Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2015, Síða 12

TVEIR HRAFNAR listhús, Art Gallery
Baldursgata 12 101 Reykjavík (at the corner of Baldursgata and Nönnugata, facing Þrír Frakkar Restaurant)
Phone: +354 552 8822 +354 863 6860 +354 863 6885 art@tveirhrafnar.is www.tveirhrafnar.is
Opening hours: Thu-Fri 12pm - 5pm, Sat 1pm - 4pm and by appointment +354 863 6860
TVEIR HRAFNAR
listhús, Art Gallery
offers a range of artwork by
contemporary Icelandic artists
represented by the gallery, se-
lected works by acclaimed artists
and past Icelandic masters.
Represented artists:
GUÐBJÖRG LIND JÓNSDÓTTIR
HALLGRÍMUR HELGASON
HÚBERT NÓI JÓHANNESSON
JÓN ÓSKAR
ÓLI G. JÓHANNSSON
STEINUNN THÓRARINSDÓTTIR
Also works by:
GEORG ÓSKAR
HADDA FJÓLA REYKDAL
HULDA HÁKON
NÍNA TRYGGVADÓTTIR
KRISTJÁN DAVÍÐSSON
– among others
HALLGRÍMUR
HELGASON
Acrylic on Darkness l
Outside your house, in the middle of the night,
while you´re sleeping
September 11 - October 10 2015
It marked the third attempted self-im-
molation by a refugee in Iceland since
2005. Just like Mehdi in 2011, he pulled
out the fuel at the Red Cross headquar-
ters, making it Iceland’s most popular
site for ethno-political suicide attempts.
A hot spot, almost.
I pondered the irony of it taking place
as a thousand new volunteers were be-
ing registered at the headquarters, up
and ready to aid new refugees. Timing. A
flood of empathy towards the drowning
refugees drowned his actions.
I had gone with two fellow anti-racist
activists to tell him of a planned pro-
refugee demonstration, hoping that we
could convince him to drink water. We
never support self-harm, but always the
right to stay.
His doctor isolated him after he gave
an interview explaining his actions at the
Red Cross. I sympathise with the deci-
sion, clinically speaking, but feel that it
overlooks the nature of his intended self-
harm; it did not happen without reason.
It was politically charged, and intended
to be heard. Confinement to isolation is
therefore akin to censorship, diminish-
ing the patient’s ability to defend and
promote his cause.
The man had spent years on the
run, half of one in Iceland. An answer
to his application for asylum was a few
months overdue. (During his stay at the
hospital, the immigration office’s staff
packed his belongings and moved them
between houses without his knowledge
or consent—losing a photo of his recently
deceased father in the process). Many
others like him have resorted to hunger
strikes to oppose unlawful arrests, house
raids, slander and deportations.
NO THANKS
These are just a few examples of our
immigration authorities’ psychopathic
approach to refugees. Of their absolute
disregard for their privacy, dignity and
well-being—not to mention the law. It
has become familiar to the point that a
numbness can set in. I, for one, had dif-
ficulties relating to an attempted self-
incineration beyond taking in the infor-
mation. That is, until I came face to face
with him in the hospital.
I hear the human mind operates that
way. Apparently we base our views and
decisions on impression and feeling, then
spend hours finding reasons, believing
ourselves to be guided by them. Playing
on emotions is thus a very desirable way
of doing propaganda. One that, strange
as it may seem, No Borders – Iceland
typically avoids.
From one human catastrophe to the
other, our organization tends to focus on
the context in which they occur rather
than their personal aspects. We wish to
support individuals, while fixating on
the revolutionary demand for a border-
less Earth. Very few get it. Explaining it
over and over again, nicely and simply,
for many, many years, doesn't appear to
help.
We typically receive criticism for
shunning institutions like the police dur-
ing our protests against decisions made
at the Ministry of the Interior. For talk-
ing about warfare and capitalism in the
same breath as refugees. For attacking
attempts by allegedly nice people to re-
form the establishment from within. For
using angry language.
When they accept a new group of
quota refugees, we grumble about closed
borders. We haven't said a single “thank
you.” Ever.
