Reykjavík Grapevine - jan. 2021, Side 6

“Independents
want to equate the
appliance revolu-
tion with the attack
on the US Con-
gress” - Visir.is
In a news
story reporting on
various Icelandic
conservatives
comparing the
failed insurrection
at the US Capitol
on January 6th
to Iceland’s mass
protests of 2008-
2009, the Google
translation of
“Sjálf stæðis menn
vilja leggja bús á-
halda byltingu og
á rásina á þinghúsið
í Bandaríkjunum að
jöfnu” becomes “In-
dependents want
to equate the ap-
pliance revolution
with the attack on
the US Congress.”
For the record,
“Búsáhaldabyltin-
gin” is more com-
monly translated to
the “Pots and Pans
Revolution.” Calling
it “the appliance
revolution,” while a
direct translation,
is more evocative
of some kind of
post-apocalyptic
uprising of the
toasters, air fryers
and coffee makers
that we have come
to depend on for
our survival. Which
is admittedly pretty
cool.
Also, these
critics are most
certainly not
“independents,”
as most people
would understand
it. Whereas a
political indepen-
dent is more often
than not a closet
conservative who
fancies themselves
a free-thinking
iconoclast (with
the notable excep-
tion of Bernie
Sanders), in this
Google translation,
“Independents” is
a direct transla-
tion of the name of
Iceland’s largest
conservative party,
Sjáfstæðisflok-
kurinn, literally
“the Independence
Party.”
So if you read
the Google transla-
tion of this news
story and didn’t
know better:
Iceland has yet to
experience the
robot wars. But our
time will come.
ASF
About a year and a half after Iceland’s
gender determination law established
that people must be allowed to register
their gender as nonbinary, the National
Registry has finally made that option
available.
The law pertains not only to private
companies, but also to government
offices that issue official documents,
such as passports and other IDs. This
includes having passports and other
such public documents offering X, in
addition to M and F, and where appli-
cable. Other institutions are reminded
to start offering male, female, nonbi-
nary, other and the option to decline to
answer.
But the cost matters
However, the cost of this registration,
9,000 ISK, is being criticised by Trans
Iceland as prohibitively too high, in a
statement posted to Facebook.
“It is unacceptable that trans people
need to pay for such corrections and it
is an important matter of justice that
trans people have unhindered access
to such changes,” the statement reads
in part.
Trans Iceland points out that the fee
can hit trans people especially hard as,
for one, “trans people are more likely to
have difficulties finding work, housing
and attending school due to discrimi-
nation and prejudice.” In addition,
there is the cost of having to completely
renew all of their legal ID documents,
such as passports and driver’s licenses.
On top of this, there are the costs trans
people incur as a part of their transi-
tion, such as hormone replacement
therapy and other processes that are
not wholly covered by health insur-
ance.
The fund begins
In an update posted by Trans Iceland,
the National Registry replied saying
they understand that the cost has
been criticised as high, but that the
money goes to the government treas-
ury; not to the Registry. As such, the
Registry has no power to eliminate
the cost. Trans Iceland is now setting
up a special fund for trans people who
require financial assistance to register
their proper name and gender marker.
They are also working to update exist-
ing laws to make matters easier.
While Iceland has mercifully few in-
sects, ants are among them. While
you might think they are an innocu-
ous insect, these ferocious crea-
tures are known for their vicious
inter-species battle—in fact some
species have almost spread all over
the world. So, have ants colonised
Iceland, and if so, how many spe-
cies are there? Marco Mancini, who
researches ants in Iceland with his
partner Andreas Guðmundsson and
curates a webpage about it, broke
it down for us.
“Since the beginning of our re-
search in mid-2019, we have found
six different ant species— Roger’s
ant, black garden ant, Pharaoh ant
and ghost ant, while the last two type
of ants, at present, have only been
identified at the genus level—Pheidole
sp. and Crematogaster sp. Ants are
among the most widespread invasive
species worldwide. The first record of
ants found in Reykjavík dates back to
1974 and, since then, more than 500
new cases of Hypoponera punctatis-
sima (Roger’s Ant) colonies have been
officially recorded by Náttúrufræðist-
ofnun Íslands.
“At present, more than 30 years af-
ter their study, we can say that a mas-
sive supercolony of H. punctatissima
probably lives around the pipes of the
sewers and the hot water systems that
run underground Reykjavík and, also,
it is practically impossible to extermi-
nate colonies since the location of the
nests is always nearly inaccessible.
“Almost the entire Icelandic fauna
had to colonize the island after the
last glacial period. The location of the
island in the middle of the North Atlan-
tic does not make it particularly con-
ducive for colonization (Ministry for
the Environment & The Icelandic Insti-
tute of Natural History, 2001). Just over
1,000 years ago, human colonization
opened the opportunity for animals
to settle on the island and increased
travel and imports in the last 50 years
have opened the floodgates for alien
species to settle in Iceland.” °
ASK AN
Ant Expert
Q: Have Ants Colonised
Iceland?
Rise Of The
Machines
Nonbinary People Officially
Recognised, For A Price
MPs question the wisdom of the move
Words:
Andie Sophia
Fontaine

Photo:
Alisa Kalyanova
First 6 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 01— 2021
LOST IN GOOGLE TRANSLATION
NEWS
Trans Iceland objects to the high fee
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