Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Qupperneq 16

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2016
16
For every story we at Grapevine run
about asylum seekers and refugees in
Iceland, it seems there will almost al-
ways be a small but loud contingent of
commenters who seem to think people
fleeing war zones are a threat to Ice-
landic society. As these same talk-
ing points keep bobbing up again and
again, we thought it might be a good
idea to put some of the most common
refugee myths to rest, once and for all.

Bear in mind this list is not going to
shut down trolls. Rather, this is for the
benefit of everyone else reading the
comments, wherever they may be.
Myth 1: “If you let Muslims into your
country, everything will go to hell!”
There are already about 1,600 Mus-
lims living in Iceland. Proportionately
speaking, this is about 0.6% of the
population (bear in mind Muslims
comprise about 1% of the population of
the US). They’ve been here for decades.
Iceland leans towards the monocul-
tural, but we’re not that isolated. Dur-
ing these decades of Muslims living in
Iceland, we have had exactly zero terror-
ist attacks, zero incidences of open pros-
elytizing (from Muslims, anyway), and
zero incidences wherein Muslims target-
ed non-Muslims for any kind of violence.
At the same time, Iceland’s language and
culture continue to grow and thrive.
Further, poll after poll reveals that
most Icelanders actually want more asy-
lum seekers, showing ill-founded warn-
ings are already falling on deaf ears.
Myth 2: “Look at what happened in
Sweden!!!”
Anyone who trots out this meme is re-
ally showing their hand. Sweden has
been used as a right-wing boogieman
for years: a negative example of the con-
sequences of feminism, socialism, and
now multiculturalism. Critics of these
concepts cherry-pick isolated incidences
at best, and proffer flat-out lies at worst
(e.g. that whole thing about “there are
Muslim neighbourhoods in Sweden
that the police are afraid to enter” that
turned out to be completely false), in or-
der to simultaneously insult Swedes and
Muslims alike. Leave Sweden out of it.
Myth 3: “Islam is not compatible
with democracy and tolerance.
The whole point of the faith is to
conquer others.”
The funny thing about this one is that
most people who put this idea forward
have never actually met any Muslims
in a western country—or any country
for that matter. Which makes sense,
because if they had, they would know
that refugees and asylum seekers from
Muslim countries came here specifical-
ly because there is democracy and hu-
man rights here. These are people who
felt it was necessary to abandon their
home countries, leave behind friends
and family, pay thousands of dollars to
a smuggler, and go through the agonis-
ing asylum process—all because they
wanted to live in a democratic country
that much. They are, statistically speak-
ing, amongst the least likely people to
engage in violence against civilians and
the state. You should be so lucky as to
live amongst refugees; the vast major-
ity of terrorist attacks, and the deadliest
ones at that, are perpetrated by home-
grown extremists. And not all of them
are Muslim, either (e.g. Anders Breivik).
Myth 4: “Asylum seekers and
refugees can’t even prove who they
are, or if their stories are true.”
People who say this clearly have no
familiarity whatsoever with the asy-
lum process. Most asylum seekers in
Iceland do, in fact, have documenta-
tion that backs up their stories—news
clippings, official documents, judicial
decisions and more can be a part of
an asylum seeker’s case file. Unfortu-
nately, the Directorate of Immigration
(UTL) often chooses not to even open
an asylum seeker’s case file, especially
if they believe they can deport this per-
son based on the Dublin Regulation:
an international agreement which
gives signatory states the power (but
by no means the obligation) to deport
asylum seekers back to their previous
point of departure in Europe. If any-
thing, the burden of proof is on UTL
to show that they examined a rejected
application thoroughly. It’s true that
there are often documentation holes
in the stories asylum seekers bring
forth, but this by itself does not prove
deliberate deception is at play. Corrupt
and war-torn countries very often
“lose documentation,” either through
purposeful cover-ups, or because the
building holding said records was
bombed. By us.
Myth 5: “Look out for incidences of
rape and sexual assault increasing
with refugees and asylum seekers.”
Literally nothing supports this claim.
It is based on two fundamental misun-
derstandings. The first concerns Swe-
den (poor Sweden!) again, in that in re-
cent years they have revised their legal
definition of rape and sexual assault to
be much broader. As a result, reported
incidences of sexual assaults increased.
Monoculturalists, perhaps unaware
that correlation does not imply cau-
sation, pair this with the numbers of
refugees to Sweden to show that there
is a connection when none exists. The
second is that racial profiling by the po-
lice is very much a thing in Scandina-
via, and as such, refugees are overrep-
resented in crime statistics in general.
