Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2018, Blaðsíða 4

What Are Iceland-
ers Talking About?
The latest eruptions from
Icelandic social media
Words: Paul Fontaine Photo: Art Bicnick
The hottest topic on Icelandic
social media at the time of this
writing is Israel’s win at Euro-
vision, who pulled to the top of
the list thanks to the popular vote.
Icelanders are generally very criti-
cal of Israeli foreign and domes-
tic policy, and the recent spate of
Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed
Gaza protesters didn’t help endear
anyone to Israel’s win. While a lot
of Icelanders have been suggesting
Iceland boycott Eurovision next
year—especially as it will report-
edly be held in Jerusalem—others
have emphasised the importance
of separating the artist from their
country of origin. Regardless,
convincing Icelanders to boycott
their beloved Eurovision is noth-
ing short of a monumental task.
With municipal elections
coming up, people are more talk-
ing about the issues at stake in
Reykjavík rather than the parties
running. Of particular inter-
est to capital area residents is a
proposed development of Örfiri-
sey, located at the very tip of the
Reykjavík peninsula which is
currently the home of several large
oil tankers. The Independence
Party wants to develop Örfirisey
into a kind of Icelandic version of
Bahrain’s Floating City. Interest-
ingly, this idea was also floated in
2005 by then Independence Party
Mayor Vilhjálmur Þ. Vilhjálmsson,
but after it was pointed out that
putting a bunch of single-family
homes at the far end of town
would tremendously increase car
traffic in the city, he withdrew the
idea in favour of developing Vatns-
mýri (where the domestic airport
is currently located) instead.
Speaking of the capital, the
controversy over the Harpa
concert hall pay scandal is still
raging. As you might recall, the
director of Harpa was awarded a
20% pay rise while service workers
were asked to take a significant
pay cut. Initially, management
was dismissive over the discrep-
ancy, but then everyone from
union leaders to city councilp-
ersons began to chime in across
social media. It wasn’t long before
the director asked for her pay
rise to be rescinded, and there is
currently some talk about nulli-
fying the service worker pay cut.
Which just goes to show you:
sometimes being mad on the
internet really can make a differ-
ence.
Another topic of great conten-
tion right now is a tax on soft
drinks. Minister of Health Svan-
dís Svavarsdóttir, of the Left-
Greens, has introduced a bill from
the Directorate of Health that
would increase the tax on sodas—
a measure the Independence Party
has been decidedly against—while
lowering taxes on fruits and vege-
tables. You’d think this would be a
harmless non-partisan idea, but in
fact, it faces strong opposition not
only from the Independence Party
but also from business leaders. In
fact, the Federation of Icelandic
Industries has likened the bill to
a form of discrimination. Who
knew that Pepsi you’re drinking
had human rights?
4The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2018First
Harpa was the source of a recent pay controversy
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