Yesterday for the first and the last time in my life I joined a discussion in a social network.
The topic was strange to me (Racism in Iceland), immigrant people´s comments seemed overly angry and unfair (in my subjective opinion, of course) and so I pressed a "post" button and jumped.
Source of photo
My point was that I don´t see it as a problem in Iceland (seriously, compare that to the rest of the Old Europe or even the rest of Scandinavia). And that basically everyone is responsible for his/her own choices, therefore, for the consequences and their personal welfare. Basically it was it:
"I really don´t understand this, but maybe I am meeting "wrong" people here - I have been in Iceland since August and there was not a case/situation when I felt discriminated. Russian origin has its drawbacks in Europe, but I never felt it here. Yes, it is a closed society as anywhere else in Scandinavia, but isn´t it like coming to the other people´s house to live? I mean, you can expect support, but don´t you have to do something in return? Like at least try to learn culture and traditions and language before coming here and not whine about them not giving money for your language classes or not hugging you straight away? After all, it´s we who made the choice of leaving our home and coming to live in theirs."
In about two hours several people (understandably not of an Icelandic origin) lashed at me, accusing me of everything starting from xenophobia to not having a slightest idea that a racism actually was.
Previously a guy from France complained of being refused to take a loan as he called himself in the post "being a dirty foreigner". Another one from Spain said that he´s paying his rent, taxes and living expenses and still being racially discriminated, as "racism is Iceland is subtle but all over the place".
Particularly fascinating comment came from Mongolian-origin (am I being a racist or just descriptive here?) woman from Kazakhstan, previously in her comment claiming of being constantly harassed on the streets of Reykjavik, who said that she "with her Slavonic soul regarding Iceland her home".. "went somewhere wrong"... apparently, as people like me still exist.
And then I stopped and thought why is it so difficult to take a responsibility for your own life and not to blame parents, society, fate, the more lucky neighbour, anything else?
I come from the country which had most of its calamities and revolutions coming from the mouths of shouting petty people, and inheritantly, unconsiously I fear deeply all sorts of shouting on the corners in the streets - shouting for "democracy", "equality", all sorts of "freedoms", because generally nothing good comes out of anger, jealousy and hate.
Someone may argue that it´s not these three, but then can I ask you, if it´s possible that a good-natured, kind, talented, and giving person could be willingly involved into something like that? Did Bunin, Nabokov, Brodsky, Stravinsky, Azimov, Dovlatov and many others bother themselves of this unproductive, self-degrading time-consuming shouting in their most miserable years of immigration?
I am not saying you have to shut up, but then again if you conveniently start to call a foreign country your home and, therefore, consider it proper to make your own rules there, putting a hiking tent in the place where a dining table stood for centuries, and if, in this case, being politely refused, start to shout about bleeding wound of immigration consciousness, then I call it plain manipulation.
And then again what happened with a good old constructive dialogue? What happened with respect for your counterparts and, first and foremost, respect for yourself? What happened with the universal values of honest work, respect for the world around you, benefiting and learning from the target culture, combining that with the source culture? I guess opportunities for this are enormous in Iceland.
I felt confused and disappointed about wasting time to being involved into such unproductive exchange of thoughts. So, I read a book, and called a friend, and sent a small present to my other friend, and had a small talk in Icelandic with a post woman, and smiled to the cashier in Bonus, and finished sawing a skirt, and cooked supper, and learned some Icelandic.
Tomorrow I will try to do something else for peace and balance, if not in the lives of the humanity and in the name of fight against racism, but to built a little bit more of my small life here in Iceland, as this was my decision and, therefore, my primary responsibility.
Copyright © 2012 by Olga Johannesson
The topic was strange to me (Racism in Iceland), immigrant people´s comments seemed overly angry and unfair (in my subjective opinion, of course) and so I pressed a "post" button and jumped.
