Saving Iceland remember him with great affection and gratitude for his friendship and his love of Icelandic nature.

Armand, whose name was George Herman van Loenhout, only spent two days in hospital with pneumonia before he died. Since childhood he had suffered from asthma and was not expected to live beyond 20. Hence Armand called “every day a bonus.” “I’ve already had 49 additional years, so I can not complain,” he said earlier this year.

During a career lasting fifty years Armand wrote and recorded at least eleven solo studio albums and dozens of singles. One of his greatest hits was “Ben ik te min” (Am I not worthy?) which stayed for 14 weeks in the Dutch Top 40 in 1967. Armand was writing and performing to the very last. Some recent collaborations were with young Hip-Hop artists Nina feat Ali B & Brownie Dutch, and recordings and performances with Dutch band De Kik.

Armand traveled extensively around Iceland and wrote several songs in support of the fight against the corporate energy projects and heavy industry endangering the Icelandic environment. For us here in Saving Iceland it was a real privilege to witness the professional way in which he approached the writing of his lyrics and his genuine concern for accuracy and proper research of the Icelandic situation. Not to mention his warmth and humour, and irreverence for authority.

Although it is with great sadness that we salute our dear friend Armand, we can proudly testify that he lived a life full of song and colour, and that he was an inspiration to generations.

Armand’s music for Iceland:

Brave Cops of Iceland: Download

Ísland, ég elska þig. Ofwel: IJsland, ik hou van jou: Download

European Affair: Download

Video:

Armand sings on a Saving Iceland picketline at the Icelandic Consulate in Rotterdam in March 2007.

 https://ssl.direkte-aktie.net/media/ijsl…

Armand on YouTube with well over two million views!

See also:

Week of Iceland Actions in the Low Countries

Dutch Folk Singer Fighting for Icelandic Nature

Armand voelt zich niet te min foor protest op IJsland

Armand website

Bjork will play a concert in protest at the Icelandic government’s proposed changes to conservation laws.

The Icelandic singer tops the bill at the event, which will take place on March 18 at the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland. Artists appearing include Lykke Li, Patti Smith, Mammút (pictured below), Highlands, Of Monsters And Men, Samaris and Retro Stefson.

The concert is organised in conjunction with the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA), Landvernd, the Icelandic Environment Association and director Darren Aronofsky, whose film Noah was shot on location in Iceland in 2012 and will premiere at Sambíóin Egilshöll Cinema on the same afternoon.

Collectively operating under the name Stopp!, the group aims to encourage the Icelandic authorities to protect Iceland’s natural environment and impose controls on the damming of glacial rivers and harnessing of geothermal energy, in light of new legislation, reports RUV.

This project was introduced at a press conference at Harpa on the 3^rd of March 2014. Björk and Darren Aronofsky participated in the press conference.

The artists will donate their time and the net income will go to INCA and Landvernd.

The following statement lists the group’s demands:

Stop – Guard the Garden!

All over the world too much of priceless nature has been sacrificed for development, often falsely labeled as sustainable. Rain forests have been cut, waterfalls dammed, land eroded, lakes and oceans polluted, earth’s climate altered and the oceans are now rapidly getting more and more acidic.

In Iceland, the Karahnjukar Power Plant has become the symbol for the destruction which threatens human existence on this earth.

It is our duty to protect Icelandic nature and leave it to future generations, undamaged. The Icelandic highlands, Europe’s largest remaining wilderness – where nature is still largely untouched by man, is not just a refuge and treasure which we inherited and will inherit. The highlands belong to the world as a whole. Nowhere else can we find another Lake Myvatn, Thjorsarver Wetlands, Sprengisandur, Skaftafell or Lake Langisjor.

We demand that Thjorsarver Wetlands, the wilderness west of Thjorsa River and the waterfalls downstream will be protected for all future to come. We strongly protest plans by the Minister for the Environment and Resources to change the demarcation line for the extended nature reserve in the Thjorsarver Wetlands. By doing so, the minister creates a space for a new dam at the outskirts of the area. The way in which the minister interprets the law in order to justify that all nature and/or potential power plants are at stake in each and every new phase of the Master Plan for Conservation and Utilization of Nature Areas is an attack on Icelandic nature and not likely to stand in a court of law. [We have engaged a law firm and we are threatening lawsuit if the Minister goes ahead with his plan]

We now have a unique opportunity to turn the highlands into a national park by bill of law to be adopted by the parliament. Thereby the highlands as a whole will be subject to one administrative unit and clearly defined geographically. Thus all plans for power lines, road construction and/or other man made structures which will fragment valuable landscapes of the highlands will belong to history.

We strongly caution against any plans to construct a geothermal power plant at or near Lake Myvatn. The Bjarnarflag Power Plant is not worth the risk. Lake Myvatn is absolutely unique in this world. Hence, we have a great responsibility for its protection.

We demand that the nature of Reykjanes Peninsula will be protected by establishing a volcanic national park and that all power lines will be put underground.

We find it urgent that the government will secure funds for conservation by hiring land wardens and will protect valuable nature areas against the ever growing pressure of mass tourism.

In particular we protest against the attack on nature conservationists, where unprecedented (sic. S.I. editor) and brutal conduct by the police as well as charges pressed against those who want to protect the Galgahraun Lava, was cruel and unnecessary. We remind that the right of the public to protest nature damage everywhere, worldwide, is a basic premise for the success of securing future human existence on this earth.

We demand that the proposed bill of law repealing the new nature protection laws be withdrawn and that the new laws should take effect, as stipulated, on April 1.

People have different passions. Some people are enthusiastic about coffee, others adore shiny things, yet others are passionate about nature and wildlife. Passion for nature makes people chain themselves to trees, parade naked to protest the fur trade, sail in rough seas to stop whale killing, climb oil rigs to protest drilling etc.

Now in Iceland, a group of environmentalists (lead by the NGO “Friends of the lava” are passionate about protecting a lava field, close to Reykjavík called Gálgahraun (Gallow-lava), from being dug up and buried under major roadworks. Some people might think this very odd. Why protect a small piece of lava since Iceland has so much of it? There is lava pretty much everywhere! There are a number of reasons why this particular lava field is unique and should be kept unspoiled. This lava was formed in the eruption of Búrfell, 8000 years ago and is protected by law. This beautiful lava field is mostly intact, and contains amazing geological features and old historical paths used by our ancestors. It also has a strong resonance for cultural reasons, as our best known painter, Jóhannes Kjarval, used scenes from the Gálgahraun lava field as inspiration for some of his famous paintings. Furthermore, it is one of the last unspoiled lava fields within the greater Reykjavík area. What upsets people about the situation is that the planned (and possibly illegal) road construction is completely unnecessary. It will only serve a low number of people (Álftanes has a population of 2.484) and the road construction will cost a fortune (approx 6 million Euros). The argument put forward for the new road layout is that the old road has caused accidents because of icing but out of 44 roads within the greater Reykjavík area, 21 roads were considered more dangerous than the Álftanes road, and of 1427 roads in the whole country, 301 roads have more accidents than Álftanes road. The road could be improved and made much safer for a fraction of what the new road would cost. I don’t know exactly what drives the municipality of Garðabær and The Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration to pursue this insane road construction but something about the whole thing stinks very badly.

Four nature NGO’s have sued the municipality to halt the road construction, but have not been able to change the planned work and the lawsuit is still being processed in court. In the last weeks hundreds of people have been protecting the lava field and they set up a rota to make sure there was always someone in the lava field protecting it from the bulldozers. These brave people are making a human shield to protect something they love. Today, the police started dragging them away and are carrying them handcuffed like they were the criminals. On days like these it doesn’t feel like Iceland is a country of law and order anymore.

If you want to help in any way, you can either show up in Gálgahraun and protest or transfer a donation to their bank account number: 140 05 71017, kennitala. 480207 – 1490. All help is greatly appreciated.

Addition at 13:30 on 21st of October: I just came from Gálgahraun and the bulldozers are already ruining this amazing lava field. Dozens of people have been arrested, there is police everywhere and we all (even the police) stood there horrified watching the screaming bulldozer tear down delicate lava features. The people responsible will stop at nothing, their greed has no limits.

Update in February 2014: Gálgahraun lavafield has been destroyed and the court cases against its defenders have commenced. All are charged for “disobeying police orders”. (S.I .Ed.)

Saving Iceland would like to recommend this recent and informative film by Bert Ehgartner. Below is a short trailer for the film. You can stream or download the whole film, in either English or German here.

See also: Is Aluminium Really a Silent Killer?

Jamaica Bauxite Mining Videos

It’s dark and silent — nothing unusual around midnight by river Laxá and lake Mývatn in the north of Iceland. But somewhere behind the darkness, beneath the silence, something extraordinary is about to happen. Suddenly, a dynamite explosion disturbs the silence — in what has gone down in history as a single yet highly important step in a much greater movement of resistance.

More than a hundred farmers officially claimed responsibility for the explosion, which annihilated a small dam in the river on August 25, 1970. The area’s inhabitants were determined to prevent the construction of a much bigger dam, which would have destroyed vast quantities of this natural area, as well as most of the surrounding farmlands.

