Icelandic singer and activist, Björk, disillusioned by the current ruling coalition has said in an interview with the Guardian that she hopes there will be another revolution to overthrow the government.
“They are a crazy insane government, just doing everything horribly wrong. Going back to what it was before the bank crash, but five times worse,” said Björk. “All the changes that the left made – and I’m not for a minute saying that I’m left, I don’t see myself as left or right – but in five minutes they’ve gone back and privatised everything.
“People stood outside the parliament banging pots and pans and sacked the government [after the crash in 2008], so that was good,” said Björk. “But then the [Social Democratic Alliance and Left Green] government spent four years just cleaning up the mess, and lots of people had still lost their money and their homes. Then the right wing [Independence and Progressive parties] got in because they promised to erase everyone’s debts, which of course they now can’t do.”
“So we’ve been hoping there’ll be another revolution to get them out,” said Björk.
It may be that Björk will get her wish as protests have already begun against the ruling coalition following news yesterday that Iceland’s Foreign Minister, Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, notified the EU that Iceland will no longer be pursuing accession talks.
Gunnar Bragi did so without running it past parliament first, despite national sentiment, promises of a referendum and campaign promises not to do so. The Foreign Minister previously attempted and failed to end EU accession talks via parliament.
Last night, Icelandic writer, Andri Snær Magnason, spoke out against the government’s move in a Facebook post in which he said, “isn’t some country up for invading us to establish a democracy?”
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