My point was that I don´t see it as a problem in Iceland (seriously, compare that to the rest of the Old Europe or even the rest of Scandinavia). And that basically everyone is responsible for his/her own choices, therefore, for the consequences and their personal welfare. Basically it was it:
"I really don´t understand this, but maybe I am meeting "wrong" people here - I have been in Iceland since August and there was not a case/situation when I felt discriminated. Russian origin has its drawbacks in Europe, but I never felt it here. Yes, it is a closed society as anywhere else in Scandinavia, but isn´t it like coming to the other people´s house to live? I mean, you can expect support, but don´t you have to do something in return? Like at least try to learn culture and traditions and language before coming here and not whine about them not giving money for your language classes or not hugging you straight away? After all, it´s we who made the choice of leaving our home and coming to live in theirs."
In about two hours several people (understandably not of an Icelandic origin) lashed at me, accusing me of everything starting from xenophobia to not having a slightest idea that a racism actually was.
Previously a guy from France complained of being refused to take a loan as he called himself in the post "being a dirty foreigner". Another one from Spain said that he´s paying his rent, taxes and living expenses and still being racially discriminated, as "racism is Iceland is subtle but all over the place".
Particularly fascinating comment came from Mongolian-origin (am I being a racist or just descriptive here?) woman from Kazakhstan, previously in her comment claiming of being constantly harassed on the streets of Reykjavik, who said that she "with her Slavonic soul regarding Iceland her home".. "went somewhere wrong"... apparently, as people like me still exist.
And then I stopped and thought why is it so difficult to take a responsibility for your own life and not to blame parents, society, fate, the more lucky neighbour, anything else?
I come from the country which had most of its calamities and revolutions coming from the mouths of shouting petty people, and inheritantly, unconsiously I fear deeply all sorts of shouting on the corners in the streets - shouting for "democracy", "equality", all sorts of "freedoms", because generally nothing good comes out of anger, jealousy and hate.
Someone may argue that it´s not these three, but then can I ask you, if it´s possible that a good-natured, kind, talented, and giving person could be willingly involved into something like that? Did Bunin, Nabokov, Brodsky, Stravinsky, Azimov, Dovlatov and many others bother themselves of this unproductive, self-degrading time-consuming shouting in their most miserable years of immigration?
I am not saying you have to shut up, but then again if you conveniently start to call a foreign country your home and, therefore, consider it proper to make your own rules there, putting a hiking tent in the place where a dining table stood for centuries, and if, in this case, being politely refused, start to shout about bleeding wound of immigration consciousness, then I call it plain manipulation.
And then again what happened with a good old constructive dialogue? What happened with respect for your counterparts and, first and foremost, respect for yourself? What happened with the universal values of honest work, respect for the world around you, benefiting and learning from the target culture, combining that with the source culture? I guess opportunities for this are enormous in Iceland.
I felt confused and disappointed about wasting time to being involved into such unproductive exchange of thoughts. So, I read a book, and called a friend, and sent a small present to my other friend, and had a small talk in Icelandic with a post woman, and smiled to the cashier in Bonus, and finished sawing a skirt, and cooked supper, and learned some Icelandic.
Tomorrow I will try to do something else for peace and balance, if not in the lives of the humanity and in the name of fight against racism, but to built a little bit more of my small life here in Iceland, as this was my decision and, therefore, my primary responsibility.
Copyright © 2012 by Olga Johannesson
thumbs up!
ReplyDeleteDear Olga,
ReplyDeleteNice post. I totally understand your point of view..and totally understand the point of view of people who were blaming you for not seeing racism in Iceland. I have been here for 13 years already and I do believe it does exist. I think it just takes time to see it, depends on which people your know, etc.
I am interested if this discussion was on FB? What group was it?
There is an interesting group on FB called "hot potato" - created by foreginers living in Iceland...they have some interesting and powerful discussions about Iceland as well. Maybe you would like to check it out.
Thanks for your thoughts, Marina! You are absolutely right, there definitely exists "a chauvinism of a native", as anywhere else in the world, and I have stepped on that once or twice here as well, but, as you also have rightly mentioned, it depends on the people you meet. So, why then call shallowness and stupidity of some individuals and put it into "racial issues" category? I think you need more than just "someone said something in the street" or "someone looked at me not-so-good" to call it racism?
ReplyDeleteAnd out of all Scandinavian countries (cf. Denmark or Norway)Iceland is the most tolerant and friendly, er það ekki? :)