Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2017, Blaðsíða 14

The Poet of Capital’s
Artistic Mastery
Words: Halldór Armand Photo: RÚV
"Am I just a version of the end of days?
Am I just an effect of a modern phase?
Am I just the end point of the grand
parade?
Should we be afraid?"
- 'American Psycho, ,the Musical
OPINION I’m going assume you’ve
heard of the Most Horrific Finan-
cial Crisis in the History of Time
that began in 2008 and that, at
the time, you also came across at
least one news report on Iceland’s
role and destiny in this amazing
spectacle of late capitalism. You
might also have heard that Ice-
land reacted wisely in this Perfect
Storm by refusing to nationalize
its insolvent banks and jailing the
key perpetrators, and you might
also know that the reality of it is a
little more complicated than that.
What a guy
In late March an important and in-
teresting piece in this tragicomidy
came to light. We now have a new
national villain, one Ólafur Ólafsson,
a businessman who was also one of
the financial wizards that were put
behind bars (for a really, really short
period of time and who was—amaz-
ingly but also very tellingly—hurt
in a helicopter accident while ap-
parently ‘serving time’) in the af-
termath of the crisis. What a guy.
Undeniably a serial winner—the Luis
Suarez of Nordic Finance of sorts,
as my cousin observed. Why has his
status as villain now been elevated
to an almost supercritical level?
Almost a Russian-
style theft
As Brecht wrote: ‘What’s the rob-
bing of a bank compared to the
founding of a bank?’ Mr. Ólafsson
is another playwright in a sense.
He directed the most influential
play of the 21st century in Iceland
when the Búnaðarbankinn Bank
(later the infamous Kaupthing
Bank) was privatized in 2002. At
the time of privitization, the pub-
lic was led to believe that a small
and pretty much unknown Ger-
man bank had acquired the larg-
est share of Búnaðarbankinn. An
official investigation committee
has now, 15 years later, concluded
that the whole thing was a fraud
and that the German bank was
just a front for a group of Icelandic
businessmen with the appropriate
political ties. The director of this
astoundingly simple execution was
Mr. Ólafsson who apparently didn’t
table a single króna but came away
with an obscene amount of money
only a few months later. It was al-
most a Russian style theft of state
property, simple and effective. And
we all know what happened 5 years
later when that creative mix of stu-
pidity and incompetence known
as the Icelandic financial system
came crashing down in, literally,
a world class manner. Will our
man go to jail for this? Of course
not! Will anybody? Of course not!
True Poet of Capital
We have this nice word in Icelan-
dic—"Athafnaskáld." It’s difficult to
translate, but I’d say it’s more or less
a "Poet of Capital" or more literally a
"Poet of Action." Ólafur Ólafsson is
a true Poet of Capital but we should
remember that every poet needs a
muse. It’s way too easy and lazy to
write Mr. Ólafsson off as "a version
of the end of days" and leave it at
that. Rather, maybe he was both the
beginning and "the end of the grand
parade." The then-government,
that now—as expected—main-
tains it was completely deceived
by Mr. Ólafsson’s artistic mastery
and didn’t know anything about
the scam even though everybody
seems to agree that it looked like a
pathetically unconvincing hoax the
whole time, created the stage for
this astonishing mess. Should we
believe them or should we be afraid?
The muse is still
dancing
The priviatization of the banks
at the turn of the century was a
playwright competition where it
actually didn’t matter how bad
the submissions were as long as
they came from the right people
and fitted the narrative formula
needed by the government. Were
Mr. Ólafsson and his business bud-
dies immoral? Yes, they knew what
they were doing, and did it none-
theless. But they’re really not the
ones we should be afraid of. The
muse is still dancing at the club
and new poets will be let in..
Words: Paul Fontaine
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TIME CAPSULE This space is nor-
mally reserved for those corners
of Reykjavík that have held up
against the tides of time, anach-
ronistic islands in a sea of moder-
nity. Vísir is no such place.
While this modest grocer’s held
onto its spot at Laugavegur 1 for
as long as it could—just over 100
years, to be exact—it eventually
fell on hard times, especially with
larger chain supermarkets like
Bónus and 10-11 only blocks away.
They barely made it past their
centennial anniversary before
bankruptcy got the better of them.
Today, the real estate they once
called home is now occupied by
Yet Another Tourist Shop. If there
is one place that is emblematic of
the changing face of downtown
Reykjavík, it is Vísir, and the soli-
tary red marble emblazoned with
their name is a monument of sorts
to the Main Street that once was.
The Vísir Step
A remnant of the recent past
14 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2017
Ólafur Ólafsson
This is all that remains of
the original Vísir