Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.12.2014, Qupperneq 6

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 20116
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2014
This clearly makes sense, since the local
culture neither has nor could breed hus-
bands oppressive to the point of coming
between their spouse and Reykjavík’s
nightlife. Oppressive households are
a foreign invention, inherent to other
cultures. If we do not stand our guard
against those, Iceland might lose its lib-
eral, egalitarian and tolerant character,
so evident in the officer’s writing.
The second coming
The Grapevine’s online coverage of the
article produced dozens of comments,
as did many other news outlets’. If Biggi
had any other intention than to smear a
particular group of society, he concealed
it well, his Facebook apology for appar-
ently having “hurt people’s feelings” not-
withstanding.
Meanwhile, former secret agent,
journalist, and Morgunblaðið editor
Styrmir Gunnarsson reminds us all—in
his recently published memoirs from
the Cold War—that since the republic’s
founding in 1944, until 1985, Iceland’s
highest police commissioners were Na-
zis or Nazi-sympathizers. This remains
treated as some sort of curiosity for his-
torians, at best, rather than a peculiar
and perhaps problematic fact about this
country. Which again seems both pecu-
liar and, perhaps, problematic. That is
not to say that the police officer harbours
the same sentiments as his predecessors.
To this day, however, the police force
certainly does come across, to many, as
a right-wing hotspot. So far, former of-
ficers who enter politics run, seemingly
without exception, for the Independence
Party.
This autumn, the Coast Guard fa-
mously obtained 250 machine guns
from Norway, of which the police force
was supposed to receive 150. When this
was revealed by newspaper DV, many
protested. Soon, the police announced
that they would return the guns, which
seemed to good to be true. As it goes
with such things, the decision turns out
to have little to do with
the public’s opposition,
and more with the fact
that Norway expected
Iceland to pay for the
cargo, which was evi-
dently not the Coast
Guard’s intention.
Guns were not on the
police budget. Now it
seems they will be.
Superintendent Jón
Bjartmarz claims that
the police force needs
and intends to acquire
at least 150 MP5s be-
fore long. Which means
that the rest of us will
have to cancel our cel-
ebrations and keep
explaining that bullets
are hard, guns can be fatal, and that, no,
the Islamic State is not about to attack.
Telling butter from may-
onnaise
Now, then, however, and yet. Around a
decade ago, ex-Prime Minister Davíð
Oddsson established the notion of “the
butter-pinch method” through an an-
ecdote he relayed in an interview: his
grandmother, he said, had a cat. When-
ever the cat became restless and noisy,
she would nudge a pinch of butter into
its fur. The cat would then be quietly oc-
cupied for the next hours, trying to rid it-
self of the butter. The minister explained
that he often used analogous tactics in
politics, distracting people from real is-
sues by throwing in highly disputable but
less important topics, with great success.
This subsequently became known as the
butter-pinch method. It may serve Davíð
well in his current role as Morgunblaðið’s
Chief Editor.
How to tell butter from mayonnaise,
then? What’s really happening? While
our collective attention has been held by
scandalous utterances and guns, not to
mention that sweet, sweet Correction,
the right wing vanguard seems to be en-
joying a correction of its own.
As reported, the State-owned bank
Landsbankinn just sold some 30% of the
firm Borgun’s shares, without any call
for offers. The majority of those, around
a fifth of the firm’s total shares, were sold
to a company owned by Finance Minis-
ter Bjarni Benediktsson’s uncle and first
cousin. As Nanna Árnadóttir wrote on
Grapevine.is: “According to Kjarninn
the sale of these shares in electronic pay-
ment solution provider Borgun did not
follow any formal sales
process and went com-
pletely unadvertised.
Additionally, as Borgun
is an asset of Lands-
bankinn—of which the
government is the ma-
jority owner—the sale
falls under the juris-
diction of the Finance
Minister.”
Now, that’s a gift
that keeps on giving,
if there ever was one.
Borgun is one of three
payment intermedia-
tion firms in Iceland.
They provide bank
clients with credit and
debit cards, and com-
panies with the infra-
structure to accept those. From now on,
every second or third time that you swipe
your card to pay for your hard-earned
daily bread, you also make a small do-
nation to the Finance Minister’s fam-
ily. They are known as the Engey family.
They’ve been at it for a while.
Historical interlude:
2008 AD
Why did Borgun belong to the State at
all? Because of the 2008 bank collapse.
Which means, because of the mirage-
economy constructed up until the bank
collapse. That winter, one way or an-
other, a great share of businesses in Ice-
land were taken over by the State, start-
ing with Prime Minister Geir Haarde’s
counter-factual declaration: “This is not
nationalization.” What he meant was,
of course: “I am not a Bolshevik.” In the
meantime, some of those firms have been
quietly re-privatized. Please bear with
me through an anecdote:
The shopping mall Smáralind went
bankrupt in the crash. This left Lands-
bankinn, a major creditor, as its owner.
