Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2016, Blaðsíða 23

It’s a growing industry, and will likely
continue to grow in the near future,
but there has been plenty of criticism
from within the industry that we’re
not doing enough to make it sustain-
able. And it’s certainly been having an
impact on our society, whether eco-
nomically, in regards to housing, in-
frastructure or urban planning. How
can we do tourism better?
B: I think it’s basically a trial and er-
ror process. We’ve done a lot of things
right, but I think it’s a shame that so
many things have been reactive, may-
be to a fault, and we need to climb out
of that. The way to do that is to have
a vision, looking maybe twenty or
thirty years into the future. It’s al-
ready been laid out, by [author] Andri
Snær [Magnason] and many others,
which is sanctioning off all the land
that isn’t being used for agriculture
right now. Making all the rest of it a
national park, and making it a very
special place. So instead of responding
to mundane problems, we need to put
forward a vision. Obviously, that will
cost something, whether that means
raising our taxes or putting taxes on
the tourists themselves. In the end,
it’s about supply and demand. Right
now, we’ve got a lot of demand, but Ice-
land isn’t a very big country. My vision
is that we just cordon off a significant
part of the country, and forbid cameras
there. It feels like a step back, but really
it would be quite an accomplishment.
Maybe someone will read this quote and
think it’s a stupid idea, and that’s fine,
but we need to talk about. Say why it’s
stupid. Let’s start a debate on it. I’m re-
ally asking for more ideas out there.
SS: I definitely agree with Bergur,
and I’ve been seeing this idea of “quiet
spaces” being floated around. A place
where people can pay to be not dis-
turbed: no internet, no cam-
eras, nothing. A digital de-
tox. I also believe we need to
re-think the national park,
because everything so far
has just been trial and error.
We’re laughing at the ex-
perts who are telling us we
need to stop mass tourism,
but that’s what we need to
do. I think the current situa-
tion is mirroring our pre-
crash situation.
V: I think we do need a
grand vision, and that Ice-
land needs to be forward-
thinking for the first time,
instead of just reacting. Like
the Nature Pass [a parlia-
mentary proposal that ulti-
mately failed, suggesting that tourists
should pay a flat fee to visit Iceland’s
sites of natural wonder]. What hap-
pened to that? We were discussing this
for three years and then nothing. Why
haven’t we put something in place that
gives us the financial resources to cre-
ate the grand vision and then execute
it? We need to create this foundation
so we can do this well, and welcome all
these people who want to come here.
U: We have a lot of tourists, but com-
pared to other places, it’s not that
much. I’ve seen countries do it very
well and countries do it very badly.
Some places are getting gradually
more plastic, and Iceland is getting so
close to becoming plastic itself.
V: We should also watch out, because
with our currency, it’s becoming more
expensive to come here. At the same
time, there’s this gold-digging attitude
going on, where the prices of things
are going up. There must be a turn-
ing point where this doesn’t go hand-
in-hand; it’ll start decreasing again. I
think we also must distribute tourists
to other parts of the country, whether
that’s by improving the Ring Road or
increasing domestic flights. There are
parts of the country that tourists just
don't visit, because there's no rooms
available.
U: If you brought up this national park
idea to people living abroad, they'd re-
spond, "Of course." It's a non-issue to
people all over the world, but in Ice-
land it becomes a huge issue created
by politicians.
Paul: Lastly, we get to immigration.
And by that I don't just mean "regu-
lar" immigrants to Iceland, but also
so-called quota refugees and asylum
seekers. What can we and ought we be
doing better?
B: I think we need to have a more gen-
eral discussion about the kind of im-
migration policy we should have. In
many ways, Canada is analogous to
our situation—they had this discus-
sion decades ago, when they were,
like us, a very homogenous society.
I feel like we haven’t really had this
discussion here, and frankly, I think
it’s a discussion that only the younger
generation should be taking part in,
because we’re looking towards the fu-
ture here. And the question here is: do
we want Iceland to be a truly multicul-
tural society? This doesn’t mean just a
few people from other countries living
here. We’re talking about a lot of peo-
ple, maybe thirty or forty years down
the road, maybe even a third of the
country. I think the outcome of such
a discussion would be that the major-
ity of young Icelanders are ready for
some significant changes in Icelandic
society. Once we have this major dis-
cussion, then I think issues over the
smaller details will be no-brainers.
SS: Well, I have to ask: where would
that discussion take place? Would it
be some kind of National Assembly
[referring to the nationwide citizen’s
conference that was the prelude to the
constitutional draft]? Because a lot
of schools around the country are al-
ready trying to implement that kind of
discussion.
B: Certainly, and I think that the po-
litical parties that we have should
also be able to lead that discussion. I
haven’t completely lost faith in politi-
cal parties. I think that some of them
are putting some ideas forward and
are leading debates like this. Why not
start a discussion with the question,
could we be twice the population we
are now? There’d be a lot of challenges,
certainly, but also a lot of examples we
could learn from.
U: Since I work for RÚV, I don’t ex-
press my political views publicly, but
I do talk about human rights issues.
Where asylum seekers are concerned,
it’s often a political debate, but to me
it’s a human rights question. On one
occasion, I tagged all the youth lead-
ers of the political parties in a status
about asylum seekers, and they were
all very passionate about their parties
not becoming a racist party. So I think
we have a very bright future ahead of
us in that area.
B: What I think many people in Ice-
land don’t understand is that the fu-
ture is going to be layered. It’s going
to be a multinational, multicultural
society. Some people will maybe look
at themselves as “just” Icelandic, but
there will be other cultures mixed in.
Multiculturalism isn’t about erasing
other cultures. It’s about having layers
of many cultures. This is where all cul-
tures are going.
V: This is one of the biggest issues we’re
facing, along with global warming. I
think immigration is a huge opportu-
nity for Iceland to grow and diversify.
I think we need to be more open about
it and do it right. In addition, the birth
rate in Iceland is falling, and the aver-
age Icelander is getting older. If we’re
going to sustain the country, we need
to do something, otherwise we’re just
going extinct.
U: It’s going to take effort to work on
this. And a lot of people don’t want to
put the work into it, and so nothing
will change. Look at the parliaments in
Canada or South Africa. You have MPs
using earpieces, listening to transla-
tors while talking to and working with
one another in different languages.
It’s amazing to see it. Meanwhile, a
big issue we’re not talking about here
in Iceland is about asylum seekers. We
need to move that discussion forward.
U: One of the big issues that we’re go-
ing to have to face about refugees and
asylum seekers is how we treat people
that we give asylum. I’m not even talk-
ing about the people who don’t make
it through the system; I’m talking
about the people we accept. It’s like we
say, “Okay, your case is so serious that
you can live in Iceland, so go ahead.’
And then we don’t do anything else.
They’re left completely on their own.
When we hear about immigrants iso-
lating themselves and dangerous situ-
ations arising, that’s because of this
kind of neglect.
"We need to appreciate how
we’ve been influenced by
foreign cultures. I mean,
taking in foreign cultures
is our thing. We’re hybrids"