Saving Iceland

International indie darlings Sigur Rós will give a brief concert today for protesters of the Kárahnjúkavirkjun dam project, who have set up camp in eastern Iceland near the industrial site.according to Morgunbladid online. Sigur Rós are renowned for their opposition to the Kárahnjúkavirkjun project. Run-ins between police and protesters have escalated over the past few days and law enforcement has been increased substantially. Read More

Updated 29/7 2006

The Friends of Iceland/Saving Iceland protest camp has been erected at Snaefell close to the dams at Karahnjukar.

 

On Saturday at least 150 people went on a protest hike into the area to be drowned. The hike ended with a silent protest vigil at the site of the central dam. Anger and sorrow was the predominant feeling.

The atmosphere at the camp is amazing and there is much dynamism in the air and feverish activity. Almost two hundred people are in the camp now. About half the people are Icelandic, the other half English, Scottish, French, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, Italian, German etc.

Ghostigital played a bistering set in the blazing evening sun with waterfalls and mountain ridges in the background. Dean Ferrell played a very inspiring set in the daytime yesterday and Palindrome played in the evening.

Both Björk and Sigur Rós are expected to appear soon at the camp.

Icelandic National Brodacasting Service, RÚV, reports that Icelandic and international opponents of heavy industry projects in Iceland have organized a concert titled “Saving Iceland” in Antwerp, Belgium. Icelandic and international artists performed and an Icelandic documentary was presented.

The benefit event with live Icelandic bands, intended to bring the issue of the dams in Iceland to the public attention was a great success; the event as well as the resulting media attention.

Having been interviewed by three national radio stations and having been published in two national newspapers, the Belgian media has been enthusiastic in bringing the news of building large scale dams in Iceland.

Saturday, 24 June, Antwerp was host to 4 Icelandic live bands: Stylluppsteypa, Berglind Ágústsdottir, Skátar and Cocktail Vomit aka Disco Shrimp. They gave a performance after the documentary World of Solitude with Magnus Magnusson had been shown and people had asked questions. Some 450 people showed up to learn more about the matter or to listen to quite experimental live music. It was a success in every way and many people plan to come to Iceland this summer to join the ‘Family Days’ camp at Snaefell, starting 21th July.

It’s time to organise the 2006 camp!

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The Saving Iceland European popular education and workshop tour continues into Spain today. After an amazing welcome in Ireland at the Anarchist Bookfair in Dublin and then with such an inspiring and successful visit to the Shell to Sea campaign at Rossport in the North West of Ireland the tour hopes to continue in the same vein, discussing the issues around heavy industry, climate change and the industrialisation and corporate sell off of our environment. We have already seen many links between the Saving Iceland campaign and other campaigns so far and hope to report more on similar struggles and the links and friends we make along the way as the weeks unfold. Read More

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Grapevine.is

On 5 January Icelandic State TV host Kristján Kristjánsson interviewed Damon Albarn in the news programme Kastljos. The following night Kristjánsson interviewed the Minister of Industry Valgerður Sverrisdóttir. Below, for comparison, are the transcripts of both interviews and an analysis of the contents.

Intro: Announcer points out that Damon Albarn “was a pop star in the late 1990s”, and will be playing a concert with Björk on January 7. (A curious introduction, as Damon Albarn’s band Gorillaz was both one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed bands of 2005.)

Kristján Kristjánsson: Are you very much involved in these issues, nature conservatism [sic]? Read More

The Stop the Dams mega concert, featuring a once in a lifetime collection of artists, was a huge success. At the concert the dates to the next protest camp at the Kárahnjúkar project were announced, 21st July. Hundreds if not thousands of Icelanders are expected to attend. The destruction will be stopped!

Almost 6,000 people partied in protest against the devastation of Iceland’s wildernesses on January the 7th.

The lineup included KK, Björk and Zeena, Múm, Sigur Rós, Magga Stína, Rass and Dr. Spock, Damien Rice, Mugison, Lisa Hannigan, Hjálmar, Ghostigital, Damon Albarn (from Blur), Ham, and Egó. Performance artists and film-makers were also among the nearly two hundred artists that contributed to the event.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian (13 Feb ’06), Björk had this to say about politics and the dam: Read More

The interview was conducted at the time of the Stop the dams! gig in January 2006. Björk is an internationally acclaimed musician and has often spoken out against the heavy industry policy of the Icelandic government. Björk will be joining the international protest camp near Kárahnjúkar this year.

Josie Demuth: What, for you, makes Icelandic nature so special that you want to stop it’s destruction and participate in this concert?

Björk: It is the largest untouched area in Europe and I feel it is not only my duty to speak out as an Icelander but as a European. The situation has reached a cross roads, Iceland’s economy which was 70 per cent fish went down, so what instead? The attention went from the sea to the land. Fifteen years ago they stopped building a dam in the 1970s because people spoke out and there were artistic protests. But now in 2005 there is this industrial revolution and this way of thinking to sacrifice nature for progress. They are not long term benefits and we can do so much more with nature. We can work with nature, for example, hotels have been put up all over Iceland, and there are tourist centres to tell tourists about the nature. We will not be able to rewind this natural destruction and as I’ve travelled I’ve begun to realise that this is not a modern way of thinking. 50 years ago were independent but what are we gonna do in 100 years now? We are not making progress with this. Read More

21-22nd January 2006 Read More