Gordon Brown better not plan a trip to Iceland anytime soon.
This weekend his name joined those of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and Central Bank chief David Oddsson in a protest by 6000 Icelanders outside their parliament building in Reykjavik. At mention of the “guilty men” a volley of rotten eggs was released – freezing immediately to the windows of the world’s oldest parliament in the crisp, freezing darkness of late afternoon.
It’ll be quite a task to remove the eggs. But easier than excising the memory of being lumped with Al Quaeda and the Taliban in Britain’s list of suspect states after the collapse of Icesave. A new Icelandic website features a young girl with a placard saying: "I am not a terrorist, Mr Brown."
As one Icelander put it, “Vikings have long memories.” But also enough intelligence to know anger with Britain is largely displaced fury at the half dozen Icelandic bankers whose greed has brought the world’s proudest and smallest independent island state to its knees. And of course, there’s displaced fury at themselves -- the world‘s best educated people -- who fell for the unbelievable proposition that a currency based on 314 thousand people could support bankers borrowing ten times the country’s GDP. Once cocky the Icelanders are now contrite – but not crushed.
“Icelanders are conjurers” declared the guide on a Northern Lights bus-tour. “We have one fish. We take it to Britain. Suddenly it becomes 5 Landrovers. We don’t know how it happened but soon everyone wants Landrovers. Do you know we now have more than the rest of Scandinavia put together? And in the last two weeks 8 have self ignited. The car’s value is now just a third of the loan. But then again, maybe it’s just a factory fault.” To read more click here.
Comments