Just as determined to keep the saboteurs away from legal troubles, those who claimed responsibility kept a strict policy of silence, making it hard for the authorities to single out alleged leaders or protagonists. Now, almost half a century and a saved river later, another bang has broken that silence.

A WATERSHED ACT IN ICELANDIC HISTORY

Namely, that is Grímur Hákonarson’s documentary ‘Hvellur’ (“Bang” — see trailer below), which premièred at the Bíó Paradís cinema on January 24. Through dialogues with some of the participants, many of whom still reside by the river, the film tells the story of the Laxá conflict. “We kept all commentators and university professors out,” Grímur told me a few days before the première, “focusing instead entirely on those who took part in it.”

The case is often considered the beginning of environmentalism in Iceland. Shortly thereafter, Nobel Prize-winning author Halldór Laxness wrote his famous, hard-headed call-out for nature conservation — titled ‘The Warfare Against the Land’ — and the Laxá conflict also brought about the Environmental Impact Assessment, which up until then had been completely absent in Iceland’s energy production.

“What makes the Laxá conflict peculiar is that those who resisted also succeeded,” Grímur says. “The planned dam was never built and the area was saved.” Four years later, parliament passed a law securing the protection of Laxá and Mývatn, contributing to the explosion’s status as “the most remarkable and powerful event in the history of environmentalism in Iceland,” as Sigurður Gizurarson, the bomber’s defence lawyer, put it.

Celebrating the forty-year anniversary of the act in August 2010, one of Iceland’s most remarkable environmentalists, Guðmundur Páll Ólafsson, remarked that the act “literally saved the ecosystem of Mývatn and Laxá.” He also maintained that the dynamite “blew up a democracy-restriction imposed on the district’s inhabitants and all those who loved the land, by the authorities and the board of Laxárvirkjun,” the company that owned the dam. “The arrogance of the authorities hovered over the land until the bomb exploded, but then we became free — for a while.”

Sixty-five people were charged for sabotage, but no one spoke out about any details and the Supreme Court ended up handing out mild suspended sentences. The film now reveals that three men were responsible for igniting the dynamite. Only one of them is still alive.

STILL THE BONE OF CONTENTION

In any case, exposing secrets is much less the film’s aim than documenting and preserving this extraordinary story. And for a good reason — it could easily fall into oblivion. “People over fifty remember this event very well, but those who are younger don’t really know the story,” Grímur says, adding that during the film’s making, they were told numerous times that they should have started filming much earlier as many involved have since passed away.

But how do those still alive recall these events today? “No one looks back regretfully, and most of them are still politically radical, opposed to large-scale destruction of natural areas for energy production. They are proud of the results of their act,” Grímur says.

But as Guðmundur Páll’s words, “then we became free — for a while,” imply, the plans had not been cancelled for good. During the construction of the huge Kárahnjúkar dams in Iceland’s eastern highlands, a new construction plan for Laxá was put on the drawing table. However, as words of warning came from Mývatn — including that the locals surely hadn’t forgotten how to use dynamite — the plans were later drawn back. Siv Friðleifsdóttir, then Minister of the Environment, stated that never before had she been so pleased to cancel a project.

Many of Iceland’s most remarkable natural areas are still the bone of contention between environmentalists and industrialists, including geothermal areas close to Mývatn [see here and here]. Grímur doesn’t consider the film to be part of the current conflict, but it doesn’t mean that people won’t feel some connection with today’s most pressing environmental issues. “One only needs to listen to the debates in parliament,” Grímur concludes, “to notice that the same old discussion is still going on today.”
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HVELLUR from Ground Control Productions on Vimeo.

There is a photograph by Richard Peter of a statue of an angel overlooking the card-house-like ruins of Dresden. During three days in February 1945, the German city was annihilated by the allied forces using a new firestorm technique of simultaneously dropping bombs and incendiary devices onto the city.

The photo resonates with philosopher Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘On the Concept of History,’ in which he adds layers of meaning to a painting by Paul Klee titled ‘Angelus Novus’. Benjamin describes Klee’s angel as ‘The Angel of History’ whose face is turned towards the past. “Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet.”

Wanting to “awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed,” the Angel’s wings are stretched out by a storm from Paradise, which “drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high.”

“That which we call progress,” Benjamin concludes, “is this storm.”

Can You Stand in the Way of Progress?

If the storm disenables us to fix the ruins of the past, what about preventing the storm from blowing? That would not be so simple according to art collective Angeli Novi, comprised of Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir and Ólafur Páll Sigurðsson, whose exhibition is currently showing at The Living Art Museum (Nýló).

Under a confrontational title — ‘You Can’t Stand in the Way of Progress,’ shaped as the ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign of Auschwitz — Angeli Novi have greatly altered the museum’s space with an installation of sculptures, soundscapes, smells and videos, including a 20-minute film of the same title as the exhibition. The film is a kind of kaleidoscopic time machine, examining the plight of generations which, one after the other, become tools and puppets of economic and historical structures.

In a well-cooked and stark manner — adjectives borrowed from Nýló’s director Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir — often shot through with streaks of black humour, the exhibition displays a dark image of Western civilization via versatile manifestations of the horrors embedded in capitalism, industrialism, nationalism, religion, the dualistic and linear thought of occidental culture, and the individual’s buried-alive position in society.

The metaphor here is literal as the only visible body-parts of the film’s thirty protagonists are their heads. The rest are buried under ground. Between themselves, their chewing mouths fight over ceremonial ribbons carrying a collection of Western society’s fundamental values, doctrines and clichés, in a dynamic collision with a collage of significant images behind them — “the history of Western thought,” as author Steinar Bragi points out. Towering over a coffin shaped as a baby’s cot, located in a mausoleum at the museum’s entrance, the same ribbons have been tied onto a funeral wreath. A single cliché, “From the Cradle to the Grave,” hangs between the mouths of two children’s heads that stick out of the black sand below the coffin. A smooth corporate female voice greets the visitors: “Welcome to our world!”

I Sense, Therefore I Think

“It’s very pessimistic,” Steinar Bragi says during our conversation in a bunker-like room of Nýló. “The film shows us disembodied beasts, fighting over the phrases that our entire society is built upon. I always see the head as the rational approach to life, stuck in these dualistic pairs that are so far from reality as I experience it. We have sensibilities, then emotions, and finally there are words and reason. Reason is useful for certain tasks, when one has to go from place A to place B, but it’s only a tool to be used on something far more extensive.”

Steinar and I agree that society is constantly simplified into Cartesian dualism — “I think, therefore I am” — the ground zero of Western thought. And while dualism doesn’t necessarily reject sensibilities and emotions, Steinar maintains that it locates reason on a higher level. “Reason is expected to control, which it certainly does in a small and unglamorous context, but it’s only an expression of what lies beneath.”

Enemies of Progress?

It’s clear that the core of this rationalism is simplification such as how political and social conflicts tend to be reduced to a fight between alleged good and evil forces. This not only brings us to the religious nature of the myth of progress, but also the power of language. Because “although they are hollow and empty and repeatedly chewed on, these phrases are also very powerful,” as literary scholar Benedikt Hjartarson points out. “They conduct the way society is shaped. They manifest the social and economic reality we live with.”

As former director of US aluminium corporation Alcoa Alain Belda told the newspaper Morgunblaðið in March 2003: “Some people are against progress.” He was referring to the opponents of the Kárahnjúkar dams, constructed in Iceland’s highlands to create energy for Alcoa’s smelter. “But fortunately,” he continued, “the world is growing and people are requesting better lives.”

Such an argument equals economic growth and people’s welfare, portraying the megaproject’s opponents as enemies of progress. At the same time it negates the destructive nature of progress, manifested for instance in the culturally genocidal impacts — in the form of displacement of populations — and irreversible environmental destruction often associated with large-scale energy production, and how the lives of whole generations are wasted by wars waged for power and profit.

“We see this contradiction within modernity,” Benedikt continues, “how the idea of progress thrives on destruction and always calls for annihilation.” But unlike the revolutionary destruction encouraged by 19th Century anarchist philosopher Michail Bakunin — who stated, “the passion for destruction is a creative passion too!” — the annihilation inherent to progress is rather used as a stimulus for an unaltered continuum of the status quo under the pretext of development. Thus, the contradictory nature is evident again, as well as the religious one: “The present is never here,” Benedikt says, “it’s always something we are aiming for.”

Violence Intrinsic to Social Contracts

The film displays a great amount of violence, which musician Teitur Magnússon sees with a strong reference to alienation. “One feels like it’s somehow supernatural, like it’s not the work of humanity but rather of a monster that’s eating everything up, and we don’t seem to have any control of it.”

Artist Bryndís Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir furthermore connects this brutality with authority. “Humans aren’t able to handle more power than over themselves,” she says. “As soon as someone is granted higher power, violence enters the picture.” She maintains that some sort of violence is intrinsic to all simplifications — “all of society’s attempts to try and settle upon something” — meaning a wide range of social contracts, from organized religion to written and unwritten rules regarding people’s behaviour.

A Leap Into the Future

As Angeli Novi’s subject is not only complex but also polarized — layered with our cultural history of construction and destruction, repression and revolt — the exhibition doesn’t preach any simple solutions to the great problems it addresses. Such attempts are often just as contradictory as the myth of progress itself, or as philosopher Slavoj Žižek ironically sums up in his analysis of what he calls ‘a decaf reality,’ when the “very thing which causes damage should already be the medicine.”

