Isolationism Isn't Patriotism

I’m becoming less tolerant of xenophobia and isolationism than I’ve been in the past. Doesn’t mean that I believe that every culture under the sun is equal. I’m actually quite proud of my Nordic cultural roots. There’s something to be said for societies that seem to have managed to find a way to make their kids the smartest in the world. To have governments with some of the lowest debt ratios in the world (and no it’s not my own). To create societies that guarantee everyone access to basic (and quite extensive in some cases) health care, education and social services. To create societies with some of the best living standards in the world according to the UN. It really irritates the right wing nutters in the US that for some strange reason the Nordic countries seem to manage to offer both generally high levels of wealth creation and some of the best social welfare structures in the world. I’m quite proud of this fact and I think there’s a lot here that others could learn from.

One reason why I’m so proud of my background is because I’ve actually had an opportunity to contrast it with other places. Yesterday I was listening to a program on the BBC. Jeremy Hardy Speaks To the Nation. The subject was what it means to be British. Again and again I found myself nodding in agreement with Jeremy. One of the things he mentioned. Was the fact that Britain might actually have been ruled by the Scandinavians instead of being invaded by the Normans (which shouldn’t be confused with the Norwegians, but actually come from Normandy). One of the great things about Britain. One of the things I like the most about Britain. Is how multi cultural it is. They’ve actually managed to be fairly successful in creating a multi cultural society. I really love this fact. Like Jeremy put it: “I can honestly say that I can be the only white person on a bus and not even notice. Conversely, if I’m on the bus and everybody is white, I’m thinking; blimey there really are a lot of Polish people in the country”.


Just because Iceland managed to be isolated, have a fairly homogenous culture and a language that hardly changed for hundreds of years. Isn’t in my view any reason why we should fight to keep it that way. After all, the more isolated we were, the poorer Iceland was. Our most prosperous period. Is the modern period. We’ve never had it so good in our entire history. Does anyone really want to go back to a situation that saw Iceland being isolated from the rest of the world? Does anyone really think that it makes sense to only export stuff and not import anything? Anyone want to live just on “pure” Icelandic products? Anyone seriously want to argue that too many people in Iceland?

I’ve been lucky enough to live abroad for more than a couple of weeks on vacation. That’s when I really started to appreciate people with varied backgrounds. Because I’m not trying to argue that you don’t have stupid and ignorant people evenly spread out around the world. I think on the whole you do. But what I really could appreciate was the fact that there were spices beyond just salt and pepper. That you could do something else with fish than boil it and serve it with potatoes and butter. That cheese didn’t just come in one size and a single flavour. I was exposed to various cultures and I survived it just fine. I actually realized that Iceland was poorer for not being exposed to these influences.

I still remember one incidence. We have lots of really nice swimming pools here and I was babysitting my sisters oldest. He loved the water and this was the best fun you could offer him. I’m not sure exactly how old he was. Somewhere between knowing how to talk and not having started elementary school. And we were chilling along with a number of other people in one of the small hot pots when this dark skinned guy came into it. My cousin was really surprised and I think this was probably the first time he had seen someone who wasn’t a white caucasian. Because he came to me and asked: “How come he didn’t take a shower and get clean”? Which I thought was extremely funny.

I’m going to make the words of Jeremy Hardy my own this time around “I’m actually very fond of our land and it’s people. But I believe that patriotism like religion and flatulence should be private”. Your idea of what makes your home country great could be quite different from mine. Doesn’t mean that your brand of patriotism is any less genuine than mine. So show me the same respect. I just don’t accept that those who want to keep Iceland isolated, have any claim to a superior brand of patriotism.

What Motivates Us

I recently posted a video on my Facebook profile. The thing is. Not everyone who reads this blog is my friend on Facebook. So I want to share it here as well. Just make sure that it gets more distribution. I know that some of the people who read this blog aren’t connected to me on Facebook. They might not want to do so. But I'm easy enough to find there - just look for Sigmundur Halldorsson -

Now this was a brilliant video which the author of the Grand Narrative posted on Facebook and I picked it up from there. Takes you about 10 minutes to watch. But it's really time well spent.



What's brilliant about this video is that it actually made me discover the RSA. Made me realize that even a 250 year old organisation can be doing stuff that makes me love the web all over again. "For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action." They've produced some other good ones. It's really worth jumping over to YouTube to see some of their other stuff if you've only seen this one.

On Xenophobia and Isolationism in Iceland

One of the rather unfortunate side effects of the economic downturn is the rise in xenophobia and isolationism here in Iceland. It’s a sort of siege mentality. Appropriately enough there’s even a book out called “The Siege” (links to an Icelandic review of the book) in which the author, Styrmir Gunnarsson, argues that foreign banks, the IMF and the European Union set out to destroy the Icelandic economy and take over our resources. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Styrmir (we go by first names here in Iceland) is a member of the Icelandic anti EU movement. The same arguments can be heard in many quarters these days and recent public opinion surveys show a negative attitude towards Iceland joining the European Union.

