Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.02.2017, Blaðsíða 8

Papers, Please
"We clump ourselves into a group with other people who look, talk, and think
like us because we feel safe there. Throw in someone from another tribe, and we
are in uncharted territory, and our prejudice seed blossoms."
Words
MARY
FRANCES
DAVIDSON
Illustration
LÓA HJÁLM-
TÝSDÓTTIR
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GPV.IS/PPLS
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02 — 2017
8
If you are a foreigner in Iceland, a new
modification to Icelandic law requires
you to carry a passport or legal iden-
tification with you at all times, un-
less you are Nordic. It also states that
police can search the home of anyone
they suspect might be swindling im-
migration officials. As an immigrant
to Iceland myself, I see this law as at
best overreaching, and at worst flat-
out racist.
I know that’s a big pile of shit to
sling at somebody, so let me explain,
starting with the “Nordic” exception
part. I don’t want to carry my pass-
port around in my purse, but I recog-
nize that I am unlikely to be stopped
because I am a white lady, and I look
more “Nordic” than some native Ice-
landers I know. So who is this law in-
tended to target? Maybe other-than-
Nordic-looking people?
Fear of the Other
I don’t have any personal negative ex-
perience with the police to fuel dis-
trust. I know human beings, though,
and suspicion is subjective. Every
person on earth has a little prejudice
seed buried deep inside our heart.
You have one, and so do I. It’s not our
fault, it is just how culture shapes us.
Chalk it up to basic tribal instincts.
Hey girl, let me tell you about the Ice-
landic word of 2016, hrútskýring. It’s
a portmanteau of the words hrútur
(“ram”) and útskýring (“explanation”)
and I probably need to connect the
dots for you and clarify that it’s an Ice-
landic equivalent for the English word
“mansplaining.”
Now in its second year, the Word of
the Year poll brings together members
of RÚV, the Árni Magnússon Institute
for Icelandic Studies, and students of
Icelandic at the University of Iceland
to settle on the word that best exem-
plifies the national discourse over the
past year. With a plurality of the vote
(35%), hrútskýring beat out a shortlist
of neologisms that touched on hot-
button topics both locally and interna-
tionally. The leaking of world leaders’
financial documents last spring gave
us Panamaskjöl (“Panama Papers”),
aflandsfélag (“offshore company”),
and skattaskjól (“tax haven”); the Ice-
landic football team’s successes at the
Euro Cup proffered víkingaklapp (“vi-
king clap”), the team’s primal, rallying
gesture—and hú, the exclamation ac-
companying the clap; tjákn (“emoji”)
gives an Icelandic name to the cutesy
logograms that have become integral
to cheeky digital communication;
kynsegin (“gender-queer”) reflects
the growing nuance in discussions of
gender, sex, and sexuality; and hatur-
sorðræða (“hate speech”) unfortu-
nately speaks for itself.
Novelist Hallgrímur Helgason
suggested hrútskýring in 2011 as a
translation of “mansplaining,” a term
coined in 2008 by American author Re-
becca Solnit to refer to men’s tendency
to explain something in a patronizing,
overbearing manner, with the tacit as-
sumption that the listener (typically
female) has little understanding or
knowledge of the topic explained. Sol-
nit has pointed out that mansplaining
demonstrates the overconfidence and
obliviousness of the explainer more
than it represents a deliberate attempt
at condescension or pedantry. Mans-
plaining nevertheless illustrates the
pernicious, unconscious assumptions
that stem from inherited gender roles:
men are expected to know and to tell,
while women feel and listen.
It is perhaps the clueless, well-
meaning nature of mansplaining
that makes hrútskýring so evocative
of broader political conversations in
Iceland. Although Iceland regularly
tops international rankings in gender
equality, and feminism has occupied
a central role in mainstream national
discourse for several years, the gender
wage gap (currently at 14%) persists,
shrinking at a stubbornly slow rate.
This stagnation perhaps stems from a
self-congratulatory smugness among
stewards of patriarchal power, un-
able or unwilling to see inequality in
a semblance of utopia: “But wait—ac-
tually—did you know—let me tell you:
Iceland is statistically the best place to
be a woman.”
In addition to its topical relevance,
hrútskýring is also an excellent, mul-
tivalent bit of wordplay, far more lin-
guistically dynamic than the English
word it glosses. “Mansplaining” is a
classic portmanteau, fusing “man”
and “explaining” along a conspicu-
ous seam: “man” does not, of course,
sound anything like “ex.” Hrútskýring,
by contrast, leaves the word útskýring
(“explanation”) intact, appending to it
only two letters, which allow for two,
equally pertinent readings: Hrútur
(“ram”) evokes the virility of Iceland’s
most populous mammal species, but
as the wordsmith Hallgrímur has
pointed out, the letters “hr” abbreviate
the Icelandic honorific herra (“mis-
ter”). Hrútskýring, he’s said, may also
be written hr. Útskýring, a title well-
befitting any asshat who spends five
hundred words explaining things you
already know.
We clump ourselves into a group with
other people who look, talk, and think
like us because we feel safe there.
Throw in someone from another tribe,
and we are in uncharted territory, and
our prejudice seed blossoms. When
left unchecked, the prejudice plant
consumes us and turns otherwise
perfectly nice people into racists. It is
our responsibility to crush the preju-
dice weed before it turns us into nasty
monsters. Policies like this one, how-
ever, are water, sunlight, and fertilizer
for our little budding prejudices.
We always find people different
from us suspicious. I once explained
my co-parenting agreement after di-
vorce to a colleague from Bangladesh.
He listened politely, and then he told
me that from his point of view, the
whole arrangement seemed “artifi-
cial.” This man, who had been in an ar-
ranged marriage for 40 years, thought
my setup was strange beyond belief.
Honestly, I thought the same about his
life. Authorities in Iceland have landed
in hot water in the past for accusing
foreign couples of faking their mar-
riage. Now, they can enter your home
on a whim.
Who’s really wrecking the
system?
This law is unkind and unnecessary.
It is based in irrational fear. I imagine
the people who designed it are afraid
of a flood of immigrants coming to
Iceland and mooching off the welfare
state. Pretty please, guys, solve an ac-
tual problem. If there is a rush of for-
eigners coming here to steal pensions
or bankrupt the healthcare system, I
see no evidence. Recent studies show
that we need more immigrants in Ice-
land. All the immigrants I have met
in my near decade of living in Iceland
moved here because it is a peaceful
place to build a life. We work, and pay
taxes, and contribute to society.
If you are looking for a worthy di-
rection in which to point a finger of
blame when it comes to robbing the
state, don’t scapegoat immigrants who
are coming here to make a better life.
Maybe you should start with tax evad-
ers instead. Maybe the newly elected
Prime Minister, or the other roughly
170 other wealthy Icelanders who were
named in the Panama Papers.
Ramsplaining
The Icelandic Word of 2016
Words: ELI PETZOLD Photo: JÓN TRAUSTI SIGURÐARSON Share this article: GPV.IS/WRD17
LANGUAGE
A "hrútur" "hrúting", because "hrúturs" gonna "hrút".