From Iceland — The Gates

The Gates

Published January 19, 2011

– Clubs and bars in Iceland have always been run by members of the Progressive party.
– Dad!
– Listen, this is important. Your mother thinks you’re too young, but it is important that I tell you about these things early enough. About management. You will not learn this at school. The Progressive party has always been concerned with the preservation of our nation. Like all regulation, this management is achieved by controlling what is open and what is closed. Open. Closed. Farmers once took care of these things. What have I told you about all things on earth?
– All things on earth make sense.
– That’s it. There is always a reason why things are the way they are. No one profession realises the significance of leading a cow under a bull as naturally as farmers. What today is seen as chaotic outbursts of ‘violence’ in the city centre has never been in the least chaotic. That so-called ‘violence’ is a vital part of a delicate set of manoeuvres and interferences during negotiations of possible procreation. This history has not been written, and possibly it will only ever be passed on as oral heritage. So listen carefully— one day you will want to tell your children this story, and hopefully you will have your own chapter to add to it. Now, at the 20th century county balls, informal groups of attentive, unselfish guardians of integrity took care that no undesired goo would be mixed in our genetic pool. In a rare display of national solidarity, men from all classes, all families, with all sorts of different background, kept the least fortunate bulls away from our most precious cows. This is our most valuable natural resource, the gene pool. When foreign elements tried to spoil it, men would take care of it. That goes for the lax, liberal periods. Different circumstances call for different measures. In the 19th century when hundreds of people gathered to form towns for the first time, this was met with an absolute, nationwide dance-verbot—which lasted for a hundred years. When that ban lifted, our sages banned alcohol. You see: open and close. If you want to keep a gate, you must first raise a wall—this is the only secret of effective management. A wall and a gate. Ban beer, sell moonshine. And now that alcohol and dancing are allowed, smoking is banned. You see the pattern, right? Now, I have told you about the Situation—tell daddy what the Situation was about.
– The Situation was when the British and American soldiers lured the weakest among Icelandic women…
– Weakest how?
– Psychologically and morally weakest, lured them into sin, by offering them chewing gum, nylon stockings and cigarettes.
– And what?
– And music.
– And?
– And… money.
– And the fantasy of a better life. That’s right honey. What is that fantasy?
– Daddy, we’ve been through this so often.
 That’s because it is important sweetie. What is the fantasy of a better life?
– The illusion that the world outside Iceland has better things to offer than life as it is, the illusion that happiness is somewhere else and that it can be achieved by giving in, through moral laxness.
– Correct. And what does that fantasy make of women?
– The fantasy of happiness makes all women prostitutes.
– Perfect, sweetie. An A+. So now, then, we had the Situation. The government, of course, demanded that there would be no Negroes among the military personnel. That’s not racism but what honey?
– That’s not racism, but national integrity.
 – That’s right. Now, the Progressive party ran all the important clubs in Reykjavík after the war, and got things more or less under control again, until the early ‘70s. Boy, did things get out of hand! Not only the ideological invasion that we have spoken of so often—but at the same time the U.S. government gave in to pressure from its media and opened the gates, our gates, for their so-called ‘mixed races’ policy. Which is precisely not policy, but what? What’s the opposite of order?
—Chaos, daddy.
—Chaos. And at the same time they re-baptized every ambition for control and order as ‘violence’. All sorts of derogatory terms were invented for those of us who feel responsible for the good of others. Management escaped into the shadows. Spacious men’s rooms became vital for the prolongation of our national existence. Now, darling, if this was an ideal world, I would not be telling you this. In an ideal world it is the privilege of women not to have to fill their pretty heads with everything that men do to protect them. In an ideal world it is woman’s privilege to believe in happiness—and man’s duty to play Santa Claus. Women do not want to know and they should not have to know about these things. However, this world of ours is less than ideal, I’m afraid. And I am less than certain that there will always be men around to keep you from harm’s way. Daddy only wants what is best for you, you know that, right?
– Of course I do, daddy.
– Now, then, listen very carefully: when an intruder attempts to seduce an Icelandic woman, no matter how polite and gentle, no matter how humorous and respectful he may seem, or even genuinely attractive, such attempts are and always will be attempted rape. Sexual intercourse between an Icelandic woman and a foreign man is rape, no matter how consensual it appears to both. Not merely in the sense that the man thereby exploits the female’s lack of defence and judgement, but more seriously, on a deeper level, it is the rape of the nation itself. Such acts violently rip apart the very material we are woven of. Penetration, in such cases, is invasion. It not only resembles, but fundamentally is, a terrorist act.
Just imagine, if you had black skin, brown eyes, curly hair—if your parents spoke some ali-baba-language, if Iceland had fallen into the same pit as our sorry neighbouring countries and fed you shish kebab for breakfast—you would not be you. You would not be my dear little Ásdís. You would simply not exist. Likewise, had my own mother fallen during the Situation, I would not exist. So much is at stake, precious. And now, we have another Situation. The enemy is constantly by the gates. That is what they call globalization. What will then be our gate policy?
– Keep them closed, daddy.
– Keep your gates closed. That’s it. The world’s finest young men are all right here, born to the world’s finest mothers, bred in the world’s cleanest country. Daddy loves his little Icelandic angel so much. And one day you will love your children, too. You just, you have to take care, when the time comes, that your children will really be your children, and not some other children, alien to their own mother and her family. You understand?

Support The Reykjavík Grapevine!
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!

Show Me More!