Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2013, Qupperneq 8

Continues over
On July 6, the Reykjavík City
Council gave permission to build
an 800 square metre mosque in
Reykjavík, Iceland’s first build-
ing constructed specifically as a
mosque. It will have a nine metre
tall tower, which as phallic sym-
bols go is dwarfed by Hallgrím-
skirkja's seventy-four and a half
metre tall church tower.
As we all know, the ve-
racity of your religious
beliefs is validated by
the size of your sym-
bolic penis.
The point is that the mosque will
be a fairly modest building, as
befits the modest size of the con-
gregation that received the per-
mission. Félag múslima á Íslandi
(“The Association of Muslims
in Iceland”) has a little over 450
members. Nevertheless, some
people in Iceland have reacted
to news of a proposed mosque in
Reykjavík like 18th Century hemp
farmers in a desperate hurry to
ride into town who discovered that
their only riding horse had gotten
into their crops.
They got on their
high horse?
That they did. In Iceland, letters to
the editor are given the space and
weight of commissioned opinion
pieces, and many a concerned citi-
zen sent in an opinion piece about
the planned mosque. Mostly their
concerns can be paraphrased as
"Muslims are icky, ewwwwww..."
In fairness to the wide variety of
people who write letters to the
editor, some wrote to declare their
support for the mosque building.
Please don't tell me
what people who
leave comments on
newspaper websites
say, I like to pretend
they don't exist.
Among those sending unsolicited
letters to newspapers was Ólafur
F. Magnússon, former mayor of
Reykjavík. He accused the cur-
rent mayor and his political allies
of riding roughshod over all other
religious communities in Iceland
by giving a Muslim congregation
building rights for a mosque. He
undermined that point somewhat
by saying that instead of a mosque,
the city should "make plans that
a temple of Icelandic paganism
should rise on that spot."
My senses tingle
with the premonition
that Icelandic pagans
would really rather not
be there.
Your tingling senses are right. Hil-
mar Örn Hilmarsson, high priest
of Ásatrúarfélagið (the Icelandic
Pagan Association), said in an in-
terview with radio station Bylgjan
that his congregation had secured
planning permission for a temple
many years ago and were quite
happy with their spot.
That must've shut up
that former mayor.
Think again! In a second letter to
a newspaper, Ólafur F. Magnús-
son doubled down and said some
stupid and offensive things I see
no reason to repeat. However, one
bit of weirdness bears mentioning.
At the end of his letter, the former
mayor invokes his ancestors from
the island of Heimaey, which was
attacked in 1627 by pirates from
the area of modern Morocco and
Algeria. There, and elsewhere
in Iceland, they raided and took
slaves. He said it was disgusting
that religious brethren of those
who committed mass murder on
that island were given a place of
honour in Reykjavík.
Say what you will
about that guy, at
least he knows his
history. And is a rac-
ist. Let's not forget to
mention that.
It is dangerous to invoke an-
cient murders and slave-taking
as something to get angry about.
Many Icelanders are descended
from slaves taken by Vikings
who raided in the British Isles in
the 9th and 10th Centuries. Those
Vikings are, of course, also ances-
tors to many Icelanders. So if you
follow the former mayor's logic,
every time an Icelander treats an
Icelander like a human being with
the same rights and dignity as ev-
eryone else, we should all feel dis-
gusted and angry.
vI hope the Islamopho-
bic outrage petered
out quickly.
Actually, pretty much, yeah.
Though there was a bit of a foofa-
raw when state radio RÚV broad-
cast an interview with Ahmad
Seddeq, an imam with another,
smaller Muslim congregation in
Reykjavík called Menningarsetur
múslima á Íslandi (“The Muslim
Culture Centre in Iceland”), which
is generally considered somewhat
more conservative than the Asso-
ciation of Muslims in Iceland. In
the interview he said a stupid and
offensive thing about gay people,
which I see no reason to repeat,
that was condemned by the Asso-
ciation of Muslims in Iceland.
A conservative re-
ligious person says
something stupid and
offensive about gay
people? Who could've
seen that coming?
No one, no one could have seen
that coming. Or everyone. Conser-
vative Christians in Iceland have
been saying stupid and offensive
things about gay people for quite
a while now. If history has taught
one thing, it is that idiotic and of-
fensive things can be expressed by
people of any creed or skin colour.
And if history has taught us an-
other thing, it is that men will use
any excuse to build penis-shaped
buildings. There are so many al-
ready, there is no harm in another
one.
So What Is This Reykjavík Mosque
I Keep Hearing About?
by Kári Tulinius
Iceland | FAQ
Illustration: Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
Iceland and fish are seen together
so commonly in sentences that they
might as well get married already,
which is probably what raised such
alarm when Iceland’s women’s
football team Instagrammed a pho-
tograph of Sigurwin, the team gold-
fish, being held in a life-threatening
position near an open toilet bowl.
The photo prompted a Swedish
animal rights group to report the
women’s football team for animal
abuse, forcing the team to apolo-
gise for such immature behaviour.
Meanwhile, off the coast of Reyk-
javík, another animal rights group
was busy waving their fists at Ice-
land’s aquatic animal policies. A
whale watching boat was deployed
from Reykjavík harbour to greet a
Samskip vessel carrying the reject-
ed whale meat on its return from
Germany. The group greeting the
vessel brandished signs that read
“Til hvers?” and “What’s the point
of whaling?”
Well, we’re not going to answer that.
Instead, let us direct your attention
to Þorlákshöfn, where construc-
tion has begun for a 23,000 square
metre mink farm. It will be Iceland’s
29th mink farm. Collectively, the in-
dustry produces 180,000 furs annu-
ally. It’s almost as if Iceland is stick-
ing its tongue out at animal rights
activists.
While Iceland is busy teasing the an-
imal rights world, the Vice Mayor of
Serbian town Krusevac was recent-
ly punished for her own childish tac-
tics. Slobodanka Miladinovic was
forced to resign due to an offensive
name-calling incident targeting
Erla Dürr Magnúsdóttir, an Icelan-
dic volunteer giving a presentation
in Miladinovic’s city (she said Erla
looked like a “bell pepper-picker”).
Or maybe it was because she used
a “NOT” joke in 2013.
Either way, the public figure humbly
backed down, a move that the Ice-
landic whaling industry was never
taught. Despite a declaration by
the Icelandic shipping company,
Samskip, that they will no longer
carry whale-meat to Asia after the
Hamburg incident, whaling itself
continues as usual with no prospect
of slowing anytime soon.
But the show must go on. Espe-
NEWS IN BRIEF
JULY
8The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 11 — 2013
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