Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.05.2019, Qupperneq 16

16 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07— 2019
Israel and with such a global audience
as Eurovision guarantees. The band
admits that they are walking into the
unknown, and have met with criticism
from all sides, recognising the merits
of much of it.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but in a
frank and lengthy interview on the day
before departing for Israel, the Grape-
vine met with Matthías and Klemens,
the band’s two vocalists, to explore
Hatari’s current situation and the criti-
cism against them, the role of art in
politics, and why Eurovision matters
as a platform for raising awareness
about the Palestinian cause.
THE CATALYST
Until earlier this year, Hatari were an
up-and-coming industrial techno art
band in Iceland. They attracted atten-
tion not only for the expressly anti-
capitalist messages in their songs, but
also for the provocative performance
art of their PR.
Most notably, in February 2018 they
sent out a press release stating that
they had signed a deal with Lands-
banki, one of Iceland’s largest banks.
The statement was completely false,
but the intent of the statement was, as
Matthías put it, “to take people down to
our level.”
“We totally lied and put words
in their mouth,” he says. “If they
responded, and quite correctly replied
‘that's not what we said,’ we’d succeed
either way. They're forced to let it stand
or respond. And that's a win-win for
Hatari.”
Such provocations set the scene for
their performance at Söngvakeppnin,
which—with the band’s distant,
robotic interview style and sarcastic
product placements—had an air of
another prank. Their winning track is
a dystopian vision of a possible future
Europe, divided and destroyed by hate.
“The song is a reflection of power
and powerlessness; hope and hopeless-
ness,” says Klemens. “That if people
don't unite, or don't love, then hate will
prevail. It's a state that's developing
around the whole world, and maybe
has been brewing for 70 years in Pales-
tine and Israel. So we feel this message
speaks strongly on an international
scale, but also especially because the
competition is held in Israel.”
“We felt that many of the contra-
dictions that Hatari deals with are
reflected by Eurovision being hosted in
Israel,” adds Matthías. “We talk about
living within a system and opposing
it at the same time. On a very broad
scale, that's capitalism for us. In this
particular field, it's the Eurovision
Song Contest—which is about peace
and unity—being held in a coun-
try that is marked by conflict and
disunity. For us, it’s a paradox that it’s
supposed to be an apolitical contest,
because it is so politically loaded
to host it there. And that's where
we see our voice coming through.”
ZERO POINTS
But there was disunity of opinion in
Iceland as well. This came not only
from pro-Israeli Icelanders, most
of them fundamentalist Christians;
it also came from Icelanders who
believed Iceland should not partici-
pate in Eurovision at all, and ought to
boycott the event. The hashtag #0stig
(“zero points”) began trending heavily
on Twitter within minutes of Hatari’s
qualification success.
To this criticism, the band are
philosophical. “For us, the question of
boycotting was answered when RÚV
decided that someone would indeed be
sent,” Matthías points out. ”Because of
Eurovision and the way it's organised,
someone was being sent from Iceland,
and if we were going to sign up and
sign out, it just feels like we shouldn't
have signed up in the first place. That
would have been a very clear boycott on
our behalf, and [pop singer and Söng-
vakeppnin runner-up] Friðrik Ómar
would have gone, and it would have
been business as usual. We believe that
by using our agenda-setting power to
politicise the event, at least we would
have made some use of Iceland's entry.
We've already been quite success-
ful in politicising the event, and we
want to step it up a notch and speak
our minds more freely.”
THE JEWISH
RESPONSE
Initially, Hatari hoping to represent
Iceland at Eurovision went largely
ignored by the rest of the world. All
that changed when in February the
band issued a statement, in English,
in which they challenged Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
to a bout of glíma—that is, a form of
traditional Icelandic wrestling.
In characteristic style, the state-
ment offered high stakes: if the band
were to win, “Hatari reserve the right
to settle within your borders establish-
ing the first ever Hatari-sponsored
liberal BDSM colony on the Mediterra-
nean coast.” If Netanyahu were to win,
“the Israeli government will be given
full political and economic control
of South-Icelandic Island munici-
pality Vestmannaeyjar [The West-
man Islands]. Members of Hatari will
ensure the successful removal of the
island's current inhabitants.”
“He hasn't accepted,” Matthías
confirms. “But that's another example
of if he responds, we succeed; if he
doesn't, we let it stand.”
“He's a bit smarter than Lands-
bankinn,” adds Klemens.
“I thought about it, too,” adds
Matthías. “I thought, ‘God, I hope
he responds and actually wres-
tles us.’ He would beat us easily.
But that would still mean that the
Prime Minister of the country
was ‘rassling’ two Icelandic boys.”
WILDFIRE
BREAKS OUT
The band’s challenge made its way to
Israeli media, who had a field day with
it. Some media outlets in the country
incorrectly reported that Hatari’s song
was anti-Israel and supported hate.
Unsurprisingly, that misunderstand-
ing spread like wildfire; it is, after all,
far easier to spread misinformation
than it is to correct it.
Rabbi Avi Feldman, Iceland’s first
rabbi, was reluctant to comment at
length, but told the Grapevine, “The
Eurovision Song Contest was created
shortly after the second World War,
when Europe was rebuilding itself,
with the goal of bringing countries
and peoples together in unity and
peace. We are very proud of Iceland's
famous music scene and incred-
ible amount of talented musicians.
It would be very unfortunate to use a
platform of unity and togetherness to
“For us it's a paradox that it’s
supposed to be an apolitical
contest, because it’s so politi-
cally loaded to host it in Tel
Aviv. And that's where we see
our voice coming through.”
“If we manage to overthrow
capitalism, that would be a
measure of success. Prefera-
bly selling some branded mer-
chandise along the way.”