
paigns, this one stands and falls with
the population's voluntary, uncritical
participation, which in turn morphs
humans into hybrids of exhibits and
servants. No, I'm not joking, and if
there's an ounce of extremism here,
it's simply the result of what author
"orgeir "orgeirson often referred to
as the extremes of the subject-matter:
the very act of unilaterally promoting
Iceland as a unique earthly paradise is
inherently extreme.
The residents of the village Hon-
cun—originally built as the filming
location of block-buster Crouching Ti-
ger, Hidden Dragon —have described
themselves as mere props within the
Chinese tourism industry. Employing
slightly less objectified language, Pro-
mote Iceland asserts that regardless
of the time of one's visit, one can be
“assured of the warmth of the Iceland-
ers' welcome and their desire to share
their culture and make every effort to
ensure that your stay is a pleasant one.”
Take also, for example, Austrian
filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s Paradies:
Liebe —the first film in his recent
Paradise trilogy—which confronts sex-
tourism in Kenya and the complicated
relationship between the native beach
boys and their neo-colonial sugar-ma-
mas. With a troubled identity, robbed of
their dignity by becoming fully depen-
dent on the profusion of foreign money
holders, as Seidl noted in a 2009 inter-
view with ZOO Magazine, the boys are
stuck in a vicious cycle of self-humilia-
tion. And they are not alone.
While the film's focus is surely
on the aspect of prostitution—visu-
ally the most obvious physical form
of exploitation—a number of shorter
scenes juxtapose it with other roles
within tourism-based economies, por-
traying tourism as yet another tool for
exploitation. Remember the happy and
hyperactive fairies jumping and danc-
ing in line with Emiliana Torrini's
jungle-drumming heart? Locate them
and their corporeal counterparts be-
side the smiling bartenders, the swim-
ming-pool entertainers and the zebra-
dressed musicians of Paradies: Liebe .
Then ask: What’s the difference?
In a quest for an answer, I would
rather put my bet on finding Waldo
somewhere in the “The Stars and
Stripes Forever” march. That said,
there certainly is a secret worth shar-
ing and celebrating, properly kept be-
low the realm of the visible. As first
documented in Liber Miraculorum by the 12th century Cistercian chap-
lain Herbert Von Clairvaux, Iceland
can boast of being a tourist attraction
unlike any other. Namely, the very en-
trance to Hell, disguised as the volcano
Hekla. Although allegedly debunked
as mere superstition by a pair of ecolo-
gists in 1750, there is something ex-
traordinarily stimulating about this
theory. And seeing the emancipating
nature of history's first freethinker—
Hell's host, Satan himself—the f lam-
ing basement of Hekla might be our
only glimpse of hope in these worst of
all possible times.
Below The Promotional Realm
Inspired by Iceland and the entrance to Hell
Now, in the midst of the repercussions of Ed-
ward Snowden's exposé of mass-surveillance
directed against individuals and institutions
worldwide, it's far beyond funny—in all its
Orwellian irony—to see the moguls of Ice-
land's tourism-industrial complex launch a
campaign fuelled by the imperative slogan:
“Share Your Secret!”
12The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 15 — 2013
THE NUMBER 1 MUSIC STORE
IN EUROPE ACCORDING TO
LONELY PLANET
SKÓLAVÖR!USTÍG 15, 101 REYKJAVÍK AND HARPA CONCERT HALL
“Hope to see you—
and your money—
in Iceland.”
Étienne Ljóni Poisson
Snorri Páll Jóhannsson Úlfhildarson is a word-crafts-
man, occupied with socially useless production
Go find out people’s secrets at
www.inspiredbyiceland.com/secrets/