Thus, one cannot resist wondering if there actually is a way out of the horrors analysed and manifested in the exhibition. Or is humanity bound to be stuck in a premature burial while the seemingly unstoppable catastrophe witnessed by Benjamin’s Angel of History keeps on enlarging into eternity?

With images referring to France’s July Revolution of 1830, Angeli Novi reject such a vision and suggest instead a peculiarly creative approach to revolt. Already during the revolution’s first day, clocks on church towers and palaces all over Paris were shot down and destroyed, signifying the urgent need to nullify predominant social structures and ideologies by putting an end to the time of the oppressors.

In continuum of this rebellious tradition of what philosopher Herbert Marcuse referred to as “arresting time” — directly related to what William Burroughs called “blowing a hole in time” — Angeli Novi transcend the well known demand for “all power to the people” with a leap into the future, granting wings to the mind and calling for all power to the imagination.

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See also:

Saving Iceland: Kárahnjúkar Dam Blown Up in New Film by Angeli Novi

Jón Proppé: Standing in the way of progress

Þóroddur Bjarnason: Jafnvægislist (Icelandic only)

Angeli Novi’s webiste

At the heart of the exhibition, which consists of audio, video and sculptural pieces, is a 20 minute long film in Icelandic and English, bearing the same title as the exhibition. Around 30 people were willingly buried alive during the making of the film, which was shot this year in Greece and Iceland. Soundscapes were created by Örn Karlsson in collaboration with Angeli Novi.

Corporate green-wash and the Kárahnjukar dams play a key role in You Can’t Stand in the Way of Progress. In one of the film’s scenes, the 700 m long and 200 m high central Kárahnjúkar Dam is digitally blown up by the very same explosion that blew up the Dimmugljúfur canyon in March 2003. The first destruction of the 200m deep canyon, which was carved out by the 150 km long river Jökulsá á Dal, played a strategical key role in the conflict about the power plant’s construction, and was meant to signify the government’s determined intention to steamroller Iceland’s eastern highlands in order to produce electricity for the US aluminium corporation ALCOA. As environmentalists warned from the beginning, the construction has turned out to have devastating environmental, social and economical impacts, and contributed also heavily to Iceland’s infamous 2008 economic collapse.

Asked about the cinematic blast, artists Gunnlaugsdóttir and Sigurðsson said: “It was particularly pleasurable to blow up the image of the dam that has now become the main symbol of corporate power abuse and ecocide in Iceland.” Sigurðsson  added that it was “Very appropriate to use for our purpose the same film footage that was used by the Icelandic government in 2003 to dash people’s hopes of saving the Kárahnjúkar area from deeply corrupt forces of corporate greed and governmental stupidity. These same forces have learnt nothing from their past crimes and mistakes and are now lining up for taking power next year in order to continue their destructive rampage through Icelandic nature.”

A press release  from The Living Art Museum states the following:

Angeli Novi create a kind of a kaleidoscopic time machine, examining the plight of generations which, one after the other, become tools and puppets of economic and historical structures. Through symbolism and imagery, Angeli Novi examine the ideological backdrops of these structures, the variously substance-drained core values of occidental culture, as well as as the reoccurring themes of doctrines and clichés in the societal rhetoric, necessary for society to maintain itself.

You Can’t Stand in the Way of Progress opened on 29 September and will run until 2 December. The Living Art Museum is located on Skúlagata 28, 101 Reykjavík.

Ge9n trailer (EN) from SeND film tank on Vimeo.

If not familiar with The Reykjavík Nine – nine people who were charged and later acquitted of attacking Iceland’s parliament after wanting to enter the building’s public gallery on December 8th 2008, a few months after Iceland’s economic collapse – then you can read through the whole case on the nine’s official support website. Check out a short, sharp and informative video from the 2011 London Anarchist Bookfair or download a brochure that was published and distributed shortly before the case’s main procedure, which took place in January 2011.

Also take a look at Ge9n’s official website where you can find a very nice poster, a press kit and the film’s title song: Stóriðjuverkefnið mig, composed and performed by Linus Orri and Þórir Bogason. Finally, read a review of the film’s première (the one mentioning the “ticking timebomb”) and an exclusive interview with the film’s director, Haukur Már Helgason (p. 30-32).

It is written somewhere that all cats are grey in the dark, but here in Iceland, official reports are all black, no matter how bright it is outside. Alþingi’s Investigative Commission’s Report is black. The Central Bank’s Report on the status of household debt is black. And the government and International Monetary Fund’s Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies is also black, dark as a coal mine, and sure enough, it was drafted in April, the cruellest month. It is a reminder of the misery that the IMF has presided over in countries all over the world, and directly refutes the notion that the IMF plans to apply different methods than those it has adhered to until now.

In Greece, the public has risen up against the Fund’s plans, but here the labour movement and employers get into bed with it and are almost more devout than the Pope in getting investors to come here with their baggage of offshore profits and dummy corporations. In one district, where neo-liberals have sold everything and there is nothing left to mortgage except the harbour, efforts are being made to set a precedent by selling natural resources through a shelf company just so politicians can save face after having handed over the entire district to their associates and relatives on a silver platter.

What should the poets write about? Will the IMF supply the country with a literary writing programme? No, I do not think it has any interest in literature. Thank goodness for that. They just have graphs and bar charts, economists, advisers, and—if the confessions of former employees of the Fund are taken seriously—so called ‘economic hit men,’ who see to keeping politicians quiet, paying them off, or even ousting them. I do not trust myself to make more of this matter,except to say that automatons from Washington have been sent here, men who know all about the state deficit and nothing about our history and culture. They go on about “economic growth” but do not want to know anything about the public’s welfare; they are indifferent to whether nations are literate or illiterate. They are only interested in whether it is possible to squeeze money and proceeds out of the state in the interest of investors and big industry. Here is one big lemon. We will squeeze a whole tub of lemon juice out of it. Here are natural resources. Money can be squeezed out of them to pay hedge funds that have bought the debts of banks and financial corporations at bargain rates. The economist Michael Hudson has described the IMF as a sort of henchman for international creditors, collecting property and industry revenues on their behalf. But what is more incredible, he remarks, is that nations around the world are sacrificing their economic and monetary independence without resistance.

The first mission chief the IMF sent here was Mark Flanagan. He was succeeded by a woman, Julie Kozak. They were both assisted by a man named Franek Rozwadowski; and all of them were assisted by a woman who headed Landsbanki’s research group and almost everything they once reported turned out to be false. In any case, the Icelandic public had to listen to the bubble economy wisdom of the research group when Landsbanki was supposedly in its prime.Those from other research groups were no better but I call her out in particular because she is an employee of the IMF, which is in command of this country. It may be leaving now, but it will only truly be felt after it departs, having tightly bound everything according to its plans. It is really quite remarkable that most of the Social Democrat cabinet ministers collect their assistants and advisers among the ruins of the banking system.The IMF mission chief gives more orders than the President and the government, regardless of the mission chief’s gender. The mission chief can tell the Minister of Finance to stand on his hands, and the Minister of Finance will stand on his hands. But whoever gives orders to the mission chief is another story.

I once met Mark Flanagan. It was at a meeting in The Central Bank requested by a group of people who opposed the IMF’s economic plans for different reasons and on various grounds. I had a copy of Naomi Klein’s book ‘The Shock Doctrine’ with me, a beautifully bound book with a yellow cover. I asked Mark Flanagan whether he had read this book and whether he wanted to discuss its contents. He looked down at me from above his table and replied that the author of this book was not an economist. Then he turned to his bar charts on trade deficit, which he supposed should level off in the very short-term. It was obvious from Mark Flanagan’s arguments that he was a disciple of Milton Friedman, the man at the centre of ‘The Shock Doctrine,’ the man who laid the groundwork for the period of neo-liberalism as an ideologist and prophet, and has left his fingerprints on historical events, from the military coup in Chile to the privatisation of Icelandic banks.

The most prominent disciple of Milton Friedman in Iceland was Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson […]. Milton and Hannes were friends and were members of the same club, which shaped the most recent era of history. In the middle of the seventies, Hannes Hólmsteinn sat in the Student Council of the University of Iceland and I also sat there for a time, as a stand-in if I recall correctly. He was the only one among those on the right who took part in debates with those of us who were furthest to the left. Others on the right had little interest in global issues and generally knew little about politics and history. In light of history, Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson is probably the most influential politician to have sat on the Student Council. But we did not take him seriously, and rather regarded him as an ultra right-wing individual who probably did not mean half of what he said. We thought he was joking. But we were wrong there. We were satisfied with dreaming, discussing and being in the right. But Hannes Hólmsteinn was the messenger of an ideology that was pushed into practice. I fancy that he gets the shivers when he thinks about the consequences of these theories. He talked about bringing dead capital back into circulation, that is to say, placing natural resources and public goods in the hands of private individuals. As such Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson had no power but a lot of influence.

