To be or not to be...

...that is the question.

Whether it is nobler in Iceland to suffer the slings and arrows of second-class membership or apply for citizenship, and by so opposing, end it.

Ok, ok. Enough with the Bard.

Thing is, I want to be eligible for student loans, but as I am a non-E.U. permanent resident, I'm not.

Period.

End of story.

It doesn't matter that I'm a graduate of HÍ.
Doesn't matter if I've paid at least 10 years of taxes into the fund.
I'm a second class non-E.U. resident, so I can just fuck off.

Now, I'm eligible for Icelandic citizenship. This is no way means I'd get it if I applied. In all likelihood (judging from the tales other immigrants have told me) I'd have to apply several times, at 10,000ISK a pop, with all the bureaucratic BS it entails. Not to mention the possibility of the Office of Foreigner Surveillance (recently renamed Office of Foreigners, nor 'immigrants' mind you, 'foreigners) would suddenly discover some flaw in my residency and send me packing. After all, I'm stealing jobs from Icelanders.

If I was from an E.U. country, applying for student loans (not to mention housing assistance, disability insurance, unemployment payments, and a host of other services I help pay for but cannot apply for) would be no problem.

The hypocrisy of it really galls.

I mean, it effectively amounts to the State and all institutions thereof actively discriminating against me and others like me based on national origin, something they claim to be against. After all the 7 article of the Icelandic constitution bans discrimination based on national origin. (allir skulu vera jafnir fyrir lögum og njóta mannréttinda án tillits til kynferðis, trúarbragða, skoðana, þjóðernisuppruna, kynþáttar, litarháttar, efnahags, ætternis og stöðu að öðru leyti“).

Then there's the question of my U.S. citizenship. I may not be a big fan of the U.S. government but I do want to be able to go home at a moment's notice if my family needs my help, and while one is not required to give up their US citizenship if they gain citizenship in another country, they make it hard to keep, revoking one's citizenship if they can show "intent" on one's part to do so.

Meaning that if you've ever talked about it, written about it, or made less than "loyal" statements, poof, no more citizenship for you.

Add to this the fact that I am at heart against the very existence of the nation state, it bugs me to think of groveling for the supposed "right" to be essentially made the property of an institution that I have no real say in.

So its rock or hard place for me.

Damn

Do as I say and not as I do.

So there’s a couple interesting little factoids I've picked up from the slew of free daily papers that are chucked on my doorstep.

A lot of it has to with the poorly thought out Nanny-State smoking ban that went into effect last June. Some of the bars in town, most notably the reanimated corpse of the once-great 22, Barinn are allowing smoking either inside in specially built smoking sections, or outside in gardens and court-yards. Now, while the special smoking rooms may be a rather direct challenge, the amazing thing is how they are also bitching and moaning about smoking in courtyards (the one at Hressó has been singled out a few times). Why you ask? Because the law says that smoking is only allowed "undir beru himni" and some bars have put up roofs for the already compromised comfort of their tobacco indulging/addicted customers.

The rank hypocrisy becomes evident when one realizes that the law only applies to restaurants, bars, stores and the like, and not to other institutions, like say, I don't know...

THE FUCKING PARLIMENT!!??

So the same elected officials that passed this stupid law wrote themselves a handy little exemption.

Fucking hypocrites.

But then again, the world is awash in hypocrisy. Last month I blogged about the authorities plan to send foreign convicts "back home" to serve out their sentences, which considering the humane and lenient (for a prison) Icelandic penal (hehe, penal...) system, basically amounts to stiffer penalties and harsher treatment for foreigners. Compare this to a country that fought a long-running campaign to bring a convicted child-molester over to Iceland because they found his sentence too harsh, and offered asylum to a mentally unstable chess player so he wouldn't have to serve a term in federal prison for breaking a boycott and tax evasion. Not to mention went completely up in arms when a woman was detained for more than 24 hours and escorted in shackles and a orange prison jump-suit to an Icelandair flight for deportation because she over-stayed her visa 12 years ago.*

So Icelanders and Íslandvinur should be saved at all costs from harsh and inhumane treatment at the hands of foreign authorities, but foreigners should be handed over to their tender mercies?

Then there's me. I'm an anarchist; I truly believe that coercion is the mother of all evils. Yet I work at a place where it has been made crystal clear that they don't want me here to educate children, to facilitate of love of books in the library, or anything else of the sort. They want me here to control them. When I recently requested a cut in my hours at the school in order to work more and the better paying, and much less ethically fucked up AST, my bosses had the choice of either letting me show up at 8am, open up the library and work there until 11:30, and then do an hour's worth of kiddy-copping in the lunch room, or close the library every morning until 9, and have me kiddy-cop until 1pm.

They chose the latter.

I mean, talk about a harsh light shined into a dark place. This is like a laser mounted on a colonoscopy scope. The school cares more about having someone telling the kids to shut up and eat quietly and clean up after themselves (except the little ones, who I have to clean up after because the janitors can't be assed to do their job, and who can blame them when they get paid 158,000 before taxes for fulltime work*) and stand in line (practically impossible with Icelanders) than have the library, the preferred fount of knowledge, open for the kids to use.

The worst thing is, I know this is wrong. I hate it. And I'm still too much of a fucking coward to quit. Which hit pretty hard yesterday when I realized I was wearing my "Anarchy is for lovers" T-shirt under my hoody as I busted a kid for acting up at the pool.

Do as I say and not as I do...
*for the record: I think the treatment Aron Palmi received was horrible, a typical puritanical persecution of a child in order to further the Christian-Right's ongoing war against sex. I also think that the U.S.S.A. has no business banning citizens from traveling to whatever country they damned well please, even if it’s under an embargo (which I think they have no right to enforce) as in the case of Bobby Fischer. Finally, I think that the INS and DHS are a bunch of right-wing fascist jack-boot brownshirt thugs and that the woman so shamefully "deported" was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the inhumane, unethical, and down-right genocidal treatment that foreigners can be subject to in the U.S.S.A.

*for the record: I make almost as much working 50% at the AST.