Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.01.2015, Blaðsíða 34

F O R O N L I N E B O O K I N G S - W W W . S B A . I S
LAKE MÝVATN WINTER TOUR
DISCOVER THE NORTH
A Calendar With Poop In It | Hugleikur Dagsson
We Need 1,000,000
Humans, Stat
Dr. Gunni
writer, musician
At the end of 2014, we find ourselves in-
habiting a Western welfare state, a pretty
good one thank you very much. However,
we need about a million more people to
make things more interesting and fun.
The coming year will bring endless
nagging about our horrible government
and the garbage Progressive Party. This
will ultimately prove inconsequential,
because the bourgeoisie will inevitably
fall for whatever new hocus pocus tricks
our rulers will come up with for the next
elections.
The year’s optimal outcome—since
it’s not very realistic to imagine we’ll get
an extra million people to Iceland by the
end of 2015—is that some great new polit-
ical party will make itself known. Some-
thing one can support and identify with,
a party with a vision for the future and a
goal of making Iceland (even) better. The
worst possible outcome is terminal sta-
sis—and/or an eruption in Breiðholt.

Shattered Conceptions
Atli Bollason
DJ, writer, scholar, flâneur
In 2014, we saw that politicians are not
afraid to attack institutions and ideals
that some of us had—naïvely, I admit—
come to take for granted. We thought
we all agreed to keep public radio alive;
we thought we all wanted lower taxes on
culture and healthy foods and a higher
asking price for natural resources; we
thought we were forever free to roam our
own country; we thought we were kind
and tolerant and peaceful and welcom-
ing; we thought we had agreed to fight
inequality and safeguard the communal;
we even thought our politicians—also
those we disagreed with—were mostly
intelligent and ultimately reasonable and
well-meaning people.
All of these conceptions were shat-
tered. We have come to understand that a
political system that allows for such rapid
disintegration of our social structures
and values must be seriously flawed.
In 2015, the divide between the reac-
tionary and the progressive margins of
Icelandic society will come into sharper
focus, and the near-perfect image of the
quirky, chipper, innovative and liberal
nation under the Arctic Circle that we
like to recognize in the mirror will crack.
Here's hoping we won't have another
seven years of the bad luck we had in
2014.
Hope In Dangerous
Times
María Lilja Þrastardóttir
journalist/provocateur
The year 2014 has left me asking what it
really means to be Icelandic, and wheth-
er that might be something I should feel
embarrassed about. Because looking
back, I kinda do.
For Iceland, last year was marked by
a plethora of major scandals, especially
in the fields of politics and law enforce-
ment. We witnessed our politicians
and oligarchs make sickening attempts
to shut down any and every attempt at
investigative journalism. We were sub-
jected to the nature pass, attempts to
militarise our police force, Biggi the cop,
Hanna Birna, livestock farmers’ system-
atic mistreatment of animals, a corrupt
dairy monopoly, the Progressive Party...
the list goes on. And on. And on.
We also witnessed the collapse of the
Icelandic healthcare system as our gov-
ernment diverted funds to a small group
of homeowners, to enforce a so-called
“correction.”
We are now learning that the our
the State Church will also get its very
own “correction” from the state, while
thinly veiled nationalists (fascists?) try
their best to stir up fear against Muslims,
mosques, and anyone of foreign descent
(along with “foreign food” (?!?)).
These are some dangerous times, for
Iceland and for the rest of the world. I sin-
cerely hope that the year 2015 will be the
year of public uprising, where we unite to
fight corruption, racism and inequality.
May the force be with us!
34
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2015