There were other famous right-wing personalities present, in addition to Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir and Össur Skarphéðinsson. Ingibjörg Sólrún was president of the Student Council and Össur Skarphéðinsson, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, was vice-president. He had been president before her, exactly as it transpired later in The Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin). It could be said that this Student Council was like a miniature picture of the nation’s failure. It was a little picture of the future, of the people who were to take charge and govern. Several Student Councils have since come and gone but it is always the same story. For many, the Student Council works as a springboard to the seat of power. When I sat there, it did not occur to me that I was surrounded by future heads of state, Members of Parliament, municipal mayors and some three cabinet ministers.

The left was in the majority and I supported the majority, but I was in a minority within the majority. Those of us who were to the extreme left and identified with revolutionary change and socialism did not adopt all the views of the majority and did not expect the majority to assume responsibility for our views. We had our own particular discourse on, for instance, overthrowing the social order, stopping wars and freeing political prisoners; views we thought should be heard but which did not explicitly fall within the jurisdiction of the Student Council. The Student Council was like any other special interest group, and it had student struggle on its agenda, just as recovering alcoholics join together to stay sober and stamp collectors to collect stamps. Or unions consolidate to protect the rights of their members. The struggle of the Student Council dealt with pressing interests such as student loans, student services and so forth. This is not to say that we did not regard the world revolution as a pressing interest but the majority on the left was not of the same opinion.

And so the winter went by. During this time, creative writing was taking hold of me and I was not always tuned into the political scene. Yet I wanted to participate in the discussion even though the discussion was not always objective. I was not particularly objective either. Sometimes I grew bored at these meetings, twisted things around and tried to be funny, causing trouble in a flippant sort of way. Sometimes I would let slip are mark that the opposition would put in the books and which would often amuse the Council. One time, for example, the right took up the issue of facilities for student associations, undoubtedly a necessary discussion. Among other things, it had to do with providing facilities for the respective associations affiliated with the left and right. While this discussion took place, I turned to the person sitting next to me and said to him:“Do those right-wingers need anything more than a wardrobe for their old Nazi uniforms?” We laughed at this sardonic joke. Meanwhile heated discussions were taking place over the issue itself, so that nobody heard what I said except one girl from the right-wing faction. This was of course merely crude humour, perhaps not particularly funny considering how sensitive Nazism is as a topic, especially for people on the right. But the girl insisted upon my words being recorded. I requested that she repeat my comment, and when she did, the room exploded with laughter as if she had been hearing voices. I still fail to understand what end was served in recording such a comment.

This girl was surely a fine individual but most of the others said little at these meetings and let the men present the arguments. Then they raised their hands and voted as they were supposed to.They contributed little to the discussions and did not keep up with world affairs. Nobody on the right kept up with world affairs except perhaps Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson, the disciple of Milton Friedman. Today everyone agrees that this compliance and conformity, this subordinate way of thinking, is one ofthe causes of the collapse. I was myself turning away from political orthodoxy, which always toed the same line, and within a few years, I had completely turned my attention to story-telling and poetry. I found myself giving way to the facts and my view of society was expanding and becoming more variegated. Even so, the radical left continued to provide essential provisions for my journey in this world. It is also fair to point out that I would later meet many of those who sat with me on the Student Council as upright citizens who attended to their jobs with knowledge and solicitude, and it did not make a difference whether they had been on the right or left side of the spectrum.

______________________________________

The photo of Einar Már is by Christopher Lund.

In a conversation with online newspaper Róstur, the director explained briefly his motivation for making the film:

I make the film… well, I guess because there one catches a glimpse of some potential, some possibility, a will for another kind of society, in the minds of a group of people who the state power has, by charging them, defined as a certain set. The charges basically call for an investigation about who these people, defined as enemies, are, and which thoughts someone somewhere can find so dangerous – because it was clear from the beginning that it was not the “action” in the parliament that was considered so dangerous.

On May 3rd 2011, Unesco Iceland held a panel on the right to protest, titled The Yellow Ribbon, where the Reykjavík Nine case and its result in court was the main focus point. There, an 8 min. preview from A9ainst was shown, a clip portraying ‘the tenth member’ of the group of nine: paramedic and anti-war campaigner Lárus Páll Birgisson.

A few days after the panel the same clip was screened in a political talk show on state TV station RÚV and published on the internet a few days later. The clip can be viewed here below but unfortunately there are no subtitles… yet. Like said before the film will be premiered at Patreksfjörður this weekend and will be screened in cinemas shortly afterwards.

Ge9n – Þáttur Lalla from Haukur Már Helgason on Vimeo.

Check out the film’s website here and its Facebook-page here.

Detailed information about the film:

Director: Haukur Már Helgason, Producer: Bogi Reynisson, Cinematography: Miriam Fassbender, Produced by: SeND film tank, Co-producer: Argout film, Post-production: Atmos, Music by: Linus Orri, Jón Örn Loðmfjörð, Áki Ásgeirsson, Giraffe and more.

Appearances: Andri Leó Lemarquis, Kolbeinn Aðalsteinsson, Jón Benedikt Hólm, Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir, Þór Sigurðsson, Ragnheiður Esther Briem, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Snorri Páll Jónsson, Teitur Ársælsson, Lárus Páll Birgisson, Vilborg Dagbjartsdóttir, Guðmundur Oddur.

In July 2007 Reverend Billy and Savitri D joined Saving Iceland’s international conference, titled Global Consequences of Heavy Industry and Large Dams, which Billy presided. A few days later Billy, Savitri and Saving Iceland exorcised heavy industry in Iceland during a ceremony in shopping mall Kringlan, Reykjavík. A year later Billy sent Saving Iceland a letter, inspired by his participation in 2007, which can be read here.

In a press release from University of Michigan Press, the new book’s publisher, says:

Reverend Billy, the revivalist preacher created by performance artist Bill Talen, has attracted an international following as he has railed in white suit and clerical collar against the evils of excessive consumerism and corporate irresponsibility. In his early solo performances in Times Square he delivered sermons by megaphone against Starbucks and the Disney Store; as his message and popularity spread, he’s been joined by a 35-member choir (the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir) and a 7-piece band. The group’s acclaimed stage show and media appearances (including a major motion picture, What Would Jesus Buy?) have reached millions.

The Reverend Billy Project presents backstage accounts of recent performance actions by Reverend Billy and the troupe’s director, Savitri D, recounting their exploits on three continents in vivid narratives that are engaging, shrewdly analytical, and at times side-splittingly funny. We watch as the group plans invisible theater interventions in Starbucks, designs a mermaid hunger strike to thwart gentrification plans for Coney Island, and makes an extended effort to preserve the public nature of New York’s Union Square. We follow them to an action camp in Iceland and a flop of a show redeemed by a successful impromptu demonstration in a Berlin shopping mall. As thoughtful as they are funny and inventive, Reverend Billy and Savitri D’s story-essays bring to life a playful yet sincere new form of political theater.

Like said before, the book release party will take place on June 13th at 7:00 PM, in Housing Works Bookstore & Café, 126 Crosby Street, New York City, NY.

Read more about Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah! here.

The videos below are from Billy and Savitri’s visit in Iceland; the first one is a TV news-clip from the ceremony in Kringlan, the second and the third are from the above mentioned conference in July 2007.

Together with speakers from Sól á Suðurlandi commedians Saga Garðarsdóttir and Ugla Egilsdotttir will perform and finally there will be live music from Mukkalo.

The event will take place on the upper floor of café Glætan,  19 Laugavegi, 17.00 hrs., Wednesday March 2.

The location, Nasa is one of Iceland’s biggest clubs and concerts venues, and is located on Austurvöllur, the square in front of Iceland’s parliament, where most of the biggest protests have taken place last years. The concert starts at 20:30 and entrance fee is 500 ISK.

The court procedure in the case against the Reykjavík Nine takes place on January 18th, 19th and 20th. You can follow the case on the official support website (in English here) and on Twitter. A call for a week of soliarity actions, from January 10th to 16th, was recently published worldwidely and can be read here.

Climate change has made Greenland the next industrial frontier, but at what cost?

Humanity is in denial. We know that our hyperactive extraction of fuels, metals and minerals, and their dirty processing, consuming and dumping for our consumer ‘growth’ society is killing the planet and ourselves. We also know that all of these sugary treats are finite. But like an insolent toddler we continue; more and more, faster and faster – running in denial from the planetary spanking that is undoubtedly coming our way.

I have often hoped that the global emergency of climate change, combined with the inescapable reality of peak oil would wake us up from this selfish resource-gorging, and perhaps it still will before it is too late (too late: I.e tomorrow? 2012? 2020? a few months ago?). But in the meantime,  nature has given western capitalism one last laugh. As the ice drips and cracks from Greenland’s white mass it is exposing a treasure trove of minerals, metals, ores and oil (one of the highest concentrations in the world), and plentiful hydro-power to help us heat, break and alter them into things we ‘need’. Just as the candle wick flares and gutters on our oil-driven consumptive society Greenland’s bounty has given it one more chance. One last bright flame, to hide from us the surrounding darkness.

Queuing up for the best bites

All the big names are queuing up for a ticket to the earth’s last free banquet. Statoil, Chevron and Exxon-Mobil want oil, True North Gems are after diamonds, gold and rubies, and Alcoa is chasing the newly roaring melt-waters of ancient ice, for dams and hydro-power to smelt aluminium.