Since Landsbankinn had by then been
nationalized, the shopping mall was
thereby State-owned. A public institute,
kinda. In 2012, Landsbankinn sold the
majority of its shares to workers’ unions’
pension funds. The Republic’s Centre For
Consumer Goods thus changed into The
Workers’ Centre For Goods And Servic-
es, although, of course, it could have been
called The People’s Shopping Centre the
whole time. Only it wasn’t. Smáralind
still does its best to appear a private
enterprise and conceal that it is in fact
owned by the people collectively, which
is not only less glamorous but could mis-
lead those people into making all sorts
of demands. Collectively, people might
demand higher wages for the mall’s
workers and lower prices for them-
selves. We all know where that would
lead us, don’t we?
Stop whining, it will
trickle down! – LOL!
Ásta Helgadóttir already pointed out that
while the police rationalize their need
for guns with fantasies about the threat
of Islamic State adherents, the Icelandic
State’s current Treasury prioritization is
a real threat, not to mention a potentially
fatal one. Doctors started their strike
actions on October 27. The State is their
employer. State officials have expressed
their sympathy for the doctors’ demands,
but claim that meeting them might lead
to a general “wage drift.” That is, other
workers might make demands as well.
Which would be bad because… er. Infla-
tion.
No one likes inflation, so stay
poor, please.
Last February, to meet with the Trea-
sury’s ongoing austerity measures, Land-
spítalinn, the university hospital central
to the country’s health services, laid off
all of its cleaning staff. A dozen workers
are now supposed to do the same job, on
behalf of a contractor, that was previous-
ly done by 35 hospital employees. Each
worker receives 214,000 ISK a month (ca.
€ 1350) before taxes. The job: to keep an
area of twenty-six thousand square me-
tres hospital-clean. Divide by twelve at
your own peril.
Unrealistic it is: Earlier this month,
a representative of the union Efling was
denied access to the cleaners’ meeting
with the contractor. The workers went to
the media and said they were tired. They
said that the hospital’s hygiene suffered
for there being too few of them. One pa-
tient stepped forward and revealed that,
in for treatment, she found the hygienic
conditions unacceptable, and cleaned her
room, and the adjacent bathroom, her-
self. Another patient has described how,
due to lack of space, she has not just spent
a month in the hospital’s corridors, but
also spent a night in one of its bathrooms.
Robbery? You probably
mean property
Capitalism seems incapable of surviving
on its own on this barren and windy is-
land, so the country’s leaders have turned
to more primitive forms of robbery. At
the same time, they have ceased refer-
ring to any of neoliberalism’s ideological
tropes: lately there has been no mention
of freedom, or its counterpart, the Gulag.
Leaders haven’t been saying much at all,
in fact. They’re tough guys. They act. The
two are frequently seen as opposites: the
left wing talks, money walks. The Left
doesn’t say much either, though. And the
unions stay busy running their shopping
malls and what have you.
As for the ongoing mega-transaction
from the State Treasury to some sixty
thousand mortgage accounts, that thing
they marketed as The Correction, let’s
call a spade a shovel: it’s bribery. You
bribe enough voters and they look away
while you gather the rest for yourself and
your loved ones. As for those unfortu-
nates who never took out a mortgage and
thereby had nothing to correct: when
they realize what just happened, they
might direct their anger at the slightly
more fortunate, if only those were not
their own friends and relatives, so… all
falls silent.
As if to demonstrate that you really
don’t hear the bullet that hits you. Now
and then, someone backtalks a marginal
group. In the distance you think you hear
a gunshot. Nah … it was probably just a
firecracker. It’s a safe neighbourhood.
Having successfully divided and muffled
the people, you enjoy another pleas-
ant, not to mention quiet, evening with
friends and family. You are the kind of
man who loves to share. Why else collect
wealth? Why else run a State?
Late November, a police officer wrote an article, pur-
portedly to enlighten people about immigration. He re-
lated how one night, on duty, he arrived at a household
where a man “of foreign origin” was keeping his “Icelan-
dic” wife from going out to party. The officer says that he
explained to the man that “Icelandic law” does not allow
you to hinder other people’s movements, whether the
people involved are married to you or not. Something of
the sort. The man, Birgir said, was surprised. According
to the officer, the anecdote should serve as a fable. The
lesson: that “the culture of those who come here” is not
simply “their private matter.”
Words by Haukur Már Helgason
Screenshot from EarthWindMap
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Iceland | News
Whenever the cat
became restless and
noisy, she would nudge
a pinch of butter into
its fur. The cat would
then be quietly oc-
cupied for the next
hours, trying to rid
itself of the butter.
Last month’s debates, today
ANALYSIS