Myth 6: “Why don’t they fix things
in their own country/pick a country
closer to their home country?”
The simplistic “why don’t they fix
things in their own country” is espe-
cially rich when it comes from Ameri-
cans—the descendants of refugees
who fled religious persecution in their
home countries, rather than trying to
stay and “fix” things. Moreover, have
you seen Syria lately? Try going over
there and attempting to “fix things.”
Some people are more concerned
about saving their lives, and the lives
of their families, than engaging in civ-
il war. As to why asylum seekers and
refugees don’t choose countries closer
to home: guess what? The vast major-
ity of them do. The countries with the
greatest numbers and proportions of
refugees are Muslim countries, most
of these refugees fleeing the Syrian
conflict. Further, other countries in
Europe—such as Greece, Italy and
Germany—are already packed full of
refugees living in terrible conditions,
thanks in part to other countries us-
ing the Dublin Regulation to send peo-
ple backwards in the system.
Myth 7: “Iceland should take care of
its elderly/disabled/children/poor
first.”
This one comes up a lot in discussions
amongst right-leaning Icelanders, too.
It poses a false dilemma, of course; no-
body ever raises objections to further
funding for the universities because the
hospital needs money, too, or vice versa.
We have budgets specifically because we
recognise that there are multiple things
that ought to be paid for simultaneously.
Second, there is an argument to be made
that deporting people is actually more
expensive than granting asylum. One
thing is for sure: the costs of housing
asylum seekers would be considerably
lower if they were allowed to work—
something every single asylum seeker
that Grapevine has spoken with has ex-
pressed the desire to do, even though
the law expressly forbids it. Effectively,
asylum seekers are not a drain on our re-
sources; UTL itself is.
Myth 8: “They don’t want to
integrate. You’re going to have
ghettos!”
Categorically false. Refugees who are ex-
pressly invited to Iceland are set up with
housing within their municipalities, put
in contact with employers, get their kids
registered in school, and are signed up for
Icelandic classes. Asylum seekers, while
lacking this kind of social support net-
work, are steadfast in their desire to work
in Iceland—to pay taxes, to learn the lan-
guage, to make friends with Icelanders,
and do all the other great stuff the rest of
us do every day. What does create ghettos
is social apartheid: when you house asy-
lum seekers apart from locals, when you
won’t let them work, when you provide
absolutely no help to gain a footing in the
country. Without that support, immi-
grants tend to fall back on their own com-
munities and isolate themselves from
everyone else. It’s Immigration 101 stuff.
A discussion about immigration is im-
portant, but to have that discussion,
we need to be clear on what the facts of
the matter actually are.
Am I Just Wrong?
Common myths about asylum
seekers and refugees, debunked
NEWS IN
BRIEF
Fans of Iceland
Airwaves and the
Icelandic country-
side, you’re in luck.
This year, the north Icelandic city
of Akureyri will be hosted dozens
of bands playing at three or four
venues during the music festival.
While Akureyri has participated in
Airwaves in the past with some re-
lated events, this effectively makes
the town a second location for the
festival itself. Good news not just
for tourists, but also for northern-
based locals who hadn’t been able
to travel south for the duration of a
music festival.
Christmas is right around the cor-
ner (as if you needed reminding),
and for a lot of people, that means
getting yourself a Christmas tree.
You may be surprised to learn that
only 20% of the trees you buy in Ice-
land are actually grown here; the
remaining 80% are imported from
farms in Denmark. For this rea-
son, amongst others, Icelandic tree
growers are being encouraged to
plant more Christmas trees, if for
no other reason than to get a fair
stake in the domestic market. Trees
are also pretty crucial to things like
preventing soil erosion and putting
oxygen in the air, so there’s that,
too.
If you ever needed proof that Ice-
land’s crushing defeat of England
in the UEFA Euros touched a sore
spot, you need look no further than
the top UK tweets of 2016, which
put that match in the absolute top
spot. As many as 128,000 tweets per
minute were being hammered out
by angry and jubilant football fans
alike in the immediate wake of that
match, surpassing even Brexit in
terms of sheer numbers of tweets.
Which, as one colleague here at the
Grapevine put it, would be like the
Super Bowl out-tweeting the elec-
tion of Donald Trump in the US.
Words
PAUL
FONTAINE
Illustrations
ANATOLI &
PLATON @
BLOOMICON
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