Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Síða 35

!"e #n$eof %he &ı%'
R E Y K J A V Í K C I T Y C E N T R E
Enjoy the best of what Reykjavík's
city has to offer.
Did you know that there are over
!"" shops, restaurants, bars and
clubs in the city centre? Not to
mention the vibrant beats and
flourishing culture.
W W W . M I D B O R G I N . I S
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35 Tourism
“The national brand-
ing bureau known as
Promote Iceland states
that the general public
is being 'harvested' for
this purpose.”
national capitalists’ union. One lobby
to rule them all. The confederation
negotiates salaries nation-wide. It
directly funds research in Bifröst
University’s business department.
It does all sorts of clever things to
secure its members’ interests. And
now they have this new central bu-
reau. Obviously, Promote Iceland is
not a propaganda ministry. Ministers
are elected officials; their policies
are debated in public and subject to
change. Promote Iceland is some-
thing much handier.
The value of our values
Apparently some U.S. schools teach,
as fact, that 'the Vikings' gave
Iceland its name to keep strangers
away from the place, using the even
more dishonest name 'Greenland' as
bait to misdirect them towards a gla-
cier. This remains speculative. What
is true is that local attitudes towards
foreigners have long been selec-
tive. In 1936, Iceland chose not to
join the League of Nations because
the members’ countries condemned
Mussolini’s Italy for using chemi-
cal weapons against the popula-
tion of Abyssinia. At the time, Italy
imported fish from Iceland. After
Iceland’s polite gesture, Mussolini
showed his appreciation by signing
an import agreement with Iceland
in his own hand. Another example
of Iceland’s selective foreign policy
is the country’s request that the
US armed forces would not send
any black soldiers to its Keflavík
military base. The US agreed until
the 1970s when the policy became
a scandal in American newspapers.
In an early display of intuition for
nation-branding, Icelandic officials
responded kindly: Send a few so you
can call it mixed. The soldiers were
then kept under curfew, only allowed
to Reykjavík on Wednesdays, during
which, idiosyncratically, the selling
and consumption of alcohol was
forbidden.
Nowadays, the most striking dis-
play of Iceland’s implicitly selective
foreigners policy is its preference
not to grant refugees asylum. The
2009–2010 record of thirteen indi-
vidual refugees receiving full asylum
in two years was set by a left-wing
government under heavy scrutiny
from activist groups. Otherwise the
number is mostly zero. The presence
of Roma communities is not debated
in Iceland. If any arrive at all, the
media declare them a threat before
the police swiftly throw them out.
And so on. Those excluded are obvi-
ously not just any foreigners. They
are vulnerable, poor people. You
are probably somewhat better off
and you are very welcome. As Prime
Minister Sigmundur Daví! phrased it
last September, addressing finan-
ciers in London: “We want you and
your money in Iceland!”
The original 2008 report on the
Image of Iceland showed awareness
that socially oriented projects can
make useful marketing ploys. The
report acknowledged the value of
artists: “Positive success stories are
considered one of the most success-
ful marketing tools today. […] One
option is constructing stories of the
success of Icelandic companies and
individuals in all fields of enterprise,
culture, arts and business. It is
necessary to use poets, writers, pho-
tographers and sound engineers to
deliver these stories convincingly.” It
also recognised the value of commu-
nal ties, suggesting that “key people
from certain market zones should be
invited to visit Iceland once a year.”
It showed appreciation of the value
of education and cultural heritage,
proposing special projects like, “The
Saga-nation exterminates illiteracy, a
global effort to teach reading. Each
year the nation provides financial
and educational support to teach
as many people to read as the
number of the nation's members.
[…] Thus the heritage of the sagas
can be intertwined with the global
problem of illiteracy, emphasizing
the nation's high levels of education
and enlightenment.” It valued peace:
“Iceland – the World Peace Camp:
Iceland will be leading in connect-
ing children and youth from all over
the world – especially from conflict
zones – who will come to Iceland
for a week to participate in a peace
camp, subsequently becoming
peace ambassadors of Iceland.” Oh,
and: “Iceland will be the world's first
country to offer all its subjects [!] to
invest in businesses in Africa.” And,
sadly, cynically, ruthlessly, so on.
This broadcast will not be
revolutionised
The long-term challenge faced by
Promote Iceland was not Eyjafjal-
lajökull's eruption but the finan-
cial crisis and its aftermath—the
‘kitchenware revolution.’ In 2009,
Icelanders voted left. It made good
spin material. The recently elected
President Obama signified change in
people’s mind. Through a sustained
effort, Iceland broadcast a clear
message about radical change. And
so you heard about Iceland's new
crowd-sourced constitution, the
prosecution of evil bankers and the
president who refused to let the
people pay the crazy bankers’ bills.
