Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.04.2014, Blaðsíða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2011 8Issue 4 — 2014The Reykjavík Grapevine
Iceland | For Dummies
The whole of Russia must be crying
itself to sleep after Iceland gave it the
cold shoulder.
It is true that Iceland is not much
of a player on the world stage; it is
not even the person who pulls the
curtains open and shut. But to give
credit where it is due, the Minister
for Foreign Affairs did all he could
do. He certainly did better than the
President of Iceland. Prior to the
crisis in Ukraine, the president had
been very friendly with Russian
authorities and during the Arctic
Dialogue conference on March 19 he
criticised the representative of the
Norwegian government who pro-
tested Russia's action in Crimea. It
is not entirely seemly that the presi-
dent gets huffy because a country
that neighbours Russia expresses
its alarm about Russia not respect-
ing internationally agreed borders,
even if a conference on Arctic af-
fairs might not be the most suitable
venue for it.
Not to harp on about this, but does
anyone outside Iceland care what its
President or Minister for Foreign Af-
fairs have to say about anything?
Well, usually only when they say
something incredibly stupid, but
point taken. Icelanders are very
aware of their position as a tiny na-
tion in a big world, but the country
cannot help but dream of bigger
things. The times that Iceland has
played even a peripheral role in world
events are celebrated by Icelanders.
You're gonna bring up the time Ice-
land recognised the independence of
the Baltic countries, aren't you?
I was going to bring up the times
that Iceland has hosted various
important meetings, Reagan and
Gorbachev in 1986 being the most
famous one, but yes, Icelanders are
proud of having been the first to rec-
ognise the independence of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. This has long
been a feature of Icelandic foreign
relations. Iceland was a supporter
of the founding of Israel, was first to
recognise Georgia, Armenia, Azer-
baijan and Croatia as independent
states, and is the first and only West-
ern European country to recognise
the state of Palestine.
Ah, so Iceland has a firm policy of
supporting national self-determi-
nation? Well, except in Crimea, I
suppose...
If Crimea counts. Iceland has not
recognised Abkhazia or South Os-
setia either. But no, there is no firm
policy for anything in Icelandic for-
eign relations. Iceland recognises
neither the Sahrawi republic in
Western Sahara nor Somaliland,
for instance, and has never officially
recognised South Sudan. That does
not mean, of course, that Iceland
does not consider South Sudan an
independent state. Iceland has never
formally recognised Canada, but ev-
eryone knows that it probably exists.
I thought it was a made-up place Eng-
lish parents told their children they
would be sent to if they didn't behave.
No, you are thinking of Australia. To
go back to the example of Ukraine,
the official line on Ukraine has been
hopelessly muddled from the begin-
ning. The President seemed to be
against talking about the situation at
all and the Minister for Foreign Af-
fair’s initial comments were that the
revolution in Kiev was because of the
meddling of the European Union. It
was only after being criticised that
he went on his official visit.
Wait, the people who decide Icelandic
foreign policy just make it up as they
go along?
Pretty much. It is only in areas
where there is a firm national poli-
cy, such as in fishing, that Iceland
has any kind of firm principles. In
other areas it depends on which Ice-
landic politicians hold which posts,
and how they are feeling that day.
Maybe on the day that Iceland
would've recognised South Sudan,
the Minister for Foreign Affairs was
hung over.
Could be, but it is more likely that no
one gave it any thought. It is only re-
cently that Iceland has taken up for-
mal diplomatic relations with most
of the world. In the last decade, Ice-
land campaigned to get a temporary
seat on the UN Security Council,
and it was only then that the govern-
ment officially reached out to a whole
host of countries from Africa, Asia,
Oceania and the Americas. Iceland
did not succeed in getting its tem-
porary seat, and no one much cared.
In the game of international poli-
tics, Iceland is like an eight-year-old
kid hanging around at the edge of a
sports field, expecting to be picked to
play in the World Cup Final.
Iceland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson went on an official visit to Kiev on March 22. There he declared
the Icelandic government's opposition to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, said that Russia should withdraw its forces, and
that Iceland will send officials to take part in the Crimean monitoring mission of OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-
operation in Europe. He also said that Iceland supported and would take part in sanctions against Russia.
— by Kári Tulinius Illustration by Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
So What's This Trip To Ukraine
I Keep Hearing About?
NEWS IN BRIEF
MARCH
Continued...
ently took great pains not to create
any lasting environmental damage.
Let’s hope that the crew filming
background scenery for Star Wars
Episode VII in Iceland this April will
be equally attentive.
In less galactic news, the bones of
an Icelandic Viking were found
in a mass grave in Weymouth,
England. Dating back to somewhere
between 970 and 1025, the remains
were part of the Ridgeway Hill
Viking Burial Pit, the final resting
place of 50 men of Scandinavian
origin whose bodies and heads
were buried separately. Slightly less
grisly, but nevertheless unsettling,
was the subsequent discovery of a
human skeleton in a previously
uncharted cave on the Snæfellsnes
peninsula. The skeleton was sent
abroad to be analysed by specialists.
We’ve also seen interesting trends in
the realm of the living this month, not
least the finding that some Icelandic
mothers request to keep their
placentas following childbirth. Al-
though this goes against regulations
about taking human remains or body
parts away from a hospital, several
doulas have anonymously admitted to
assisting patients in preserving and
taking these home. “I think we have a
right to our own placentas,” one said.
Meanwhile, more Icelandic men
than ever have been getting va-
sectomies: 483 men were sterilised
in 2013, up from 37 men in 1982.
Icelanders living in the UK were
surprised to find that many Icelandic
websites are being automatically
blocked by the UK’s “Great Fire-
wall,” which is intended to prevent
children from accessing pornography.
The news aggregator and blogging
website Eyjan.is is among several
innocuous websites deemed not to be
“child-friendly.”
Social media justified its continued
existence when an Icelandic
man used Facebook to find a
kidney donor for himself, just a
day after posting his petition. Kristján
Continues over
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