Icelandic feminists protest outside soon to be closed strip club

In case anyone missed it Julie Bindel wrote an excellent article in The Guardian on Friday’s about the impressive feminist revolution which gone on in Iceland since the political defeat of the right after last year’s financial collapse. A few days ago the country took the radical step of outlawing all strip clubs, or rather banning all businesses from profiting from the nudity of their employees. Last year Iceland also became the world’s third country after Sweden and Norway to outlaw the purchase of sex and they’re also, as far as I know, the only country in Western Europe never to have legalised porn. The left government has in addition introduced tough new laws to tackle trafficking and domestic violence and have also imposed gender quotas within company boards.

This latest bill to close down strip clubs was introduced initially by Left Green MP Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir. As she says “It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold.” And Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation which has worked tirelessly against all forms of male violence for the last two decades, points out that “The Nordic countries are leading the way on women’s equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale.” Within the space of just a year Iceland has, I think we can say, systematically worked to dismantle the patriarchal ideology which has gone on for thousands of years and which sees women and their bodies as being placed on this world in order to serve men.

That Icelandic women have for the first time won real political power is, of course, hardly unrelated to these radical moves. The left advance last year also saw a significant increase in the percentage of women in parliament, due to the much more equal gender balance on the electoral lists of the Social Democrats and Left Greens. Women now make up 43% of MPs in the Icelandic parliament, more than in any other European country except Sweden. And let’s not forget that they also have the world’s first lesbian Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurðardottir from the Social Democrats. Johanna is herself a strong feminist and, while her government has been criticised over some of its policies on Icesave, she cannot be said to be a politician who lacks conviction or who isn’t motivated by a desire to make things better for those she represents.

Feminism is hardly new to Iceland of course. Between 1983 and 1998 they had a feminist party, called the Women’s List, represented in parliament and which was set up due to anger over the lack of the other party’s efforts to promote gender equality and equal representation. And on the 24^th of October 1975 90% of Icelandic women went on strike for the day, refusing to cook, clean or go into work. Today organisations like Stígamót and the Feminist Association regularly engage in various forms of activism and campaign work and have gained increasing political clout.

As can maybe be expected the strip club ban has received significant attention internationally on blogs and various news sites. A few people are supportive but most of the comments I’ve seen are something along the lines of “oh my god, how awful, that’s Iceland permanently off my list of travel destinations”, or “what a bunch of puritanical, sexually-repressed,  militant lesbian, man-hating prudes”. Others, while claiming to be no fans of strip clubs or prostitution, cannot possibly imagine a world where they cease to exist. Well let’s hope Iceland can show that such a world is indeed possible and that sitting back and adopting a defeatist attitude to everything is never going to help us change things for the better. To be radical is to dare to take on and challenge patriarchy at its roots, not to simply manage and regulate it so as to hopefully make it just this little bit better.

Read Julie’s Bindel’s article in full at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country

Here’s also an excellent article in English titled “Women and crisis” by Left Green member Drífa Snædal: http://www.vg.is/frettir/eldri-frettir/nr/4543

Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Ever thought the list was too short? A collection of old troublemakers who are well past their prime days of mischief making? Or maybe you just want a level in the next Call of Duty game set in an arctic environment?

Well today we get to add a new and unexpected contender to the Axis of Evil, so Ahmadinejahd and Kim Jong-Il better run for their money cos there’s a country holding the UK to ransom……..ICELAND!

Iceland is refusing to pay up £3.5 Billion to the British and Netherlands treasury. Icelands President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson vetoed a Bill that would have repaid the debt, and there will now be a referendum in Iceland on whether or not to pay the money back.

The roots of Iceland’s debt crisis lie in an online subsidiary of the Icelandic bank Landsbanski. This online service was called Icesave and as it was internet only it did not have the same costs that other banks had and could offer higher interest rates that it’s competitors.
Many individuals in the UK and the Netherlands put their savings into Icesave to take advantage of these interest rates but more importantly so did many local councils in the UK. Icesave was consumed by the international crisis in banking last year, and savers were unable to access their money, resulting in the UK using anti-terror legislation to freeze (see what I did there) the assets of Icesave in the UK.

The UK and Netherlands Governments then secured the savings of individuals (and councils) in their countries by loaning £3.5 Billion to the Icelandic banking system. Unsurprisingly they expect to be repaid, and have used their clout in the IMF to demand Iceland’s tax base – ie Iceland’s workers – pay back this colossal sum at massive cost to Iceland’s public services. Iceland is a country of only 300,000 people which means that every man woman and child owes the world’s banks £116,000 each.

There is already massive opposition to repaying the £3.5 billion – a quarter of Iceland’s citizens have already signed a petition against the bill and supporting a referendum on the issue. Unlike many other countries in Europe the Left has managed to benefit from the collapse in capitalism.

The Left-Green Alliance saw it’s vote increase by 50%, and is now the third largest party in Iceland and in Government with the Social Democrats. That the Left-Green Alliance has only been in existence for 10 years makes their gains all the more impressive. In a blow to the Right, which cheered on the banking madness, The Independence Party which is the Icelandic equivalent of the Tories were also booted out of Government after being in power for 18 years.

Iceland will probably be demonised and isolated by the world’s Governments and Banks when it refuses to subject it’s population to pay off the fantastic debts that the banking system created, and which the vast majority of it’s population did not benefit from. While the loss of the cold hard cash is obviously a major concern for the worlds Banks what is a lot more dangerous is the political message being sent out from Iceland – that the workers of Iceland did not create the financial crisis, did not benefit from it, and should not be asked to pay for it.

The fact that the UK General Election will be fought on the basis of who can cut the deepest into public services, it is very dangerous for the Tories and New Labour when another Government led by the Left will not repay money to the UK and bankrupt it’s people as a consequence.

After all, if they can do it…why can’t we?