Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.11.2017, Blaðsíða 50

I meet authors Valur Gunnarsson
and Halldór Armand Ásgeirsson
at Fridarhús (Peace House), “the
home of the Campaign against
militarism,” to discuss Nazis, 9/11
and Icelandic society. Unfortu-
nately for us, it has yet to open and
after a few phone calls, we learn
that the owner is still 20 minutes
away. In the meantime, we get out
of the biting cold, have coffee and
mull over other potential venues.
Journeying to MÍR, the Icelandic-
Russian cultural foundation, we
end up having a confusing en-
counter with an Orthodox priest
celebrating the 60th anniversary
of Sputnik 2 with schoolchildren.
Soon enough, we decide that our
presence is an intrusion on the
ceremony and leave. A last-ditch
attempt to gain entry to the Peace
House seems to be our only option
and finally, we are in luck. The
door is open and we settle down
for our conversation.
Nazis and 9/11
Valur’s most recent publication,
“Örninn og Fálkinn” (The Eagle
and The Falcon) occurs on an alter-
nate timeline in which the Nazis
arrived on Icelandic shores before
the British in 1940. The teetering
axis of history, Valur notes, means
that Nazi occupation is “some-
thing we can imagine happening
and would have had profound con-
sequences.” Similarly, Halldór’s
new novel “Aftur og Aftur” (Again
and Again) considers the impact
of global geopolitics on Iceland,
beginning on September 11, 2001,
when the Twin Towers fell.
For Halldór personally, the
world began on that day, and argu-
ably it began again for historians
after the poststructuralist trends
of the nineties. “History is back
with a vengeance,” confirms Valur.
“I’m so interested in alternative
history and chaos theory because
it’s so easy to imagine a world
where there was no Brexit, where
there was no Trump, where in Ice-
land we have this government or
that. History is just kicking us in
the teeth constantly these days.”
As worrying trends of an old re-
turn to the political mainstream,
the Peace House itself, which
originally formed in opposition
to the presence of the American
military base in Iceland from 1951-
2006, has also seen its relevance
renewed. “What’s interesting is
that it would have been impossible
to imagine something like the re-
turn of torture 20 or 30 years ago,
but now it’s back,”Halldór contem-
plates. Clearly, both authors aim to
be critical of reality in their work,
using the blurred lines between
fact and fiction to convey that
nothing is inevitable anymore and
no eventuality can be counted out.
The Icelandic Psyche
Since the 2008 financial crash,
there have been three different
governments in Iceland, with a
fourth currently being formed.
Despite the complete reversal of
public opinion about bankers and
politicians, both authors believe
that a moral and philosophical cri-
sis remains. According to them,
this is because there’s yet to be an
honest discussion about the com-
plicity of Icelanders in the finan-
cial crisis.
Halldór proposes, “We’re still
stuck in this narrative of be-
ing this very pure and innocent
country that was taken by some
corrupt, evil bankers and corrupt
politicians and they did this hor-
rible thing that we’re all suffering
from.” This is expanded by Valur,
who reminds us, “Almost everyone
believed in the boom until 2007/8.
Everyone thought Iceland was the
greatest and [the financial system]
was almost something for society
to gather around.”
The denial of collective respon-
sibility in Iceland over the crisis,
however, is nothing new. “I was
reading a lot of German authors
like Heinrich Böll and Günter
Grass [for my novel] and they were
saying in 1945 that no one in Ger-
many was a Nazi, ”says Valur. In
the process of vilifying a ruling
elite, then, it often seems to be for-
gotten that it ever had any popular
support at all. More importantly,
the reasons for that support are
consciously overlooked.
According to Halldór, “In Ice-
land, there are lots of atheists who
believe in the English Premier
League, who believe in the wel-
fare state, and just want the gov-
ernment to take their problems
away. That’s why you never see old
people in the street and that’s why
we drug our children constantly
with ADHD medication.” When so
much power and responsibility is
culturally centralised, an unac-
countable, corrupt government
does not seem all that farfetched.
In fact, Valur begrudgingly em-
pathises with politicians in the
modern era. He says, “I wouldn’t
want to be a politician these days
because the one thing everyone
agrees on is that they’re hateful.
There’s always unhappiness these
days with whatever person comes
to power.”
Protest
The biggest protest in Iceland’s
history may have removed Sig-
mundur Davið from his Prime
Ministership in April of last year,
but Halldór says the country still
lacks the “foundational morals” to
lead it out of crisis. Bjarni Bene-
diktsson’s subsequent govern-
ment lasted just over a year be-
cause of the paedophile scandal,
and any new coalition is likely to
be unstable from the outset.
The unfortunate reality in
these moments of great political
flux, Valur notes, is that while
there is often great hope that the
political landscape will change, as
he says, “Very often the opposite
happens. This is because every-
one has become so exhausted by
politics in general that they just
vote for whoever shouts the loud-
est or who promises the most.”
In a sense, this helps to explain
the return of Davið to the politi-
NO BUN
NO FUN
How to get there:
Take Route 40 South
50 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 20 — 2017
What if Nazis would have occupied Iceland?
“It would have been impossible to imagine
something like the return of torture 20 or 30 years
ago, but now it’s back.”
Pyrotechnics at the Peace House
Grapevine discusses Nazis, 9/11 and Icelandic society with authors Valur Gunnarsson and Halldór Armand
Words: Greig Robertson Photo: Art Bicnick
Valur Gunnarsson and Halldór Armand with Greig Robertson in the middle.