Words by

Halldór Armand

One by one, ticking time bombs won

It’s not the secrets of the government

That’s keeping you dumb

Oh, it’s the other way around-wait

What’s that sound?

One by one, baby, here they come.

It’s election time in Iceland, the purest, most uncorrupted and book-loving place on planet Earth.

Earlier this week, a bank was awarded a court injunction against the newspaper Stundin. The newspaper had been writing thorough reports, in cooperation with The Guardian and Reykjavik Media, on all kinds of shady financial activity undertaken by our Prime Minister and his family when the banking system was collapsing in 2008.

In short, they can’t do it anymore. No more writing on this matter. Nothing to see here. Back to basics for the Icelandic media. Back to writing about celebrities with tough childhood memories, the English Premier League and what liberals on Twitter are saying about Trump and Narcos.

It’s Falson, baby, my basket of secrets, my island of dreams, my kingdom of wealth. A name that tells you nothing but contains everything. Come home with me tonight, yes, you, and I might make you an account holder by the break of dawn. You belong offshore with me, where there’s no time, no death, no space, and no taxes. Yes, yes, yes. My buddies in the the banking system, my homies in parliament, mis amigos at the Financial Supervisory Authority. They’ll all be there, talking Nietzche, jazz, sex and investment opportunities in Tripoli, Hugh Hefner style, and dad’s getting pizza. I keep no secrets from a person that can’t speak.

Like The Strokes said: The End Has No End. Our crisis, our political and philosophical crisis, began in 2006 and we’re still there, no solution in sight, as we keep on lying to ourselves and others that everything is perfectly fine.

What was it that Stundin was about to tell us? The thing is, it really doesn’t matter. There’s nothing in there that we don’t already know, that we haven’t seen before.

Why do they do it? Why are we – year after year – getting so used to the most powerful people in the country being involved in big financial scandals? I suspect that the reason is the same as why we will most definitely end up tolerating this thing and not changing anything. There’s no moral foundation here that unites us, no sense of community. We are atheists who believe in the welfare state. Take away our problems and you can do what you like, we’ll pay what you want, yes, please hide the old people and drug the children so we can all watch the Liverpool game in peace.