Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2012, Qupperneq 12

12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2012
ÁSGEIR H. INGóLFSSON
NATO
If an Icelander and a Cuban had a child, what would it be called?
ICECUBE!
The short and narrow
of it is that those who
have never graced these
shores have no clue
what we’re about, but you
can’t blame them. All they
really have to call upon is what they read
in their newspapers and what they see
on TV. Eyjafjallajökull on CNN, ‘Game
Of Thrones’ on HBO, President Ólafur
Ragnar Grímsson on Bloomsberg.
The old dictum is truer than ever.
You can’t believe much of anything you
read, or see on the box—about Iceland.
At the very least, you’ll probably need to
take it with a large lump of rock salt.
Surprisingly, this last month, writ-
ing in the Financial Times (FT), Michael
Stothard presents an almost balanced
picture of recent Icelandic events—or
does he? He kicks in by poking a little
tongue-in-cheek fun at that beehive le-
viathan that sits down at the Reykjavik
harbour, Harpa. Although Icelandic tax-
payers have been grumbling about its
costs, he says, Harpa appears to be one
of the few institutions that is actually
making a profit.
Are you telling me, Mr. Stothard,
that they already amortized construc-
tion costs?
An icon of the degenerate excesses of
Mad Money suddenly becomes a symbol
of national pride, particularly if Björk
stretches her vocal chords there. Even
“Steingrímur Sigfússon, minister for
economic affairs [sic]…[is] one of those
who sing the praises of the Harpa.”
Poor old Geir Haarde—Prime Min-
ister from June 15, 2006 to February
1, 2009—gets a right bashing as if he
might be the root of all evil. And the
criminal investigations go on investigat-
ing and investigating. No one else is to
blame. Stothard quotes Elias Petersson,
one-time owner of a now-bankrupt con-
struction company: “The Haarde trial
is a step in the right direction, but it is
political and cannot give us the whole
truth… this is the year when the bankers
hopefully are made to pay,” he says.
Yet, this very well-attended Harpa,
is the same building that was commis-
sioned by Björgólfur Guðmundsson, a
former Viking wheeler-dealer and once-
owner of West Ham Football Club who,
like others, “exploited cheap credit…fol-
lowing financial deregulation… to cre-
ate a billion-dollar empire.” Harpa was
his supposed gift to the nation, all pur-
chased with Mad Money. Now, however,
Harpa belongs to the tax-indebted peo-
ple, who still have to pay 12.000 krónur
to see Björk.
And yes, on paper, Iceland looks far
better than Ireland: “Net debt stands
at 65 per cent GDP… far below the 100
per cent of Ireland.” On the other hand,
Reuters recently noted that the Icelandic
króna has fallen over 6% against the
Euro so far this year. Good for tourism,
bad for Icelandic tourists abroad.
The FT tells us that Iceland’s recov-
ery is being led by fishing and tourism,
“re-sources that even the most over exu-
berant financiers and politicians could
not damage… Today the wealthy men
and women buying the tickets for galas
at the Harpa are the heads of companies
with fishing quotas and airlines rather
than traders in derivatives.”
And then finally, Stothard gets to the
root of the matter: “The average house-
hold has suffered a 30 per cent fall in
purchasing power since 2008. The pri-
vate sector remains heavily indebted,
with household debt levels exceeding
200 per cent of disposable income and
corporate debt 210 per cent of GDP…
domestic companies are reluctant [per-
haps loathe is the more precise word]
to invest.” Björgólfur Jóhannsson, chief
executive of Icelandair (once the CEO of
Icelandic Group, who was urged to step
down in late 2007 due to poor results)
told the FT: “Now we work with real
things—with fish and with tourists.”
Put the emphasis on “real.”
And yet, The Iceland Chamber of Com-
merce’s April 2012 Status Report tells us
that “… general economic activity is well
functional and many Icelandic busi-
nesses remain strong and prosperous.”
Is this the same Iceland Chamber of
Commerce that paid Frederic Mishkin
of Colombia Business School 124,000
USD in 2007 for a report that stated
“Icelandic is an advanced country with
excellent institutions, low corruption,
rule of law… prudential regulation and
supervision is generally quite strong.”
Stothard only manages to scratch the
“real” surface. His short quote from Ice-
land’s man on the street, Linus Orri—“I
dislike politicians only slightly less than
I dislike bankers”—gives small insight
into the true feelings and situation of
the Icelandic common man. Surely a
productive nation must be a happy na-
tion—as Iceland was once considered to
be.
