Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2015, Side 17

Team
FRI
17The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2015
somehow when faced with something
like this? Isn’t there some primal in-
stinct that commands a human to offer
a helping hand, when many other hu-
mans are dying senseless, easily avoid-
able deaths in some ocean or on some
prairie because of nothing important,
really.
Unaware of the minister’s com-
ments, Bryndís thought: “I am unhappy
with this plan, and I should do some-
thing, anything, to express this notion,
and I should maybe offer a solution. She
fucked around on Facebook, as we are
grown accustomed to. Bryndís grew
restless or frustrated in her thoughts.
She had seen those photographs—they
were all over Facebook.
Like many times in the past, Bryn-
dís had an idea. Just a thought, really,
or an inkling. She considered that idea,
and then she casually thought: yes, why
not? Why not.
So she moved forward and spent a
little time and she executed a little idea
that would amuse her friends and per-
haps inspire others to maybe come up
with other ideas, and perhaps help her
vent some of the frustration.
Then, something happened.
Another thing happened.
Things kept happening.
And here we are.
Reader: there’s much much more
for you. The room ran out, the ar-
ticles are too many.
Go on the internet, it has the rest
and more: an actual conversation,
with quotes and insights and ideas
and information.
Find everything else and that con-
versation on our website, its name
is: www.grapevine.is
Meet
The Ninja
Words by John Rogers
As Bryndís’s Facebook event snow-
balled, the “Kæra Eygló” initiative re-
ceived a wave of attention from various
groups. Along with heightened positive
interest from concerned and energised
Icelanders—and the worldwide me-
dia—the page also caught the attention
of various online anti-immigration/refu-
gee/Muslim groups, who launched a re-
lentless attack on the page, spamming
it page with inflammatory comments,
memes and videos. Meanwhile, Bryndís
was inundated with interview requests
and queries from all over the world, far
surpassing her capacity to respond in a
measured and timely fashion.
She determined that she would nev-
er be able to do this all by herself, opting
to post a simple call for help in dealing
with the growing shitstorm. Almost im-
mediately, her request was enthusias-
tically met by a plethora of volunteers
from all walks of life; old friends and
complete strangers alike, all eager to
offer a helping hand, all enthusiastic
to make a difference. The haphazard
team assembled and got right to work,
managing media requests, translating
documents and moderating the debate,
keeping the trolls at bay by way of coun-
ter-argument or deletion.
We spoke with five of them, so as to
learn what their duties entail and what
they have learned so far, and gain some
insight their motivation and drive.
Jóhann Hjalti
Þorsteinsson (39)
Administrative aid and
driver for the EU delegation
“I joined the event when we had less
than 500 people in the group. As it grew,
I started to notice discussion threads
that were full of misconceptions, and
also at some points, plain racist.”
“We volunteers eventually found
threads on international racist groups,
where they were organising to attack
the event. We started by answering
them with counter-arguments, unless
they were simply too racist to be reck-
oned with. We just wanted to allow peo-
ple to come and make their pledges of
support.”
“I wish in hindsight that I had screen-
captured some of the negative com-
ments I deleted—some of it’s tanta-
mount to the footage of the Hungarian
camerawoman that’s been online this
week, where she tripped and kicked
refugees. Some people simply don’t see
refugees as human beings.”
Andri Einarsson
(33) Bouncer and model
“The event grew from 500 to 10,000 peo-
ple overnight. We were monitoring it all day,
on and off. We had a group chat going in
real time, where we’d discuss what we were
deleting—much of which was anti-Muslim
propaganda from abroad. We didn’t want
to censor the debate too much—ideally,
we didn’t want to censor it at all, but it be-
came necessary to do so.”
“I think it was the generosity implied in
the efforts that proved inspiring to people.
As for the negative side... some people
just have very strong feelings about immi-
gration in general. It turned out that many
commenters also had very strong feelings
about Iceland—like they have a strange
picture of it in their heads, and they don’t
want it ‘ruined’.”
“I think a lot of these people need to find
something better to do with their time than
spreading racist propaganda—and think-
ing they know better than us how Iceland
should be.”
Dagbjört Hákonardóttir
(31) Lawyer for the Reykjavík
Citizen’s Ombudsman
“The first point of the event was to address
our Minister of Welfare. We wanted to have
a voice on our immigration and refugee
policies. But it turns out, we were maybe
targeting the wrong person—so the next
thing to do is put pressure on our Prime
Minister.”
“I don’t know if the message has been
heard by the government. We have heard
nothing from the committee on refugees.
We are desperate for information. We
want numbers—the minimum numbers of
refugees that Iceland will take. Our Foreign
Minister has only said he’s not engaged in a
‘pissing contest' about numbers.”
“This is not primarily a refugee prob-
lem—it is a humanitarian problem. I see
no problems with accepting hundreds of
mostly well-educated Syrians who want to
live a peaceful life and join the workforce
here. These people want to contribute. It
doesn’t feel like something we should have
to explain, but apparently we do.”
Salka Guðmundsdóttir
(34) Playwright & translator
“Like many others, I was already emotional
about the state of events, wondering what
I could do to help when this came along. It
was something that just needed to hap-
pen—people were out there, just waiting
for someone to take the initiative.”
“It was very important to get it out
there into the media. Bryndís pointed
out that every single article we could get
might spark an initiative somewhere else
and spur someone into action. It has now
been reported all over the world—France,
Italy, Peru, Australia, New Zealand… we had
people from Australia and the US patrolling
the event while we slept! But I wasn’t sur-
prised—people were longing to help and
looking for an outlet. These things happen
quickly, and it’s important to seize the mo-
ment.”
Óskar Hallgrímsson
(33) Photographer and
graphic designer
“I think they government has at least heard
our message. They wouldn’t have made
the parliamentary committee as quickly
and as rigorously otherwise, and we did get
a response from the minister that we were
addressing. But we have no results to show
yet. I am hopeful that we’re going to, at the
very least, now take more than the planned
50 people—maybe in the hundreds, or
even thousands.”
“It was one thing to monitor the page
against racists—to be a ninja and take
them out one by one—but then we also
had people who were on the ground in
Syria, Greece and Turkey who contacted
us. Rather than watching this crisis unfold
through the media, we suddenly had direct
contact. One guy posted a picture of him-
self and his kids on the page, and said ‘We
have no money, and no plan, can you help
us?’ He was just scared and just needed
help. It put a whole new perspective on this,
to talk to another human—just some guy
who was actually there in this terrible situ-
ation.”