Greenland Minerals and Energy (who are not a national project, but an Australian mining consortium) have their hearts set on uranium, zinc and the magical sounding ‘rare earth elements’ – essential for the equally magical technology in our apple macs, i-pods and digital cameras. They describe their mission as; “unlocking the mineral riches of Greenland, one of the world’s last natural resource frontiers”. “Unlocking” – as though they are freeing something trapped in the earth and desperate to get out, as though the earth has cruelly kept it from them, but we will suffer no more.. this “frontier” will be conquered, tamed and made to serve our needs.

But what about the Greenlanders? How do they feel about their isolated island being invaded by American, Australian, British and Norwegian suits, helicopters and drilling rigs? They are faced with an impossible conundrum. Having blamed fossil-fuel induced climate change for destroying their land and traditional livelihoods for so long, they are now promised that drilling oil, and adding to climate change, is the only way they can finally become financially independent from Denmark.

Social versus environmental freedom. That is the stark choice. You can’t have both, either the land will prosper or the people. Man versus nature. Simple as that.

Kárahnjúkar: History repeating itself in Greenland

But this choice is not so easy for Greenlanders. British newspaper The Times quotes Greenlandic geologist Minik Rosing speaking about one of the planned projects:

“We know Black Angel (mining project) was really bad for the environment the first time. It ruined the fjord. Is it OK to ruin three or four fjords in order to build the country? I hate to even think this, but we have a lot of fjords…We’re very aware that we’ll cause more climate change by drilling for oil. But should we not when it can buy us our independence?”
My mind is cast back to the debates over Alcoa Fjardaal and Karahnjukar. The stark choices Icelanders faced then too, when the politicians said “we have to live”, “this is the only way we can survive”, “do you want to go back to the turf houses?” etc. And for a while Iceland was bathed in the glory of mega-projects, and the promise of mega-money. Did those promises materialise? The recent revelations about the price aluminium companies are paying for Icelandic power suggests not. In fact the smelters and dams may even have contributed to the financial crisis by so greatly reducing the national coffers in big loans for their construction, and getting little back in return.

But for Alcoa Iceland is already old news. The Greenland smelter will be bigger, ‘greener’ and possibly cheaper than Fjardaal (the negotiated price has not been revealed). In fact it is to be one of the world’s largest smelters ever, starting at 400,000 tons a year, and requiring the damming of two major rivers for 650 MW of energy. The similarities in the project, and the way Alcoa is pushing it are striking.

A top of the line, self-sustainable aluminium smelter?

Greenland’s prime minister Kuupik Kleist has announced that “any aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production”. Alcoa calls it “a wonderful opportunity” for themselves and Greenland to build “a world-class, sustainable aluminum smelter, powered by renewable hydroelectric energy”. Sound familiar?

Yet the preliminary EIA carried out by the consultancy Environmental Resource Management (who have passed projects for such clean companies as Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola and Anglo-American), shows that Greenland’s CO2 emissions alone will increase by 75% and will require a Kyoto exemption just like Iceland did for Fjardaal. The smelter will also produce 4,600 tons of SO2, 110 tons of fluorides and 7.1 tons of PFC gases (corresponding to 46,000 tons of CO2 equivalents) per year. The EIA claims that fluorides will have a particularly severe impact in Greenland because of the fragility of their ecosystems. Despite promising the latest in clean and green operations Alcoa have made no guarantee that they will fork out for scrubbing technology which the EIA claims could reduce this mega-impact. They certainly never did at Fjardaal.

The dam reservoirs will flood a large and biodiverse affecting Caribou migrations, populations of Arctic char depended on by fishermen and will affect over 9 towns and villages. One of these effects will be the loss of sources of drinking water, which will have to be imported from elsewhere at greater cost. Though some employment benefit is predicted many of the 600 jobs generated at the finished smelter will have to be filled by foreign workers. The EIA suggests that this is likely to increase crime rates and require extra police to be brought in from Denmark.

Culture at stake

But most striking of all is the potential cultural destruction. According to the EIA the planned reservoir at Tasersiaq will drown ‘a significant amount of newly discovered, still unstudied remains from the Inuit past, and possibly from earlier pre-Inuit cultures…Sites that are inundated by the rising water levels..will be inaccessible to study in the foreseeable future’. In other words this incredible cultural heritage will be gone, wiped, forgotten. Is this the cultural independence and freedom Greenlanders long for? Aqqaluk Lynge, a politician, poet and a leading member of the Inuit community is quoted by The Times; “Of course we want development,” he says. “We want our independence. But we don’t want to lose our souls in the process.”

The discourse promoted by Alcoa and it’s newly wed – the Greenland government – speaks, as it did in Iceland, of the moral obligation of Greenlanders to host ‘green’ aluminium smelters. It seems they should even be proud to sacrifice some of their extensive nature and unusual culture for the good of the world, to make aluminium smelting slightly less bad than it might otherwise be elsewhere. Because we ‘need’ aluminium, there’s no arguing over that.

So Iceland has done it’s bit, Greenland will do it’s bit, Norway is doing it’s bit, the hydro-powered smelters in Canada are doing their bit, Brazil’s new dams will do their bit, the world’s largest bauxite mine planned in Vietnam will do it’s bit. And thanks to all of that sacrifice Alcoa predicts only a 20% increase in it’s climate wrecking emissions by 2020, alongside thousands of acres of forest destruction, indigenous displacement, water poisoning and health effects on local communities. While 150 million tonnes of discarded aluminium lie dumped in our soils, played with and spent. But what does that matter when we have our planes, cars, computers and phones? What do we need ecosystems and a stable climate for anyway?

Meanwhile the smelter marches on. In 2009 Gunnar Jónsson from Fjardabyggd visited Greenland to show them how the eastern municipality had ‘prepared the local community’ for the plant at Fjardaal. But I wonder what advice other Icelanders would give to their neighbouring island. Was it really worth it? I suppose it’s too soon to say how the aluminium mega-powers might have contributed to the political corruption, economic instability and environmental tragedy that has unfolded in Iceland. But perhaps they would at least warn the Greenlanders to be wary of promises of freedom and prosperity. And if they are not worth so much after all, then perhaps a soul is more worth keeping.

An Icelandic translation of this article by Miriam Rose originally appeared in the July issue of the monthly newspaper Róstur

The artworks from the event have now been gathered and put up in an exhibition in the museum, which will last until August 14th. During that period, more events will take place there, including a panel discussion about the court case, freedom of expression, media and human rights. More information will be published soon on www.rvk9.org and www.nylo.is.

Skríllinn gegn ákæruvaldinu from Haukur Már Helgason on Vimeo.

From Draumalandið website – Dreamland is a truly epic film about a nation standing at cross-roads. Leading up to the country’s greatest economic crisis, the government started the largest mega project in the history of Iceland, to build the biggest dam in Europe to provide Alcoa cheap electricity for an aluminum smelter in the rugged east fjords of Iceland. The mantra was economic growth. Today Iceland is left holding a huge dept and an uncertain future

Dreamland is a film about exploitation of natural resources and as Icelanders have learned clean energy does not come without consequence. Iceland is a country blessed with an abundance of clean, renewable, hydro-electric and geothermal energy. Clean energy brings in polluting industry and international corporations.

Dreamland tells the story of a nation with abundance of choices gradually becoming caught up in a plan to turn its wilderness and beautiful nature into a massive system of hydro-electric and geothermal power plants with dams and reservoirs, built to power the increasing heavy industry that will soon make Iceland the largest aluminum smelter in the world.

This highly controversial matter goes largely unnoticed by the public until the plans are already in action and the industrial machine has been turned on. Although most Icelanders are against the idea of turning Iceland into the world’s biggest smelter of aluminum the locals where the smelters are meant to be built, celebrate the idea of increasing investment in their region and more jobs. For decades they have been getting desperate, facing depopulation as the young generation finds education and better jobs in the capital.

This multilayered story is also the story of a small nation’s continuing struggle for its independence, and today from multinational companies roaming the world. We try to grasp peoples fear for the future. The insecurity created by the constant news of looming economic slowdown, and uncertain future.

The question remains, how much unspoiled nature should we preserve and what do we sacrifice for clean, renewable energy? Dreamland gradually turns into a disturbing picture of corporate power taking over nature and small communities. It’s the dark side of green energy.

“I am one of many people who have stood up and spoken out, because I have to. I wouldn’t be able to live with my own conscience when my grandchildren drive around Iceland (in the future) and it’s just full of factories and smelters,” said the singer.

Her new single Nattura encourages active support for environmentalism. Björk said she does not understand how “aluminium smelters can just come to Iceland and takeover,” and that any new business in Iceland should be “not only environmentally and economically sustainable, but also morally sustainable.”

Aluminium corporations operating in Iceland have been heavily criticised on moral grounds. Alcoa has been noted for it’s involvement in arms production and severe worker exploitation in countries such as Honduras and Mexico. Rio Tinto has just seen an investment ban by the Norwegian government for it’s inhuman mining practices in Indonesia, while Century Aluminum has been for it’s involvement with Chinese slave labour companies and dealings in West Congo.

