From Iceland — Dutch Website Makes Colonialist Joke

Dutch Website Makes Colonialist Joke

Published March 2, 2010

A website whose server is located in the Netherlands makes the “humorous” case that Iceland should become the property of Holland and the UK.
The site in question, The DutchIceland, says in part, “Iceland has been hit especially hard by the 2008 financiel crisis. Before the crash of the three largest banks in Iceland, their combined debt exceeded approximately six times the nation’s gross domestic product of €14 billion ($19 billion). This amount of momey is impossible to pay back. We conclude that Iceland is bankrupt! So all Icelands assets, including ground, buildings, transportation, sea, air now belong to the creditors. Both the Netherlands and the UK claim Icelands ground.”
Among the ideas put forth on how to exploit Iceland for Dutch use, they suggest the country could become a landfill, or that a giant nuclear power plant could be built there.
A network traceroute the Grapevine conducted showed that the server for the website is located in the Netherlands, with much of the domain info hidden behind a proxy.
[blatanteditorialization] While clearly an attempt at light-hearted humor on behalf of some Dutch individuals, The Netherlands is a country that has colonized other countries, and Iceland was once itself a colony. Colonialization is the forceful subjugation of a sovereign people, and a joke such as this is pretty much on par with jokes about slavery. It reeks of sneering, condescending, privileged scorn for people the website’s creators believe beneath themselves. [/blatanteditorialization].

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