Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.11.2015, Síða 8

Garðabær location. In the past, ar-
sonists have more often than not set
the goat aflame, when our robust
winds haven’t torn it to pieces. Tak-
ing no chances, IKEA set up an elec-
trical fence and CCTV around the
goat… only for the goat to set itself on
fire, most likely through faulty wir-
ing in string lights festooned around
the creature. Who could’ve predict-
ed that stringing electrical wiring
around a giant pile of straw would
result in a fire?
Are you a Belieber? Chances
are, then, that you’ve seen Justin
Bieber’s video, shot in Iceland. The
video, for the song “I’ll Show You,”
shows Bieber gallivanting and cavort-
ing around the country. Most notably,
it seems he also tromped through
some naturally protected areas—
some of which are covered with frag-
ile moss that takes decades to grow—
before taking a swim in the waters
of Jökulsárlón. Tourism industry
workers in Iceland were none too
pleased with the example the young
pop star set, and said so. We’re just
lucky Bieber’s video didn’t also show
him doing donuts in a Land Rover
and offroading, which is also frowned
upon in Iceland.
Björk has once again spoken out
to protect Iceland’s wilderness. In
particular, she recently held a press
conference with author Andri Snær
Magnason, wherein the two outlined
government plans to develop the
highlands for power cables and hy-
droelectric dams. Her call to action to
prevent this from happening made in-
ternational headlines—and also drew
the attention of Minister of Indus-
try Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir, who
contends that Björk has it all wrong.
There are only plans to develop the
Highlands, the minister said, and
those plans haven’t been approved,
yet. Right. Maybe not the slam-dunk
retort Ragnheiður was shooting for.
Lastly, the police questioned and
then released two men accused of
raping and torturing at least two
women. These two guys subsequently
left the country. The outrage this
sparked, exacerbated by stonewalling
from the police, culminated in a mas-
sive demonstration in front of Reyk-
javík police HQ by Hlemmur. The
lawyer for the accused, Vilhjálmur
H. Vilhjálmsson (a guy who recently
noted that the media spends too much
time covering sex crimes), denies the
allegations, has filed countercharges
of false accusation against the two
women, and is planning to sue not
only newspaper Fréttablaðið, for
covering the story, but also every
person on social media who shared
the names and faces of the accused.
Where this case goes from here is
anyone’s guess, but we’ll keep you
posted.
NEWS
IN
BRIEF
I C E L A N D 4 D U M M I E S
8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 17 — 2015
Politics | Bright?Brand ng | Nation
This call for solidarity instantly caught
international attention: “Icelanders
Use Facebook to Open Door to Refu-
gees,” claimed the New York Times,
while Time.com headlined: “Thou-
sands of Icelanders Have Volunteered
to Take Syrian Refugees Into Their
Homes.” While the country's centre-
right government gratefully accepted
the campaign's value for nation-brand-
ing, looking good does not necessitate
doing good. The number of refugees to
receive protection in Iceland this year
remains between fifty and one hun-
dred persons.
Public relations
Geographically, Iceland is remote from
Europe's southern borders. Politically,
it is not. “Fifty refugees?” people asked
when late summer's impossible im-
ages appeared. Children by the shore,
drowned. A truck in the alps, filled
with corpses, suffocated. Is asylum
for fifty people really the most we can
provide? On August 30, Welfare Min-
ister Eygló declared her joy over peo-
ple's solidarity with refugees, calling it
“strong support for the Government's
refugee policies.” “What will the gov-
ernment do, then?” pressed the radio
host. The minister equivocated: “The
matter is under review.” Right. What
will that mean, materially? “For this to
work out and work well, we need help,”
said the Minister. “I want to encour-
age those thousands of people to step
forward, contact us, at the Ministry
of Welfare or the Red Cross, and ask
what they can do to help.”
In response to the minister's open
call, author Bryndís Björgvinsdót-
tir created the Facebook event cited
above. Within a day, Prime Minister
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson re-
sponded. Many Icelanders want to
accept more refugees, interviewers
pointed out—what is your perspective?
