Editorial: In A Land Without Kings, Inspiration And Dignity

Celebrating the truly exceptional people who caused change, and acknowledging the grace of accepting it

This is the age when indecent men declare themselves kings, and in far too many places a weary public accepts the decree. Mercifully, Iceland has no kings. As documented in this issue, human dignity makes purchase here.

Our cover story marks the 50th anniversary of Kvennafrídagurinn, Women’s Day Off, the misleading moniker for an event requiring profound effort that changed this little island but also inspired the world. In our office, we have been rereading old Morgunblaðið newspapers, astonished. My favourite quote is from a bewildered Aðalsteinn Helgason of Húsavík stating, “I got nothing to eat.”

To be fair, the men interviewed by Morgunblaðið in 1975 don’t seem angry so much as dumbfounded. It is as though the ground fully shifted under their feet. The staff of the conservative newspaper voiced support in their editorial. The impact of 90 percent of the women of a country actively participating in a protest shifted the collective psychology from within.

The rational response to Kvennafrídagurinn was to change behaviour. Iryna Zubenko, in her feature, notes that only five years after the protest, Iceland elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir president. As a cursory review of most metrics will demonstrate, Iceland has become prominent in the fight for equality in the 50 years since.

Again, there are no kings here. In a land with no kings, the humanism that emerges results in actions incongruous with mainstream reality elsewhere. This is part of what generated a truly remarkable story we’re also featuring in this issue — our accidental second feature.

Birgir Þórarinsson, a relatively quiet former Independence Party MP, took it upon himself to free a pro-Palestinian Israeli hostage from Iraq. To hear the story secondhand, it sounds like a setup for a modern-day Candide, with Birgir wandering through the most politically charged chaos imaginable, complete with gold-plated guns and assassinations, believing in “the best of all possible worlds.” The reality turned out wholly different. As our journalist Adam Roy Gordon documents, Birgir’s faith in humanity allowed him to risk seemingly everything, with neither financial nor military support, in order to rescue a hostage with whom he had no personal connection.

Thus we have two features documenting how Icelanders reached out to their fellow humans with no leverage — with the possible exception of Aðalsteinn up above who somehow became a grown-ass man without learning how to feed himself — and made a change for good.

We can take inspiration from the heroic actions of the protestors and of Birgir. We should also take inspiration from the community as a whole that fostered these actions. From people like the editorial staff of Morgunblaðið in 1975 who encountered a protest and accepted their changed world.

Again, this is easier without kings. But if you’re only focused on humans you consider to be equal, problems that otherwise seem impossible begin to sort themselves out.