A short apology...

Sorry dear blogadytes.

That last post was total shit. I not only let the rant get the better of me (especially as I really wanted to rant about how much I hate my job, but couldn't, so I chose immigration and nationalism as a distraction), but also (to my mind at least) failed to adequately convey my utter disdain and loathing for people who spout xenophobic nationalist bullshit.

For the record: We útlendingar are not stealing jobs from Icelanders. We're simply filling the void in the job market left by everyone deciding that they need to make alot more money and work at something hip og kúl like banking, or just bisness.

Which means that if an Icelander can't get a job at a fish-factory (as the ÍFÍ claim), then they have only other Icelanders to blame. Like a Parliament that didn't think about the logical consequences of joining Schengin. Like a population that thought "Cool, now I can go work anywhere in the E.U. no problem!" without thinking that the same applies to their own country. Like the kvóta owners who continue to move the work out of the small towns where most of the virulent nationalism blossoms up. Like the bosses at the fish factories, that often choose to hire foreigners because they think they can get away with worker's rights violations that way. Like the nationalist themselves, who seem to be very immature, and perhaps expect jobs to be handed to them on a silver platter regardless of whether they show up on time, sober, and work hard.

Neither are we útlendingar responsible for the majority of "marriages of convenience". Those are largely a matter of Icelandic men importing "brides" for "fun" and profit.

We are not responsible for the majority of crime in Iceland, no matter what distorted pictures the media hypes to improve its market share. That one lands squarely on the shoulders of Icelanders as well. The vast majority of armed robberies are perpetrated by Icelandic youngsters desperate for a new Wii or maybe a fix of meth. The vast majority of rapes are by Icelanders (and you can bet there are plenty of instances of Icelanders raping foreigners and getting away with it), not to mention cases of child abuse and molestation. Fraud, drugs, you name it.

Its not that all of us útlendingar are innocent little angels, pillars of righteousness and so forth. Far from it. But seeing as Icelanders signed an international agreement that allows increased immigration and then failed utterly to check the criminal records of most of those coming in, that one kind falls on their shoulders too. After all, my foreign ass can't access those records.

It's just that if Icelanders want someone to blame for Iceland's problems then they best look in the fucking mirror.

So the good news is...

...that the government is thinking about repealing the blatantly unconstitutional, discriminatory, and, well, stupid, "24 year law" that made it illegal for foreigners under 24 to marry, and made it illegal for Icelanders under the age of 24 to marry a foreigner.

'Bout fucking time.

Of course, this isn't really a repeal, more of a reform. They aren't going to strike the law from the books, merely tweak it. Now instead of it being illegal they'll just put the couple in question through the ringer, invade their privacy and then pass judgement as to whether their marriage is "real" or not.

Its funny that for all the furor that the State Church aroused when it refused to bend to the will of the Icelandic people and allow same-sex marriage, and for all the celebrations when the government granted same-sex couples the same rights as domestic partners as unmarried heterosexual couples enjoy, HARDLY ANYONE SAID WORD ONE ABOUT THIS LAW.

It had to do with foreigners. So nobody really cared.

I personally knew a woman whose young husband was deported back to his home country, where he faced possible lynching for marrying a non-Muslim, in part because of this stupid law.

I do have to give mad props to 24 though (even if it is a sub-company of the arch-conservative Möggan), for aggressively countering the ongoing blame-the-foreigners-for-everything campaign currently raging through the pages of Frettablaðið, and the somewhat schizoid ramblings of DV (which tends to damn the foreigners, then defend them, then damn the xenophobes, then defend them...).

All told, though, this is just a small bright spot. All in all, it seems that the tide of nationalism is rising all over my adopted lava-lump, what with fuck head ignorant kids like the ÍfÍ (Idiots Fucking Idiots: Keeping Iceland inbred since 2005) actually getting face time in a major paper.

The Íf'Í, fuck. Morons. Bunch of kids too stupid to get a job, who then decide to blame the foreigners. Bunch of underachieving little shits. They're not even "good" at being nationalist, what with the standard white-kid-ghetto wear they're pictured in.

Tell you what kids, you wanna be a real nationalist? Wanna really "pure" Iceland? OK then.

No more pizza for you. No more burgers and fries, hell for that matter no more potatoes. No more rum, whiskey, or wine. Brennivin and only brennivin. No more nachos, no more pasta, no more stir fry. After all, its un-Icelandic.

No more Fifty Cent, no more Outkast. No more Rammsteinn, no more Scooter, Marylin Manson, Slipknot, or Limp Biscuit. Nope, no more. You only get to listen to Bubbi, KK, and Nylon from now on.

Oh, and say goodbye to your Levi's, your Sketchers, your Hugo Boss (believe it or not this is the web page of one of the ÍFÍ idiots interviewed in DV). Nope. Its all lópapeysur and ullasokkar for you lot.

After all, you wouldn't want to look foreign. You might have to beat yourself up.

Wankers.