Words by

Atli Bollason

Atli Bollason, DJ, writer, scholar, flâneur

In 2014, we saw that politicians are not afraid to attack institutions and ideals that some of us had—naïvely, I admit—come to take for granted. We thought we all agreed to keep public radio alive; we thought we all wanted lower taxes on culture and healthy foods and a higher asking price for natural resources; we thought we were forever free to roam our own country; we thought we were kind and tolerant and peaceful and welcoming; we thought we had agreed to fight inequality and safeguard the communal; we even thought our politicians—also those we disagreed with—were mostly intelligent and ultimately reasonable and well-meaning people.

All of these conceptions were shattered. We have come to understand that a political system that allows for such rapid disintegration of our social structures and values must be seriously flawed.

In 2015, the divide between the reactionary and the progressive margins of Icelandic society will come into sharper focus, and the near-perfect image of the quirky, chipper, innovative and liberal nation under the Arctic Circle that we like to recognize in the mirror will crack.

Here’s hoping we won’t have another seven years of the bad luck we had in 2014.