Words by

Valur Grettisson

A small cell within the Independence Party has been criticised heavily for their advertise in the conservative newspaper, Morgunblaðið, for its imagery that feels like a reference to Nazism, and even Stalinism like Fréttablaðið reported. In the ad, it was announced that the group seeks to form a specific association within the Independence Party about independent Iceland. In short terms, members of the Independence Party wants to form a cell within the independence party specifically about independence.

Feel confused? Well, most of us are. It doesn’t appear that Denmark is colonising Iceland any time soon again, and the Icelandic nation has full sovereignty over its matters and is one of the most democratic nations in the world.

This is how the ad looked like.

Once a cover

What’s perhaps more interesting is that the ad was actually the front page of Morgunblaðið in July 1942.

Stundin interviewed one of the people behind this cell, Ólafur Hannesson. He said that this group was formed because of voices of dissatisfaction of where the Independence Party is heading, but it has been criticised by conservatives for being too liberal. He points out that the Centre Party, led by Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, world-famous for stepping down as a Prime Minister because of the Panama Papers a few years ago, is stealing a lot of voters from the Independence Party—the Centre Party have been dubbed as a populist-nationalist party.

If you look at the shield of the Viking in the picture above, you’ll also see this symbol.

Reusing chauvinism

Goddur, a professor in the Iceland University of the Arts, pointed out that this group was obviously reusing material from the Nazi era when nationalism was strong. The picture was published only two years before Iceland took its independence from Denmark, which was occupied by the Nazis at the time, and therefore politically vulnerable. So the picture itself is more like a reference to the Icelandic fight for freedom, although the picture was heavily influenced by the chauvinism of the USA, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the 30s.