Anarchism in Iceland
From Infoshop OpenWiki
Iceland does not have a rich history of anarchist activity. It does (of course) share history of spontaneous resistance against oppressive institutions with the rest of the world. The Icelandic state is one of many post-colonial states, having gained independence from the Danish crown when Denmark was occupied by armies of the third reich during the second world war. Before that Iceland was taken under a Norwegian king in the thirteenth century.
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[edit] Pre-cursors to Anarchism
Anarcho-anthropologist Harold Barclay writes about Iceland before that having been a rare example of layered but still anarchistic society (see “the State”). It was run by chiefs whose power depended solely on their personal popularity. Any decisions the chiefs agreed upon at their gatherings was law only if the people wanted to. They had no police force or armies. They could only give their followers food and drink and try their best at being wise. When they failed they were out of the game.
The long history of colonialism and short history of democracy in Iceland has not left much understanding of the “people’s power.” As elsewhere in western democracy the elite runs the elections and the rich own the banks and through the banks they own people’s homes. Even though there are only 300.000 individuals living in Iceland our political systems are as rotten as elsewhere. We may have less fundamentalist christians in office than the US but our “representatives” are no less fundamentalist when it comes to believing in their right to make decisions for everyone living on the island.
[edit] Resistance to Iceland's NATO Membership
The only riot in the history of Iceland happened outside parliament when the government was joining NATO shortly after WW2. Leftists fought with the police and conservative groups and teargas was used to move the crowd outside the building. An anti-base movement has been active ever since then but turning into a small peace movement since the US army is leaving (although the aluminium industry in iceland continues to serve the US war machine). There was a active socialist movement back then but today it might count a few orthodox individuals. There have never been any organised anarchist groups until now.
[edit] Ecological Resistance (1970s)
As I mentioned spontaneous resistance I would like to mention the group of around sixty farmers and landowners who destroyed a dam that was built in a beautiful river by the government and a local power company without the blessings of the people living there. They worked for hours with tractors and shovels and in the end blew up the core of the dam. The whole group demanded responsibility for the act, they were never taken to court and the dam was never rebuilt. This was in 1970.
They national power company and the government of iceland have for years been planning the damming of glacial rivers to create electricity for heavy industry. The ministry for indistry is marketing Iceland as a hot spot for cheap electricity wich is very handy for heavy industry multinationals. Despite fierce protests they began building one of the biggest dams in Europe and a huge aluminium smelter in the east of Iceland working with multinationals of dubious character; Alcoa, Bechtel and Impreglio. Those objecting spoke for deaf ears. Reports from natural scientists and engineers protesting were sussed, and they lost their jobs. The fight was lost to them when Impreglio started bombing the dam site in the highlands.
[edit] Anarchist Resistance Emerges
Until later when three anarchists rushed into a the conference room at hotel nordica where representatives from the aluminium industry and the icelandic government where having a promotional gathering. The anarchist gave the conference a message that they were not welcome by splashing green skyr (a sort of yogurt) over the suits. Saving Iceland had made their existence known. The media flared up. Even though the participants themselves were very media-unfriendly the questions were again raised if damming the highlands of Iceland for multinational heavy industry was a positive step. This group, consisting of a few natives and environmentalists from various other places in europe, kept on doing direct action to stop work at the damsite on the highlands and the building site of the aluminium plant. This was totally new to the icelandic society. People locking themselves on to trucks and climbing cranes to stop work! Not only was this totally against the work ethic of icelanders, this was breaking the rules, this was taking decision-making into your own hands. Totally unheard of. The police even had to invent a word for “lock-on” for their reports. They didn´t know how to deal with determined and sober civil disobedience. The protest group camped out in the highlands (middle of nowhere) received no support from anywhere. No one wanted to have anything to do with them so they were almost starving and were constantly being harassed by the police. No on realised until later how much the activity of the group did for the fight against the dams and future plots of heavy industry.
This summer of 2006 there was again a protest camp by the ever growing dam. More icelanders taking part this time and more support for the ones coming from abroad plus the media showing more positive interest and understanding in direct action. The police acted superparanoid and ignorant of peaceful protests and also that got the attention of the public. After this summer of direct action, that managed to stop work at the damsite and building site several times, the media was again full of reports of how wrong many things were about the whole dam thing. Missing reports of geologists saying that the dam was being built on a geologically active site, were made public and the government itself was shaky when questions were asked about why the decision making process had to be so swift.
This gave the locals in the east of Iceland increased anger and energy to demand real answers about the safety of the dam and the real economical effects of the whole thing.
Despite protests, the dam by Kárahnjúkar in the eastern highlands was finished in september 2006 and beautiful land is being sunk in the name of “progress” as this is written. But the energy companies don´t stop at that. That dam was made only to provide energy for one Alcoa aluminium plant. The local energy companies are still building geothemal plants and testdrilling in various parts of Iceland – probably the last remaining wilderness of europe. The aluminium giants also have big plans for Iceland. They destroy land to get to the raw material, export it to Iceland where the energy is cheap and government is willing to bend over.
The fight against heavy industry in Iceland continued in 2007 with a Summer of Dissent and continues to gather momentum as the political climate (as well as the weather) changes. Another camp is planned for 2008. Read more on www.savingiceland.org
[edit] Local Anarchist Actions
Alongside this there is now up and running for more than a year, a anarchist library in Iceland. It is now located in the center of Reykjavík in a building owned by the peace movement (rent free). This group, called “Andspyrna” (means resistance) is also busy with translations of anarchist literature into the icelandic language. In 2005 Andspyrna published Nicholas Walter’s “About Anarchism” and a pro-situ booklet of the original title “Revolutionary Self-theory.” In august 2006 Andspyrna published the icelandic version of crimethinc’s “Days of War, Nights of Love” and as this is written is working fast on translating Harold Barclay’s “The State.” Before starting up the library and publishing books, Andspyrna published photocopied pamphlets about various issues like nationalism, sex and sexism and anarchy and distributed zines and books for some years. Financing the library we do mostly through benefit concerts from the very active underground music community in Reykjavík.
The library is always looking for ways to expand so donation of books, old and new are very welcome (we could even pay some). Write andspyrna (Siggi) at punknursester@gmail.com or P.O. Box 35, 101 Reykjavík. Andspyrna also has a website at [1]