Once again in March both inflation
and consumer prices rose. The Króna
is weakening against the Euro, and yes,
everyone is expecting a bumper tourist
season this year—what with the both of
Wow air and easyJet bringing cartloads
of budget travellers through Keflavík.
Ah, what the Hekla. Better just sit
back, chill out with Siggi’s homemade
landi (moonshine) and the new Sigur
Rós single, “Ekki múkk,” dream about
the lazy days of summer and—er, get
“real.”
News | Iceland in the international eye: MarchComedy | HAHAHAHA
Mad Money, Big Fish And
Kiss-Me-Quick Tourism
Writer E.B. White—well known for his
children's books and co-authoring one
of the most famous English language
style guides, ‘The Elements of Style’—
once wrote the following: "Analysing
humour is like dissecting a frog. Few
people are interested and the frog dies."
E.B. White died a couple of decades too
early to visit the annual ICEF Humour
Symposium in Hólmavík, a small town
in the northwest of Iceland. But the
room was full of interested people, and
the humour survived dissection; when
people were better aware of the context
of the joke, they laughed even harder.
The biggest name at the festival was
probably Þorsteinn Guðmundsson, a
jack-of-all-trades when it comes to Ice-
landic comedy. While his stand-up was
funny, his lecture was even funnier—the
true highlight of the festival. He dissect-
ed a single joke, told by former Prime
Minister and current Morgunblaðið
editor, Davíð Oddsson. Davíð is argu-
ably the most powerful politician of the
last twenty years and the power he still
holds over the populace was evident in
the recent trial of former Prime Minister
Geir H. Haarde, who was charged with
negligence over the financial crisis. The
day Davíð testified, the headlines of the
many of the leading news sites read:
"Davíð Oddson told a joke."
The joke in question went like this:
"When I was told that Björgólfur Thor
and Björgólfur Guðmundsson were not
related parties I asked if that wasn't
hard on Þóra—who was the mother
of one and the wife of the other." The
point being how absurd it was to try to
say that the father and son—both con-
nected to Landsbanki bank—were not
related parties. Þorsteinn's lecture was
considerably funnier than this so-called
joke, as it is a myth that Davíð Odds-
son is funny. He hasn't been truly funny
since his radio days in the '70s, and the
bar isn't set very high for Icelandic poli-
ticians in this regard.
WHAT THE JOKE SAYS ABOUT
ICELANDIC SOCIETY
In any case, Þorsteinn used the joke—all
the players in it, including Davíð him-
self—to analyse their status in Icelan-
dic society and their relations to each
other. In addition to Björgólfur Senior
and Junior, another father-and-son
pair has dominated the landscape of
Icelandic business, namely Jóhannes
Jónsson and Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson.
Many have thought that Davíð has been
siding with the Björgólfurs, so in a way
the joke was a canny way of distancing
himself from them, as they have now
both fallen from grace.
Þóra's role in the joke is also note-
worthy. What does Davíð mean by say-
ing it's hard on her? Does he mean that
perhaps Björgólfur Thor is not Björgól-
fur Guðmundsson's son after all—and if
so, why is that hard on her, rather than
her husband? The tycoon's wife usu-
ally stays out of the media spotlight, yet
she is the one who gives the family its
historical clout, being the grandchild
of Thor Jensen, one of Iceland's most
famous businessmen of the early twen-
tieth century. The one time that she was
in the news was due to the publication
of the book ´Thorsararnir´ (The Thors
family) where her previous marriage
to George Lincoln Rockwell, founder
of the American Nazi Party, was men-
tioned. Björgólfur senior used his influ-
ence to buy and destroy all copies of
the book, which was eventually pub-
lished without this chapter. Then he
even tried to buy DV, the newspaper
that eventually told the story about how
he censored it.
These kinds of relations are remark-
ably common in the higher echelons of
Icelandic society, even considering its
small population of 320.000. If it’s not
through a family connection, power
structures can be traced to old cliques
in high school or university or the youth
organizations of political parties. By
highlighting this and other aspects of
Davíð's joke, Þorsteinn illustrated how
Iceland's recent political and economic
history often resembles a really bad
joke. And when all the major news sites
ran the headline “Davíð Oddson told a
joke,” the media felt like the most ter-
rible joke of all. But as is often the case
with jokes, the joke is ultimately on you.
Davíð Oddsson Told A Joke
Icelandic society explored at The Humour Symposium in Hólmavík
MARC VINCENz