A year ago we were with you in Iceland, the land of fire and ice and spirits and charms! This year we get news and images on the computers. Congratulations on the Century Aluminum Smelter blockade. You slowed down the output from that day, July 21, 2008. You’re saving lives! Every hour that an F-16 is not yet in the air…

Wandering your website, I remember my sermon last year. I tried to conjure the memory of Crazy Horse and bring his spirit to your struggle for Iceland. Savitri remembers the recurring phrase, “The land is innocent and powerful.” I don’t remember much of the specifics of my talk that afternoon, which was itself an on-the-spot remembering. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the river valley in our windows and simultaneously my boyhood love of the stories of Crazy Horse, from when my family lived in the Dakotas.

And so if you will read this letter, and help us bring back that day in the hotel conference room in Olfus… Writing is an act of memory and by writing this letter to you today — maybe some of your year-ago campaign, and our sermon within it, will resurface in these pages.

****

Your volcanic wilderness with its geysers and glaciers and cascading rivers – to Savi and I it feels like the American west. It is as if Yellowstone and the Alaskan fjords and the Black Hills were concentrated on this island just below the Arctic Circle.

Savitri and I went west this year. We returned to South Dakota, to the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore, which towers over the flat part of the state to the east, with the four burdened-looking President’s heads gazing from the mountain. It’s like having giant rolls of paper bills, with Washington, Jefferson, Teddy and Abe – glowering down on the little prairie towns.

But then behind the Presidents is another mountain and another leader emerging… It is the Crazy Horse Memorial. The great brave is rising year by year from the mountain, and as he rises on his pony he is pointing east at – what? – The United States advancing toward him. The Crazy Horse Memorial was the idea of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and the Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear. They began to convert the mountain into Crazy Horse in 1948 and the work has been continued by the family and by the tribe these last 60 years.

Crazy Horse. He studies us from the horizon-line. He will always sit on his horse back in the sky, just beyond our American border that comes toward him in the form of a spray of bullets.

****

After the Civil War, the victorious United States army turned its attention west toward the Indian territories. In the 1870’s, the “Iron Horse” rode the rail all the way to the Black Hills on the edge of the Dakotas and Wyoming. Just like Iceland now, the extractive industries were coming in as the larger wildlife – wolves, eagles, and buffalo were killed off and any natives who might lay claim to the land were forced into new treaties and escorted to reservations. However, a large group of Sioux and Cheyenne migrated farther west in the 1870’s, out of the reservation system. Tatanka Yotanka, known to us as Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Sioux, was the trusted leader and seer.

In 1876, the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army marched into eastern Montana looking for this large moving village of natives. Major General George Armstrong Custer was in the lead. Custer was the tall handsome Civil War hero, a German American from Ohio, a kind of proto movie star. The natives called General Custer “Yellow Hair.” Custer was known for fearlessness in combat, at Gettysburg and Bull Run. He led the division that trapped Robert E. Lee on the final day of the war, at Appomottax.

On June 25th in 1876, eleven years after his heroism at the end of the Civil War, Custer’s men discovered Sitting Bull’s encampment and attacked it. They found that all the fighters had slipped away. Within 48 hours, a combined force of Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors, led by the young Lakota Sioux war chief Tashunca-uitco – known to us Crazy Horse – out-flanked, trapped and overwhelmed the 7th Cavalry. Custer, with his 268 men, died there. The Sioux called this “The Battle of the Greasy Grass.” Americans of European descent have called it Battle of Little Big Horn, or Custer’s Last Stand.

****

Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota Sioux warrior, was born on Rapid Creek near the present-day Rapid City, South Dakota. His birth name translates as “In the wilderness.” His adult name – as we know it – “Crazy Horse” doesn’t have the humor of the more accurate translation: “His horse is crazy!” But despite this light-hearted name the man was known for his self-possession and quiet. He rarely spoke. His life was forever marked by an attack on his childhood village by a U. S. Army officer named Grattan and his 29 cavalry troops. From that point, the young Crazy Horse began to experience the trance visions he would have for the rest of his life.

In preparation for battle, Crazy Horse was known to cover his horse with dirt, and then cover himself too and then ride into the enemy lines right through the astonished enemy warriors, whose arrows and bullets would slow down, as if they were falling through clear honey. He heightened himself, whooping in a trance – acting Crazy! – am I remembering our sermon? … whooping in a trance – acting Crazy! – moving in and out of all that mean-spirited cutting metal – the enemy slowing to a stand still – Crazy Horse’s raging laugh is a long echoey sound and he and his horse jump and whirl and zig zag and leap and turn and turn and charge! He gallops up to the enemy war chief and claps him on the shoulder and screams madly. Then he’s suddenly some place else, how did he get over there? Crazy Horse slices his way back through the entire battle.

It was known that Crazy Horse did not scalp his opponents – he demoralized them. He knew the rhythms and depth of focus of his enemy. He made them see things. He created a parallel world.

And Crazy Horse is famous for his call to his warriors “Hoka Hey! Today is a good day to die!” The knowledge of his enemy’s perspectives and rhythms, his intuition of what his enemy could and could not see… Somehow he needed to risk death to make his enemy’s ability to see become that clear. He needed to risk death to become untouchable. And Crazy Horse is uncatchable to this day. No one can square his personal facts. He is unverifiable. He was never photographed, (and yet we are sculpting a mountain of him). Like the hapless men of the 7th – historians strike out at this blurring brave but can’t make contact. Throughout his life he was seen here and there across the Great Plains, sometimes showing up in two of three places at once. No one knows where he is buried.

But for activists Crazy Horse is very clear. He has a gift for us.

****

Crazy Horse and his scouts watched from their high grassy Little Big Horn ridges studying the trajectory of Yellow Hair. First there was the speed of the cavalry, force-marching from Fort Lincoln to the east on a two-day marathon deep into Indian Territory. Less than a week before, Custer spurned offers of reinforcements, or faster-firing, heavier guns – all for speed. The westward ho! jerked Custer’s focus farther west, into a harsh dream that stabbed at the horizon. Crazy Horse let him fly by, like a Tai Chi practitioner uses the opponent’s momentum.

I wonder if Crazy Horse saw more than just Yellow Hair galloping toward his village with the cavalry in their blue and gold uniforms. The gambles Yellow Hair was taking were consistent with the 150 years of Americans that followed him. Yellow-Hair fronted for the Iron Horse, the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota and the Air Force base at Rapid City. Oh Iceland! – the American bombers are there now, a few miles from Rosebud, waiting for your aluminum.

This is the late 1870’s and Crazy Horse knew the culture of the trading posts, the missionaries and the fire-water. The proliferating palefaces must have been a nightmare. He was standing at a turning point, each moment was disappearing into pre-history, to be replaced by a new kind of cultural time that was defined by the whites. It must have been galling that Custer was praised by some of Crazy Horse’s people, with the self-damning celebration some victims have for a great tyrant. They called Custer “The Son of the Morning Star.” This pre-cursor of Vegas must have been hard to look at, but easy to see from a distance. His horse was front and center. You could see his foppish hat and his white gloves up to his elbows, trotting out from the great wars to the east.

Crazy Horse discovered in Custer a way of looking at the world that would allow his braves to grease the grass. On that day in 1876 as Yellow Hair approached him, Crazy Horse knew how the general was squinting at the western horizon while only taking the measurements of national borders, of ranches and mines and railroads. Custer’s neurotic hurry, riding the dying horse of his own myth, warped his military science. He wanted what all corporations want: Expansion and then extraction of all value for that expansion. He ran his men west to claim square miles of natives, of buffalo, of gold…

Crazy Horse must have been quite sure that Custer was staring with the burden of these dreams. Yellow Hair squinted into the grassy distance where the invisible warriors waited. He couldn’t see his enemy because in a sense the Souix and Cheyenne were beside the point. They were only the momentary obstacles between the hero and his inevitable expansion, and the bottom line for his employers in Washington. Custer’s focus was blurred and vague – and fatal. Crazy Horse guessed that the American was ignoring his scouts, rejecting any report that might slow him down. He waited in his silence as Yellow Hair raced toward the phantom village that would pull him in….

Crazy Horse knew that he and his men could slow down as the cavalry sped up, and become invisible, lost in the grass, float up as a cloud, disappear over a horizon that could suddenly come out of the sky like the killing point of an arrow. And Crazy Horse would be the warrior who named the battle, The Battle of the Greasy Grass.

****

And now, The Battle of Greasy Ice! Amen! Saving Iceland – you be must be Crazy Horse. You are peering down at your opponent from the volcanic rim.

The corporations are having their way with Iceland now – and they have learned from both Yellow Hair and the disappearing village. The modern corporation is like the Iron Horse – with the high tensile-strength metal and cheap energy of a fighter plane, but can shape-shift into its marketed image, become a friend whispering in our ear, a thousand products floating over our cities… And, when we oppose them, as you are here in Iceland, the corporations don’t have to meet you at all. The companies have no home address. You can go to the front gates of the government, or the banks, or the big smelters – the corporations are equally present everywhere, yet always foreign, from an exotic greater world.

If they cannot hide their participation in a show-down with citizens, they move aggressively to do so on their terms. They paint our eyes with graphics. They present a battle where there is no battle and dam our rivers behind our backs. They construct romantic battles and pixilated arrows and nostalgic de-politicized histories. When finally local Icelanders demand a real battle, in the form of democracy – the corporations level heavy advertising at the voting constituency that might get in the way, then bribe the elected officials and regulatory agencies. The CEO’s of never pay taxes and make 20 million a year. These corporations have an array of moves, engineered by an army of professionals, that makes it hard to know the enemy’s perspective and rhythm. For too long the corporations have been naming our battle.

