Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2016, Blaðsíða 16

Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2016, Blaðsíða 16
Iceland Was Always Too Good To Be True Words CLEMENS BOMSDORF Photo by ART BICNICK Iceland has a lot to be proud of and there are things that can be learned from Ice- land’s recovery, but perfect it is not. The 2008 crisis was at least in some part homegrown, and to see its recovery as flawless is to neglect a great deal of in- ternal conflicts and moral shortcom- ings faced by Icelanders on the path to recovery. Internationally, the Panama Papers brought to light details that in some cas- es were already known in Iceland. But without this disclosure that made the world aware of what was possible in Ice- land, the Prime Minister would not have been forced out. Hence, newspapers like The Guardian and Süddeutsche Zeitung not only contributed to transparency, but also to democracy in Iceland. However, before the Panama Papers it would have been perfectly possible for foreign media to report on Iceland and its elites’ disproportionate offshoring. That Finance Minister Bjarni Bene- diktsson had a Swiss bank account was already reported in 2010 by local me- dia. So too was was his involvement in extracting approximately €320 million out of Iceland on behalf of private enti- ties just before the country’s banks col- lapsed, taking society down with it. Local banks bought ads encouraging the upper middle class to offshore per- sonal wealth as early as 1999. Iceland’s offshoring is and has always been an open secret. Owning an offshore com- pany was practically a status symbol for Iceland’s old money and privatization profiteers. Iceland's Reagan and Thatcher Iceland is as im- perfect as others. It is a small coun- try where almost everybody knows each other; of- ten journalists, businessmen and politicians, who should be oppo- nents, went to school together, are friends and some- times part of the same family. Take Davíð Oddsson, the politician who shaped Iceland at least as much as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher shaped their countries. It is symptomat- ic of Iceland that he could go from Prime Minister, laying down the policies for an exaggerated boom, to the head of the Central Bank, where he does nothing to prevent the financial meltdown, and then finally to Morgunblaðið, Iceland’s establishment paper, where he becomes editor-in-chief, re- writing history. Did it infuriate people? Yes, of course it did. Was there a signifi- cant decline in read- ership and revenue? Yes, but again the profit of silencing critical journalism is well worth the loss. It reminds one of Putin, Erdogan or any banana repub- lic, and shouldn’t be accepted—certain- ly not in a country praised as the per- fect example of a democratic society. The situation in Iceland isn’t just an Icelandic matter, it is an international one. When everyone outside the coun- try talks about Iceland idealistically it undermines what little criticism exists internally. The risks here are the same Clemens Bomsdorf has since the early 2000s worked as a Nordic corre- spondent. His work about Iceland has been published in Zeit online, The Wall Street Journal and The Art Newspaper, amongst others. Additional reporting by Thor Fanndal, an Icelandic investiga- tive reporter. He is writing for Kven- nabladid and Frét- tatiminn. Currently he also attends the Masters in Journal- ism Programme at Edinburgh Napier University. The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 5 — 2016 16 as with any child showered with compli- ments by parents and family. Constantly telling a child it is smarter, braver and better than the rest will convince any child these claims are true and force it to ignore the obvious signs to the contrary. Foreshadowing revelations The journalists behind the Panama Pa- pers have done us a great service, but let’s not pretend the leak is the first we heard of this. That simply is not the case, neither in Iceland nor in the rest of the world. Bloomberg, for example, reported on a scandalous Visa deal in Iceland. In 2014, public assets of the credit card company were sold to relatives of the Finance Minister at a cut rate. General interest newspapers paid scant atten- tion. The scandal—though it lead to ma- jor changes at the board of a state-run bank, that years before was at the core of the financial crisis!—was not seen as interesting enough, was complicated to understand, and, after all, stories about Iceland and elves are cheaper to produce and have a tendency to trend. The same reason might apply to the lack of coverage after a recent change of law allowing the infamous banksters to be moved out of prison ahead of sched- ule without international notice. These are the same bankers which the media the world over has hailed Iceland for sentencing. Editors are not the only ones at fault. We reporters should have pushed harder and pitched more on what lies beneath the glossy surface of Iceland’s recovery. The banana republic of Iceland has all the elements of an interesting story and can offer value to readers the world over. Putin equivalents Iceland has not gone unreported; just overpraised. While Icelanders attempt- ed to reclaim their society from those that bankrupted it, international media told readers all over the world of a serene and cute island in the north. Icelandic journalists must now take the time to wonder if they did every- thing in their power to make sure all relevant information was published in a way that offered the necessary perspec- tive for the Icelandic public. Perhaps the Icelandic media could have stopped the equivalents of Putin and Erdogan from running this perfect little island, but the task wasn’t made any easier by foreign colleagues con- stantly telling the rest of the world how delightful and wonderful it is to live in this magical land of democracy and purity called Iceland. It is simply ludi- crous to believe there exists an island that somehow consistently manages to be unaffected by greed, corruption and profiteering. SHARE: gpv.is/toogood “Was there a significant decline in reader- ship and revenue? Yes, but again the profit of silencing critical journalism is well worth the loss.” MADE IN ICELAND www.jswatch.com With his legendary concentration and 45 years of experience our Master Watchmaker ensures that we take our waterproofing rather seriously. Gilbert O. Gudjonsson, our Master Watchmaker and renowned craftsman, inspects every single timepiece before it leaves our workshop. ANALYSIS
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