These fine stories are not true, as in
what actually happened, because
that’s not what they are for. These
are convincing success-stories, vital
elements of any ambitious nation-
branding project.
The truth is that after a grand
democratic theatre performance,
involving the country’s whole popu-
lation, the new constitution was,
with somewhat less fanfare, simply
cancelled. The president made his
operatic gestures, swiping away
Iceland's burden of reimbursing Ger-
man and Dutch savings accounts,
while securing his own re-election.
Most of the banks’ staggering debts
were nonetheless absorbed through
the devaluation of Iceland's cur-
rency, leaving wages, pensions and
savings worth only half of what they
were before. They remain so. Export
industries are booming, while wages
stay far below the EU average. Every
working person who stays in Iceland
pays the infamous bankers’ debts.
And most stay. Most of them owe
their homes to a bank. Most would
sell at a loss. Those who could turn
a profit cannot bring that profit out
of Iceland, due to currency restric-
tions. Yes, this is somewhat Berlin
Wall-ish. Luckily, however, being an
island, Iceland needs no such eye-
sore. Cheap labour makes Iceland an
increasingly popular tourist destina-
tion, they stay and pay their dues
serving foreign visitors—enlightened
tourists like you.
“Iceland got back on its feet and
is now thriving” because that is what
you wanted to hear. If there is any-
thing you like more than a winner, it
is a sympathetic, quirky, leftist kind
of winner. Promote Iceland’s original
2010 campaign got Icelanders danc-
ing in front of cameras all around
the country, to soothe you, show that
we’re all right and you will be safe
here. The 2011 ‘invite a tourist home’
campaign showed a cosy little place
where the minister of finance will
give you a foot massage. The most
recent effort is the 'Share Your Ice-
land Secret' campaign, encouraging
locals to reveal their ‘secret places’
to you, hidden gems of city life or
nature, to be crowd-sourced into
an accessible app. Meanwhile, one
by one, Reykjavík concert venues,
parks and such disappear to make
way for hotels. The whole post-lapsic
process, however, does not feel like
Naomi Klein's shock doctrine tactics.
Partly due to IMF’s plan to ease the
country in. Partly due to four years of
some actual socialist policies. Partly
because so far, foreign investors are
neither eager to buy the country’s
natural resources nor infrastructure.
And to a large extent because of
Promote Iceland’s unified mes-
sage, our success-story. Currently,
exploitation remains focused on har-
vesting human resources, utilising
people’s spare-time and private lives
for the greater good, formerly known
as GDP. Polls reveal the locals to
be happier now than before 2008.
Consuming less alcohol, less sugar
and less tobacco, they tend more to
what really matters. You.
Live happily ever after!
Summarising this article’s hypoth-
esis runs the risk of caricature but
let’s do it anyway: In Iceland, the
logic of marketing and branding has
been permanently institutionalised
to minimalise the damage done
by democratic processes, against
which it currently has the upper
hand. Meaning: Promote Iceland
runs this shop. Iceland is a billboard.
Some still hope that this is a case
of double-bluff: that underneath
the presently exposed layer of all-
encompassing business logic runs
another current, the cunning logic of
history, a wisdom revealed through
the ballot box.
Such a hypothesis would claim
that the current coalition was
tricked into power, manoeuvred into
overbidding the all-too compromis-
ing left-wing parties in a blackjack
game of socialist promises: we
will annul your private debts, PM
Sigmundur Daví! promised, because
they are unfair. We will fight the evil
venture-capitalists and justice will
prevail. If the coalition runs out of
revolutionary steam or fails to deliver
on its socialism, this hypothetical
hypothesis would hold; they will
be ousted once more. The third
option is that the world, including
Iceland, is an obscure and chaotic
place and there is no underlying
logic. And then there is the Prime
Minister’s hypothesis. In the opening
speech of the current parliamentary
session, Sigmundur stated that, so
long as the general public works in
confident unison towards a shared
vision of the future, so long as we
do not let ourselves be influenced
by ‘extremist ideologues,’ aiming at
‘disintegration and subversion,’ this
country can be an exemplar, where
“a cohesive and happy people live
in safety to the end of their days.”
For the sake of brevity, however, this
article will make do with one specu-
lative hypothesis at a time.