Politically Incorrect

One thing you'll never hear me talk about is the political situation in Iceland. The main reason being that I have absolutely no idea what politicians are talking about. It's not only because of my poor knowledge of Icelandic but also because of a lack of interest on my part.

Sometimes when I'm sitting in the living room and the TV is on I can hear the fréttir (news) in the background. Just by looking on the anchors’ faces I can be sure that nothing really serious is going on. When I think about it, though... what can possibly be happening anyway?

Ok. So we had an economic meltdown, crisis or whatever you call it. Things were pretty bad for much of the world and for Iceland in particular. Local news had enough headlines for a whole year and even more.

Almost one year has passed since the crisis started and we are back to the starting point. Absolutely nothing to talk about. I won't even mention that the kreppa talks are hardly political at all anymore, if anything, economical, so to speak.

Well, thank God we have elections once every few years. Here we go: first class political stuff to talk about. We have a green party, an independent party and parties with names that I don't even know how to spell. But now with the elections already a few months behind us and four years until the next ones, there is plenty of time without a major political event. Once again we are back to the starting point.

I sometimes tell myself, what can you really expect from a small place like Iceland? The fact that I come from a place called Israel doesn't make things better.

Just to give you an idea what I'm talking about: During my first year in Iceland, not only did I personally meet the president, I also had lunch with a minister and his driver.

About half of the Altingi MPs are my Facebook friends. And my point is this; that news might be boring here, but seeing Minister of Education Katrín Jakobsdóttir in her pajamas definitely lightens things up—speaking from a political point of view, of course.

I personally think that for a place like Iceland, having an economic crisis once every few years is not such a bad idea.

Now that Iceland is negotiating for entrance into the European Union, the kreppa is a little bit less of a crisis and most of the tourists have already gone, it's time for us to be creative. Not that I'm suggesting something.

But if you (head of a foreign state, Russian oligarch or American billionaire) had any plans to invade Iceland for any reason at all, now would be the perfect time. Not only will the news become exciting again, it also wouldn't be such a bad idea to hand our economic responsibilities over to someone else. Yes, we are that desperate.

When I shared this thought with a person close to me, just before I sat down to write about it for Iceland Review, this particular person told me that it's not fair on my part to complain about the bland news reports in the Icelandic media before even taking the time to learn Icelandic properly. Not that I feel I'm missing something that hasn't already been written about in IR, but I think she has got a point.

Just before sending this column to the editor (to whom I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize to for my late submission) I heard from the same particular person that the minister of health has just renounced his office due to the unsolved problems with the Icesave deal, or something of that sort.

“You see”, she told me, “Things aren't that boring here in Iceland. Ministers come and go just like in any other normal country.”

Now, giving up on this whole column just because one minister decided to quit office was out of the question. I was on a too tight schedule and I couldn't come up with anything else to write about quickly enough.

So, I decided to leave it the way it was and tell you that, I believe you can still get my point.

Have a great weekend!



Published in Iceland Review October 04 2009.