We've been driven mad and bored
to death by the discussion of our heart-
felt cause. Five years after starting the
first local No Borders collective, we are
overwhelmed by a global shockwave of
empathy for the people we fight for—and
at the same time, an absolute absence of
political context.
INCINERATE
Like the only gay in the village, we re-
main isolated and lonely in our demand
for open borders and attacks on the es-
tablishment. Rather than demanding
freedom of movement (and thus safe
passage) for the Syrian toddler who
drowned by Greece, the public asks why
he wasn't accepted as a quota refugee.
The question bypasses African, East-
Asian and European toddlers dying at—
and because of—some other borders.
This version of humanitarian
thought borders on derangement, and
accepts an extremely sinister ideology
of Western supremacy. The notion that
Europe can “unite in sharing the load,”
while at the same maintaining institu-
tions whose primary objective is to push
back immigration is contradictory and
ridiculous. Controlled immigration inev-
itably means that lives will be lost at the
borders, regardless of how many happy
faces end up on the eight o'clock news.
Our privileged continent must wrap up
its colonialism, its borders and racist in-
stitutions, before it can scratch the sur-
face of the disaster it has made of history.
Borders ensure neither peace nor
security. Rather, they tamper free move-
ment, business, survival and happiness.
They are man-made, and their mainte-
nance requires the relentless effort of
heavily funded institutions.
The pushbacks and deportations of
refugees are intentional and carefully
meditated acts of oppression. An all-out
resistance to the entire establishment of
border control is needed for the preser-
vation of refugees lives. On these points
there can be no negotiation. No room for
oportunism.
This is our ideology in a nutshell.
Simple and solid. Carved in reality and
painted in blood across the globe. But the
question remains: what marvels of litera-
ture must we produce to make it stick?
And whom must we incinerate to get the
message across?
“They're my friends! Let me speak to them!” he shouted
as the door closed shut. Four days into his hunger strike,
he had been admitted to an emergency psychiatric ward
after attempting to burn himself alive.
12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2015
Politics | Bright?Opinion | A different perspective
BORDERLINE
Empathy and
insanity in the
asylum process
“Our privileged continent
must wrap up its
colonialism; its borders
and racist institutions,
before it can scratch the
surface of the disaster it
has made of history.”
Words by Haukur Hilmarsson
Haukur Hilmarsson is an activist. He writes here on behalf
of grassroots organization No Borders – Iceland, which you
may find on Facebook.
Shock Must
Be Met
With Action
By Sigríður Víðis Jónsdóttir
“Heart-breaking images of children’s
bodies washing up on the shores of Eu-
rope… lying suffocated in the backs of
trucks crossing borders… being passed
over barbed wire fences by desperate
parents. As the migrant and refugee
crisis in Europe deepens, these will not
be the last shocking images to ricochet
around the world on social media, on
our televisions screens and on the front
pages of our newspapers. But it is not
enough for the world to be shocked by
these images. Shock must be matched
by action.”
These are the words of UNICEF’s
Executive Director, Anthony Lake, last
week. I couldn’t agree more.
“For the plight of these children is nei-
ther by their choice nor within their con-
trol. They need protection. They have a
right to protection,” he added.
Here is a deeply shocking fact about
the war in Syria: More than half of those
fleeing from it are children. I repeat: More
than half.
These children and their families
need help, and they need it now. The vast
majority of those fleeing the conflict are
still within Syria’s borders. About one
third are in the neighbouring countries.
Only a fraction has made it to Europe.
While on the move—whether be-
cause of the war in Syria, other conflicts
or poverty—children face specific vul-
nerabilities, especially when deprived of
a supportive family environment. They
are entitled to special protection and
assistance. We must make every effort
to prevent the abuse and exploitation
of these children. We must help families
stay together.
We must do much more. And we cer-
tainly can.
As the debates on policies proceed,
we must never lose sight of the deeply
human nature of this crisis and others
like it.
--
Sigríður is Communication and
Advocacy Director at UNICEF Ice-
land. She wrote the book ‘Ríkisfang:
Ekkert’ (“Citizenship: None”), about
Palestinian refugees who were
granted asylum in Akranes, Iceland.