Saving Iceland – With your action camp, sending out multiple actions over the weeks across the island, your highway blockages and dances in the lobbies of energy companies – you are operating on a time-honored activist stage. You appear, endangering yourself, dancing colorfully around the frozen-looking police, then you talk in press releases and statements in the courts. You release CO2 emissions reports about smelters. You bring in river and dam specialists from around the world to educate the public about the ecosystem of the Iceland’s rivers. (We have activists here today from Topango, South Africa, India, Montreal and Brazil.) Then you appear again with your multi culti band of moral enforcers, gyrating around the corporate guards. It’s not just the volcanoes and waterfalls that make us think of Crazy Horse’s west, it’s you. The way you vanish and re-appear, shouting and moving like the rivers you want to save — that looks like warrior’s theater.

Crazy Horse appeared to watch Custer running toward him. Then he vanished to prepare a parallel world. Still that glitzy enemy approached. The warrior knew that his way was called the past, no longer sensible even criminal – but he withdrew into the earth he was named for, in the wilderness, the world, oh we are remember our sermon again.

… the greasy grass world, the lubricated vegetation world through which braves would ride and swim and slither and burst into view from behind the green veil –

…that magic world that scandalized the America of his day – simply the earth itself. The earth is specific. The natural world has the strategy for activists. She is our teacher. Take a few square feet of forest floor and the information is there for the asking. Follow a bird or animal for a few hours – it’s all there. You’ve got your disguises, faking like a possum or like the killdeer bird who lures a predator away from her chicks by pretending to have a broken wing, there’s the ever present strategical music and the showbiz – it’s all there – magic acts abound, swallowings, floats, upside-down bark clingings, every kind of hiding and surprise tactic, murder mysteries of jealous poisons and quick flights into weightlessness…

I’m serious. Before battle get away from people and ask for directions.

****

Crazy Horse’s instructor was the Great Plains. From what he tells us he returned always to his people and his land, his beloved Black Hills. He spoke repeatedly of his ancestors buried there, all around him, their power rising in a noiseless stream in the grass and trees. He knew the wind, the direction of it around storms.. He knew what sounds would travel how far. He was a hunter, the scent in the wind fed him and his family… He knew what animals were watching from beneath the rim of the grassy horizon.

Does all this seem mysterious? Yes, mysterious but so familiar. This is the vanishing art of Crazy Horse again. We search for him and his invisibility bends our senses on that horizon of greasy grass. Certainly the 7th Cavalry in 1876 feared Crazy Horse, feared him the same way they couldn’t figure out the limitless prairie night sky. Custer called the Sioux savages, criminals – but he was defending himself and his men against the unknown. Everything was fathomless out here in the Dakotas, all of it unknown, and so was Crazy Horse.

Icelanders may stare at you activists. You might hurt their eyes, or be hard to see. You might be strange to them, at first. When we took our church service into the Klinglin Mall – they were shocked into stillness. The depth of mystery that we must have seemed to them, the trick of the eye, the subversion of the logic of big retail. Do you remember that one policeman was beside himself with rage? Did he sense that we were not necessarily Christians? Did he transfer his expectations of silence of his own home to the cafeteria in the mall? Did he find the Reykjavik teenager in the televangelist’s suit preaching in the native tongue – my stand-in after I was detained – an abomination? Or maybe he simply loved Consumerism and thought it must be the modern future of Iceland.

While the cop was screaming, others were laughing, murmuring, shrugging – many different responses. And if the executives of Alcoa and Rio Tinto and Alcan had been there in the mall, I suppose they would have called us “romantic” or “eccentric” or “dangerous.” That is how the mall spokesperson would talk after we left. Anything to normalize us, and discourage the revolutions in personal perspective that might have occurred among their customers. Best for the mall to formalize a puritanical non-response. But they are unaware of how slowly they are moving in this battle.

****

Savitri is from New Mexico and I’m from Minnesota and South Dakota – and we were both come from childhood geographies amidst Native Americans. When we accepted your invitation to visit the action camp, so deep in this place’s nativity, we didn’t expect that unmistakable feeling. Then you invited us also to re-enter your super mall, Reykjavik’s first and big alternative reality of its kind, and a kind of learning center for the Consumer… So we walked into passion play here in Iceland, the struggle between two sources of imagination.

We know that taking into your mall and thinking performatively, full of “push prayers,” we invoking the image of pop religion, the televangelist – casting demons from the pit of ads and money. We were aware throughout our adventure, though, of the native spiritual life that your Klinglin mall blocks so skilfully and brutally from you. It is sad that such a exporter of monoculture exists in as beautiful a place as Iceland. As you deal with the corporations buying your rivers to dam them and buying the mouths of the rivers to erect toxic smelters there… you can measure the consumerism coming into Iceland by the products emergence from the mall, as against the other end of imagination, the connection to ancestry and sustenance of folk myth, even if updated to be a part of current culture.

The burden all activists have worldwide is to find where the corporations can be out-flanked. Their retail outlets, where they take cash from hypnotized consumers, the “Point of Purchase” – that is a weak point in their defences, we believe. We have worked hard at aggressive ritual-making at the cash registers of the big box sweatshop companies. With one hand on the register and one hand in the air – we watch a jolt go through the bodies of our American on-lookers. There is an equivalent in Iceland. As Crazy Horse discovered with his penetrating study from the high ridge, there is a way to defeat an enemy who pretends to be speeding from the future.

The larger view we have now of the globalized economy was first introduced to many of us in 1999 at the WTO meet in Seattle. To the extent that the destructive neo-liberal trading system, as conceived by free trade agreements by big governments and banks is stalled now, the Battle of Seattle is key. The new imperialists were out-flanked, taken by surprise. Most of the opposition imagery was endearingly human, surprising, and engaging. I remember one vivid skirmish: Delegates to the WTO were trapped in their hotel by scores of environmentalists dressed up in sea turtle costumes. The turtle-humans swam back and forth, passing out literature about how the new economic order was over-ruling earth-friendly laws. They blocked the front door and the force of their moral bravery cancelled the conference and simultaneously ignited many discussions across the world.

Saving Iceland – you have a field of battle to discover in the aluminum companies’ smoke and mirrors. You may discover that the point of purchase is the place, where the advertising concentrates and the sales personnel shepherd consumers to the purchase. Or the exposed point in the corporate system could be at the point of information flow, the press releases, the “spokespersons” that the Yes Men manipulate so well. Or Michael Moore’s working class comedies in lobbies, in streets and on beaches may be a clue. Or Annie Leonard’s vivid teaching in “The Story of Stuff,” or fomenting share-holder rebellions, as we’ve seen at Starbucks and Exxon and Disney. Or the interactive theatrics of the Living Theater or of Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed. Finally though, we have come to believe that Iceland itself has your answer. Iceland will save itself partnering with you.

There is a knowing of the corporations’ perspective that Iceland will give you. Even though the corporations study the neurology of our brains, and reproduce false battles before us – there is a way to out-flank them and overwhelm them. Let’s go down deeper into the notion that Iceland holds in its life it’s own best defence. You have extreme animism here. Your famous lovelings, flying sprites with spells coming out of their wands. You have the Huldufolk, the “hidden people,” the elves and faeries. They are so thoroughly sensed by Icelanders – it’s hard-wired into your culture, a little like the belief in angels in the United States. You’ve told me that highways actually curve around suspected towns full of the hidden citizens. The Kringlan Super Mall was itself forced to re-design its foundation because of the belief that spirits would be upset.

You see you have your unknown. Your ancestors have left you a map for vanishing and re-appearing, as has Crazy Horse. And big hydro can try to dam you, but you fly, you dig, you transubstantiate and there you are again. You have your own greasy grass. You are saving Iceland because you are Iceland.

Iceland is still becoming a land. It seems to be arriving from the deep, struggling with steam shooting and glaciers descending and volcanic fire and weirdly blue pools in the crevices. The consciousness from all of time presses against everyday life. It’s tragic, but it makes sense that the war companies would find so much electricity by placing their turbines in these rivers. Our sense of hope comes from the inevitable feeling that all this energy is formed by beings, consciousness, the hidden people doing their job. Your island is haunted in the most practical way.

The Iceland people are famous for being reserved, polite. You don’t have a history of street demonstrations. The rocks, on the other hand, shout with their fire and ice. It is well-known, too, that the Iceland has very few people. There are sweeping vistas that have no houses. That land, though, is saturated with flamboyant nether-people engaged in stories that everyone knows involving every sort of plot twist. You have a clue here. Alcoa has already been forced to make concessions and assurances that the Huldufolk and elves would not be displaced before the construction of one its smelters. The Icelandic people had to be satisfied that attention was paid.

