Iceland review - 2015, Page 24

22 ICELAND REVIEW
UPHOLDING FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Halldór’s love for politics and society is
what drives his passion for drawing satir-
ical cartoons. “I especially like drawing
them because they combine several of my
talents: I like to draw and to express what
I think about politics and society, while
maintaining my sense of humor,” he
explains. “I admire the tradition of polit-
ical cartoons. They’ve been around for a
long time. I saw an exhibition recently
about the history of political cartoons,
and it was interesting to see how the way
of saying things through irony hasn’t
changed that much since the early days
of political cartoons.”
He believes political satire represents
one of the best ways to celebrate freedom
of speech. “In the 19th century politi-
cal cartoons were incredibly popular,
viewed as one of the purest forms of free
speech. Charlie Hebdo is a good exam-
ple of this freedom in modern times,”
Halldór remarks. In a radio interview
on Bylgjan on January 8, Halldór stated
he was “deeply touched” by the terror-
ist attacks on the offices of the satirical
magazine in Paris the previous day. He
explained that in his first cartoon about
the event, he had wanted to approach his
slain colleagues personally, portraying
them along with some of the characters
they had created.
Halldór has worked in this profes-
sion during some of the nation’s darkest
hours. He started contributing cartoons
to Morgunblaðið just weeks before the
economic collapse of 2008, which imme-
diately thrust him into the heat of the
nation’s political dialogue. “Those were
some intense weeks,” he recalls. “I did
publish all of those cartoons in a book,
and I think it made quite a good retro-
spective of what happened during and
after the crash.”
SATIRE
Published following the drowning of more
than 800 asylum seekers and migrants
in the Mediterranean in April. The Titanic
reference hints at the idea that most
Europeans seem to be more concerned
about whether Kate Winslet dies a
fictional death than the real-life
fate of these people.