The Minister sounded viscerally ill at
ease at such questions, and spoke at
length about the enormity of the chal-
lenge, before replying that he intended
to swiftly… “form a ministerial com-
mittee.”
The following night, three-year-old
Aylan Kurdi's family made the journey
which ended as an icon of our evil,
an image that will continue to haunt
us. The boy's dead body was found
by Turkey's shore on the morning of
September 2. The subsequent wave of
sorrow may have fuelled the demand
for any sign of hope. In any case,
the good news from Ice-
land spread through
headlines like
wildfire: 10,000
Icelanders of-
fer to house
Syrian refu-
gees after
a u t h o r ' s
call, 10,000
Heroes Open
Their Homes
to Syrian Ref-
ugees, and so on.
The company
you keep
A few days later, PM Sigmundur Davíð
began his an-
nual policy
statement by
m e n t i o n i n g
the refugee
crisis. Syr-
ian refugees
remind us,
he said, “how
grateful we
can be for
the life which
our good
and peaceful
society has
given us, so
far away from the world's field of mas-
sacres.” Through the 20th century,
however, Iceland rarely proved too
far away from massacres to partake in
their profits. The first significant ex-
ample may be when Iceland opted out
of the interwar League of Nations, in
order to maintain fish exports to Italy,
at the time under sanctions for war
crimes in Ethiopia. Mussolini showed
his appreciation by personally signing
the two countries' trade agreement.
More significant in the current
context, however, is Iceland's ap-
proach to refugees before and during
World War II. Hermann Jónasson,
Sigmundur Davíð’s precursor as both
Prime Minister and leader of the Pro-
gressive Party, refused entry to any
Jewish refugees “on principle.” When
Icelandic families sought to foster ten
Austrian Jewish children through
the war, Hermann proved principled
enough to reject their applications for
permits. Why? At the time, Germany
was a major importer of Iceland's fish,
the country's main export product.
Economics may not, however, fully
explain the Minister's choice of prin-
ciples. Only after the war did Iceland's
parliament learn that in July 1939,
Hermann had sent the 24-year-old
Agnar Kofoed-Hansen to Berlin, for
police training. The young air captain
was greeted as “Heinrich Himmler's
personal guest,” then studied for 40
days with Police chief Kurt Dalüge,
who was later tried and hanged for
war crimes.
Bypassing Agnar Kofoed-Hansen's
lack of academic credentials, Her-
mann appointed him as Police Chief
in January of 1940. When the Brit-
ish army occupied Iceland that April,
they saw reason to disarm Agnar's
paramilitary forces. As Police Chief,
however, he remained in office until
1947. Among his duties was the estab-
lishment and organization of Iceland's
first immigration office. In 2002, the
institute's mandate and name were al-
tered, but to this day the Directorate of
Immigration processes all applications
for residence permits and asylum.
"No coloured troops"
The current relevance of Agnar
Kofoed-Hansen's Nazi in-
ternship remains un-
clear. On the one
hand, the actual
reasoning be-
hind Agnar's
training in
Germany has
never come
to light. His
report from
the journey
has not been
made public,
and Prime Minis-
ter Hermann Jónas-
son seems to have easily
evaded all relevant questions. On
the other hand, Iceland's immigration
policies remain obscure. No Icelandic
government has ever declared an of-
ficial immi-
gration policy.
Some patterns
may, however,
be deciphered
through au-
thorities' ac-
tual practices.
In 1941,
as American
forces replaced
the British oc-
cupiers, Ice-
land made
eight official
requirements
of the newcomers. Stipulation number
four in the two countries' agreement
was that only “select soldiers” would
be deployed to Iceland. Prime Minis-
ter Hermann Jónasson clarified the
euphemism to a concerned Alþingi:
“Due to internal affairs in the USA,
it was not considered proper to state
this explicitly in the agreement, but
we have made it clear to the parties
involved that what was meant is that
no coloured troops shall be deployed
here.”
