Caption: Protest organizers have emphasized that protesters be respectful of police; "they are only doing their jobs."
For additional context, here is an excerpt from "Iceland is Burning" published on the Huffington Post, January 20-21 2009:
While Americans were watching the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as successor to the deeply unpopular conservative George W. Bush, thousands of Iceland's citizens were fighting riot police around the Icelandic parliament building Althingi to try to prevent the world's oldest parliament from meeting.
"We are calling on the world to help us get rid of this corrupt government," Sturla Jonsson, one of protesters said in a midnight phone call from downtown Reykjavik where a crowd of about 2,000 still surrounded the Althingi House, in front of which a bonfire continued to burn. The protesters pounded drums and other instruments, shouted slogans against the government and parliament and threw eggs and food items, even old shoes at the house of parliament. The protest was nowhere close to slowing down despite it being close to midnight. The parliament postponed meeting until tomorrow afternoon, but protesters, whom police fought all day with teargas, pepperspray, and clubs, vowed to stay downtown all night, "and as long as we have to" Jonsson said. "And I want to tell you that the people gathered here are not "activists" or "militants," he added, "they are just ordinary adults of all ages."
One year ago, Iceland was named the most desirable country in the world. Today, its economy has been devastated by the catastrophic collapse of its three largest banks. Unemployment rose 45% between November and December, and a recent survey indicated that 40% of households and 70% of businesses were technically bankrupt. Since the fall of the banks in October, there have been no resignations from the government, the boards of the now nationalized banks have remained substantially the same, and weekly gatherings calling for new elections have been ignored.
Americans will certainly recognize strong parallels between Iceland's current situation and their own. After years of tight state regulation, the conservative government of David Oddsson privatized Iceland's banks, and in exchange the newly-rich owners of these banks ensured that Oddson's party remained in power. Even after he stepped down, he had himself appointed as head of Iceland's Central Bank and continued to ensure that regulatory oversight was kept to a minimum.
The Icelandic government appears to be completely oblivious to Reykjavik burning around them, fiddling with vital legislative affairs, such as the item on today's parliamentary agenda, the Conservative party's bill to allow supermarkets to sell booze. Members of the government, who themselves have been busy burning - most recently the country's socialized medical system - remain convinced of the correctness of their current misguided course of action. "We need to keep this system of ours running. We need to try to improve it," Education Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir, (whose own personal finances are linked to a shady scheme cooked up in one of the Icelandic banks) said this evening. The incremental changes proposed by the government stand in stark contrast to the egregious abuses of the financial system for the benefit of a select few over the past few years.
Today, as the United States makes a fundamental shift in direction, Iceland is tearing itself apart. The peaceful transition of power we watched in Washington following a fiercely contested election is a symbol of hope to us. The competent confidence and inspiring rhetoric of Barack Obama have rallied the vast majority of Americans behind him to face the myriad challenges all around us. The arrogance and obliviousness of Iceland's ruling elite has had the opposite effect.
Over the past eight years, America ceased being the City on the Hill, shining its light to the rest of the world. America and Britain closed the NATO air base in Iceland, and have made no offer to help Iceland in its time of trouble. We need help, not only to break down the old power structure, rotten to the core, but also to prevent it from being rebuilt. We desperately need stability, economic assistance, impartial advice, and fair supervision.
The extensive protests that shook Iceland Tuesday continued into Wednesday and are beginning to have an effect on one of the two political parties making up Iceland's coalition government.
Late Wednesday night, as thousands of protesters re-lit a large bonfire in front of the Parliament, the Reykjavik chapter of the Progressive Party voted to recommend to the party's national representatives that they withdraw from the ruling coalition, and called for new elections in May 2009. As the night wore on, though, matters descended into violence. Around 1:30 am, police dispersed the crowd with tear gas, the first time tear gas had been used against Icelanders in 60 years. The crowd soon reformed and pelted riot police with stones. One officer was severely injured by a cobblestone, the newspaper Morgunbladid said.
Although the leader of the Social Democratic Alliance, Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, was out of the country, Prime Minister Geir Haarde, leader of the Independence Party, told reporters that he believed she remained committed to the current ruling coalition. He insisted that the government was "functional" and that holding elections this spring would result in nationwide chaos.
The rank and file members of the Social Democratic Alliance appear to differ, however. Calls for the current representatives within the Party to step aside were widely applauded at tonight's meeting, as were calls for spring elections and a new coalition.
The protests have been sparked by Iceland's catastrophic economic collapse over the past three months, and the failure of the government to call for immediate elections or to investigate the rumored widespread malfeasance by the country's leading bankers, businessmen, and politicians. "It should be clear to everyone that a government that has failed as utterly as the Icelandic government has can neither investigate, nor clear up the past, nor forge a new path into the future," said retired professor Njörður P. Njarðvík.
Wednesday morning began with angry protesters throwing paint at the government building and surrounding Prime Minister Geir Haarde's car. They banged on the vehicle's windows and pelted it with eggs for several minutes before his bodyguards and police pushed them away. The protesters gathered in front of the Parliament building banged on pots and pans while shouting "Unfit government!" "You're fired!" and more creative insults. Although the racket calmed down to show respect to mourners at a funeral in the neighboring Reykjavik Cathedral, a mourner encouraged them to "produce enough racket to be heard across the country" when it was over.
"So why aren't the protests getting through to you, why hasn't there been any change?" a state television reporter asked a Social Democratic Alliance representative. "We very clearly noticed the protests, and we get the message that people want change," he said without elaborating. The Conservative Party Representative's reply to the question painfully demonstrated whose interests the Icelandic Althingi represents: "Well, representatives are just representatives," Ms. Ragnheidur Rikhardsdottir, said, "and ministers are ministers, and theirs is the power."
The current political leaders are deeply invested in the status quo and are unlikely to come out of any open and honest investigation with any credibility, so it remains to be seen how far the party's rank and file can go before they meet resistance. The leaders' audacity in the face of the utter failure of their policies would indicate that their powers of introspection and rational thought are on the wane.
The crowds are composed of a wide cross-section of the community, not just a few young hotheads. The protesters' numbers, in proportion to the country's population, are staggering--over 1% of the population. An equivalent meeting of Americans would be over 3 million people.
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