I can’t say that I’m surprised. Iceland was for a very long time a homogenous society, with relatively little contact with the outside world. Our nationalism is based on the same foundations of Nordic superiority as was evident in parts of Europe until 1945 and we haven’t really adjusted to the fact that this idea was completely rejected. Nor have we been able to follow the rather obvious trend in European foreign policy, which is the idea that working together makes the whole stronger than the individual nations. To me this seems fairly self evident. In an international system based upon anarchy (i.e. might makes right), the rule of law pushed for by the European Union, makes a lot of sense for a small weak nation state like Iceland. Indeed we have been quite happy to become members of NATO. This despite not having our own army, which sort begs the question of what support we would give in the event of an attack on another NATO member state. We are long time members of the UN, WTO (formerly GATT) and numerous other international bodies.

So I’ve been thinking about what might explain our reluctance to become full fledged members of the most successful supranational democratic institution ever created. We’re quite close in cultural terms to Norway and it’s worth noting that Norway has twice rejected EU membership. I’ve looked at the multiple reasons given by the objectors and there seem to be a common thread there. The foreigners are out to get us. Which is strange considering Icelandic history. We may have fought over fishing rights with the UK, but in general our history has few indications that foreigners have a particular interest in taking over Iceland. Even the US seems to have shown considerable restraint in interfering in Icelandic affairs during the cold war. So without any actual evidence for this idea, it’s hard to take it seriously. As a matter of fact, besides us paying back loans we may have taken out from banks around the world, I don’t think foreigners have a great deal of interest in Iceland or our affairs. Indeed the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction. It seems to indicate that foreign interest in Iceland is generally positive and benign.



Just recently we had a great example of this. A Chinese government official came to visit Iceland. We ended up getting credit lines from the Chinese central bank, some commercial agreements and in general some positive indications from the Chinese that they would like to be seen as friends of Iceland. Surprisingly, this seemed to have the opposite effect. At least if you read the Icelandic blogsphere (link in Icelandic) and news media. Immediately some Icelandic commentators started speculating on the ulterior motives of the scheming Chinese. The Chinese were here to take over our resources. Which would be easy enough for them to do. We have 3 bankrupt banks which would cost them about 1 days revenue (or less) to purchase outright. Along with deeds to just about every resource we have. But they haven’t shown the slightest bit of interest in doing so. The Chinese Embassy has just moved into a much larger building. Becoming overnight, the largest embassy in Reykjavik. But this might simply be a matter of sound commercial judgement by the Chinese. After all real estate prices have plummeted in Reykjavik, so they probably got a good deal on the new embassy building. Nonetheless, I’m not naive enough to think that the Chinese did this out of the goodness of their hearts. As a matter of fact, this gesture is in line with current Chinese foreign policy. Of building up goodwill among a broad spectrum of nations. Furthermore, if the Northwestern passage opens up. Iceland might become a great place to have a friendly container port. But it’s hard to imagine that we’d place special restrictions on international shipping, including the Chinese. What is of deep interest to the Chinese is building positive relations with nations in NATO and the European Union. I think this interest in Iceland is a great opportunity for us. There is already a positive relationship between us and China. China is a rapidly rising power. Second largest economic power in the world already and set to surpass the US within a few years. It all reminds me of something my a former colleague of mine used to say: “The east is not a beast, but a feast”. Which is true on multiple levels. Instead of being frightened of the rest of the world, we should be open to it. Embrace the opportunity offered by membership in the EU. Embrace the opportunity offered by friendly relations with the Chinese. Being afraid, isolationist and xenophobic is surely the road to ruin.

An Important Date 10.10.10

From: Bill McKibben - 350.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 3:28 PM
Subject: Circle this date.
To: You

Dear World,

It's been a tough year: in North America, oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico; in Asia some of the highest temperatures ever recorded; in the Arctic, the fastest melting of sea ice ever seen; in Latin America, record rainfalls washing away whole mountainsides.

So we're having a party.

Circle 10/10/10 on your calendar. That's the date. The place is wherever you live. And the point is to do something that will help deal with global warming in your city or community.

We're calling it a Global Work Party, with emphasis on both 'work' and 'party'. In Auckland, New Zealand, they're having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In the Maldives, they're putting up solar panels on the President's office. In Kampala, Uganda, they're going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they're installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic.

Since we've already worked hard to call, email, petition, and protest to get politicians to move, and they haven't moved fast enough, now it's time to show that we really do have the tools we need to get serious about the climate crisis.

On 10/10/10 we'll show that we the people can do this--but we need bold energy policies from our political leaders to do it on a scale that truly matters. The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you can get to work too--on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run.

You can sign up to host a local event at www.350.org/oct10

Or search for an event to join at www.350.org/map

And don't worry about being alone at this party: there are already 1077 groups in 109 countries around the world scheduled to do something great that day. We'll knit all these groups together with a powerful mosaic of photos, videos, and stories from around the world. You wouldn't want to miss it.

It's been a tough year--but it can be a beautiful day on the 10th Of October if we work together, and party together. And if we do it right, then we'll take a big step towards the kind of political solutions we desperately need.

Onwards!

Bill McKibben and the 350.org team

P.S. If you feel a little shy, or wonder if you can really make a party work, check out these pictures from last year's Global Day of Action. There were 5200 demonstrations in 181 countries, which means an awful lot of folks like you figured out how to get it done!