At the establishment of a perma-
nent NATO air base in Keflavík in
1951, Iceland reiterated the demand.
Whenever the racist policy was pub-
licly criticized in the US, however,
Icelandic media not only downplayed
the criticism but actually denied that
the well-documented policy existed.
“No racial discrimination in Kefla-
vík,” headlined the social-democratic
daily Alþýðublaðið as late as 1964, in
response to a mention of the policy in
an American academic publication. As
refutation, the newspaper pointed out
that “there are now two negroes” at
the Keflavík air base.
Little data is available on Iceland's
exclusionary policies, but anecdotes
run endless. Lest anyone think Ice-
land's exclusion of minorities is lim-
ited to African-Americans or a bygone
era, consider what transpired when
twenty-one Romanians of Roma eth-
nicity ventured to Iceland in 2007. As
members of the Schengen area, the
Romanians were by then officially free
to travel and stay in the country. None
of them were known to have broken
any law. Unable to officially deport
the group, then, police officers instead
slandered the newcomers in the media
—“it is well known that criminality
follows these kinds of people,” and so
on— until hotels collectively refused
to accommodate them. Within a week
of their arrival, all the Romanians had
accepted return flight tickets, “of-
fered” to them by the Police, according
to whom the group thereby “voluntari-
ly” left the country. This extra-legal
process received little critical media
coverage. It has been repeated since.
There are no Roma communities in
Iceland.
In a twisted variety of egalitarian-
ism, Iceland discriminates against all
ethnic minority groups equally.
Dependencies
Icelandic had no word for the Holo-
caust until an eponymous American
TV series needed translation in 1980.
For decades, Icelanders spoke of World
War II as “the blessed war”: occupying
forces brought about a swift process of
modernization. Without any ruined
cities or fallen soldiers, Iceland then
received the greatest amount of post-
war Marshall aid, per capita, followed
by the permanent air base in Keflavík.
Beyond the country's first rural road
system, provided by the Brits, and the
first international airport, provided by
the US, the air base gave Iceland lever-
age to make high demands throughout
the Cold War. Threats of closing the fa-
cility or exiting NATO secured victory
against the Royal British Navy in the
so-called Cod Wars, through which
Iceland extended its exclusive fishing
grounds from four nautical miles to an
eventual 200 nautical mile radius. In
return, Iceland ardently supported US
military ventures through Korea, Viet-
nam, Afghanistan—and Iraq.
At the end of the Cold War, the
future of the Keflavík base became
uncertain. To gain the Bush adminis-
tration's favour and keep the base, Ice-
land signed up to the 2003 “coalition
of the willing.” In July of 2004, Prime
Minister Davíð Oddsson visited the
White House to further deter US au-
thorities from leaving. In a subsequent
joint press conference, Davíð claimed
that the “future of Iraq and the world
is much better” due to the US inva-
sion, adding: “There is hope now, there
was no hope before.” Then, along with
journalists, Davíð sang happy birthday
to the president.
Regardless, in 2006 the base shut
down. Davíð Oddsson may have been
more cunningly realist than delu-
Paint An
Open Gate
On This
Wall!
In a single day at the end of August, ten thousand Iceland-
ers, three percent of the country's minuscule population,
signed up to the Facebook event “Dear Eygló Harðar – Syria
Calling.” Addressed to Welfare Minister Eygló Harðardót-
tir, the online event was created to show—and demand—
Iceland's support to Syrian refugees. Signatories offered
hosting, language lessons, legal aid etc.
Words by ............................................ Haukur Már Helgason
Illustration by .......................................... Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
Continues on p. 12
“While the country's
centre-right govern-
ment gratefully accepted
the campaign's value for
nation-branding, looking
good does not necessitate
doing good. The number of
refugees to receive protec-
tion in Iceland this year
remains between fifty and
one hundred persons.”