Your hidden people require a kind of environmental impact statement, then. The environment is defined to include the invisible. The corporations have managed to keep the EIS of this kind separate from its impact reports on reindeer, harbour seals, pink-footed geese, and rare invertebrate species – I’m speaking of the Karahnjukar dams. Your strategy ought to combine the two, and let the spirits of nature imbue all of the opposition to the dams, so that the spectre of the entire earth stands before the corporate strategists. The endangerment of life in this last great wilderness of Europe cannot be separated into powerless parts, with the Huldufolk consigned to cultural superstition, and the bird species to the concern of Ornithologists, and so on. Spook ‘em! The Sioux painted their faces and screamed bloodcurdlingly, as they represented the whole rage of the violated earth.

Elders who have lived for all those seasons of midnight suns tell stories that come from those rocks and that’s when we can really feel the power that cannot possibly be dynamited into shape of the new, corporate rivers. Like Puck, Oberon and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the hidden people are caught up in mischievous adventures. They are not bad or good so much as interested in change and even chaos. The native Iceland stories come to the light like angry life, like the fire and ice, and don’t you think they will call out to you before the river dies?

You do have your allies, the living things that Icelanders have accepted from the land. The land is innocent and must be defended, and the land is powerful also and gives you the opening for your response. The Huldufolks are whispering to you. Let the ghosts ventriloquism come through your mouths. This might be a source of a more straightforward kind of talk to the Icelandic people than recitations about the evil of the corporations. Don’t be afraid of the natives here. Yes they are not accustomed to rebellion. But all the myths of this island are full of revolution. Every Icelander will know what you are doing, not via the news only but also from the earth. The citizens in the open air will join the hidden people in choosing your battle and afterwards naming it.

And so the most hidden people reveal themselves and disappear at will. Invite their advice, hold vigil for them, appear with them, enact them. March within the people’s under-conscious selves, just as corporate marketing seeks to do. However, you do not arrive as an advertisement, but in person, embodying your defense of the land and of original culture. You are half-way to this now with your “action camps” in the mountains. Let your instincts take you farther, with prayers, séances, silent meditations. Make your way through the doubts, the predictable obstructive self-appointed prophets that will appear. Fake it till you make it in the direction of the hidden people of your island. Eventually partner spirits will come.

The “Radical Faeries” are the clearest corollary in other parts of the world. The Faeries have evolved rituals of many kinds, starting with their circles and dances. They also have economic power in the world, own land and defend themselves legally against official homophobia. The energy of the faeries never seems to wane, as the cultural wars rage. They never over-play their position. The Faeries are not dependent on the battle emotionally, their sustenance coming from a source baffling to their opponents yet alluring and clear to their allies.

****

The powerful player in this struggle with the military and their extractive industrial companies – Crazy Horse will tell you – is the earth itself. In this time of our history the earth is front and center, the star of the show, our leader. Oh! I remember –

I am offering an invitation to you to remember your own island and its spirits. The defenders of the island, on Iceland’s seal, are the eagle, the dragon, the giant, the bull… and there has also been a presence in your ancient heraldry of great fish. These fierce defenders should not be replaced by the international logos of corporations that supply the armies and air forces of our habitually violent nation states.

I am remembering more of our sermon, which was an attempt at remembering Crazy Horse, standing on his grassy ridge to the west. Progressive activism has long ignored the ancient bridge to the ineffable, while favoring strategies that are often redoubts of intellectualism that only professional lefties can understand. Perhaps we identify the old ways as weak, as we watch the indigenous people fall before the onslaught of the globalized economy. Nevertheless, we have found in our work in the “Church of Life After Shopping” that all people retain old working souls whose relationship with the spirits of the natural world is still going on within us. It is an act of remembering something that we can’t Google. In our work we have seen many different kinds of people energized by a memory that precedes the coercive faith of corporations.

And so good night to you, and thank you for your invitation to come to Iceland and learn so much from you and your land. And thank you to Crazy Horse and his ancestors, they have have been our hosts, too.

I’m remembering again… Activism now – must be the act of applied mystery. We know that the activist leading us is the earth. We must be earth ourselves. We must be the earth defending the earth. We are only joining the system of life of which we a part, which is already engaged in that fight to survive. We watch the tsunamis and cyclones and fires and floods. The earth is heroically trying to save itself from the Yellow Hairs and the corporations that make bombers.

Crazy Horse accepted that he was given a specific task. He listened and watched and prayed, and then he covered himself and his horse with the earth.

They might have thought Karahnjukar was a shame, or even a necessary sacrifice, but that it would be limited to just that.

Two years after the flooding in the east, what is happening now? The Century smelter at Hvalfjordur has just been expanded, without anyone really noticing. A huge part of the Hengill area is being blown up right now with explosives to make the ground level enough for the geothermal boreholes and pipes constructed by low-paid Eastern Europeans working 72 hours a week, living in something that makes the newly opened Akureyri Prison look like Hotel Nordica.

Work has been started to build a smelter in Helguvik for which the same will happen to all the geothermal areas in Reykjanes. Never mind the environmental impact (which hasn’t even been assessed yet).

At Krafla, Alcoa and Landsvirkjun are drilling boreholes right into one of the top 10 tourist attractions of Iceland, the Viti volcano crater. At Theistareykir the deep drilling testing has accidentally created a new arsenic-sulphur lake. Oops.

Apparently most Reykjavik journalists are too bored with the issue to go and take a few pictures up north, no one has written anything about it.

In the mean time, everyone who can calculate that one plus one is two can figure out that there won’t be enough geothermal energy in the north to power a second Alcoa smelter. If the smelter plans aren’t stopped now it is inevitable that Skjalfandafljot and the Skagafjördur rivers or Jökulsá á Fjöllum will be dammed. But apparently most journalists have forgotten their basic maths and choose to ignore the obvious.

Last year, before the Saving Iceland protest camp began, we had a two-day conference where we browsed through every little detail of the aluminium industry. We had people over from Africa, Trinidad and Brazil telling their stories. The whole conference was completely ignored by Icelandic media.

They are mostly not interested in that kind of thing. It’s boring.

When we chain ourselves to something, they always phone up asking for injuries, arrests, whether things are damaged or stolen and if anyone ever uses drugs or has ever flown in an aluminium plane.

The papers don’t show photos of pollution lakes or blown up mountains but what they do print is a giant close-up of our camp toilet. We just hope people have a look at our website or find some other way to inform themselves and then decide to take whatever kind of action they feel is appropriate.

I find it quite amusing to have the weirdest questions being asked, such as “do you use cutlery to eat?” but it also makes me incredibly sad. James, you are right, but tell me, what should we do? Maybe I will start working on my giant pink footed goose costume!

Apparently four years of climbing cranes has not motivated many people to actually do something about making sure there will not be any new dams. Everyone is just bored and apathetic about it.

Write something, make a complaint, get angry at politicians for breaking election promises, phone people up, whatever it is you can do, if you oppose these projects, no one will stop them if no one does anything. Please!

Jaap Krater

Saving Iceland’s Attention

James Weston, Iceland Review – The television is on in the corner of the room showing the evening news bulletin. A young protester is chained to a fence with a few police officers trying to pull her away. A crowd of onlookers is standing with their mouth’s agape, a few still waving their own protest banners.

Now this may seem like exciting television, but for some, it’s quite the opposite. During the piece I found my own attention wandering from the television towards the conversation that has just started between two friends. It doesn’t appear they’re listening either.

This is a piece regarding the latest protest by Saving Iceland, “who do not intend to stand by passively and watch the Icelandic government in league with foreign corporations slowly kill the natural beauty of Iceland.”

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the aluminum smelting issue facing Iceland. I’ve previously presented my outlook on the situation. That’s not to say that all of my friends and new Icelandic family agrees with me. On the contrary, there are quite a few that strongly disagree! The issue is a debate starter, but for both sides, the debate is entered with a sigh. A “here we go again…”

I keep some of my fears hidden just to grease the wheels of friendly, social conversation. Some situations do not welcome the discussion, of course. It’s tantamount to announcing that you were a card-holding communist at dinner with Joe McCarthy! I will say at this point, I am not and never have been a member of Saving Iceland. In fact I don’t know anyone that is.

With the frequent media coverage, “Saving Iceland” seems to have become a by-word for someone who posses a little environmental awareness. The mention of those two words seems to conjure up images of hand holding, banner waving lunatics .The woman from Saving Iceland interviewed after the news piece does much to uphold the viewpoint. A well-spoken Brit, earthen clothing, complete with big red dreadlocks. You really don’t get more new-age hippy than this!

There are many of my friends who are fiercely against the smelting program. When I ask them about Saving Iceland, the responses are all very similar. The overriding issue being that they are simply bored of it all. They have been seeing this for ages and find themselves switching off when any news item is raised about the group. “It’s always in the news and I kind of switch off” is a common reaction. They’re aware of the issue, but seeing it almost every day pushes it into the background for them.

It’s an age-old problem for any issue worldwide. Prolonged attention in the public eye will lead to a stagnation of reaction. Saving Iceland have done a fantastic job in keeping their cause in the public psyche. It’s a grand project and the commitment admirable. As always though, people will be looking for something new. Being told the same thing again and again does become, well, boring.

Maybe the fact that people are bored of the issue is signs of a job truly well done for Saving Iceland. They’ve almost become ubiquitous, part of the news briefings almost as much as Sports & Weather. Not everyone is going to grow dreadlocks and get out the padlocks and chains; but they are constantly aware of the situation whether it bores them or not.

JW