What is the position of Iceland and the Faroe Islands in imperialism and colonialism?
What is the position of Iceland and the Faroe Islands in imperialism and colonialism?
My impression is that there is broad consensus that the Faroe Islands constitute a colony subjected to Danish imperialism. During the big strike in the archipelago earlier this year, in which a whole tenth of the Faroese population participated, store shelves went empty and cars and buses stopped running due to the cessation of imports. This was reported by Tjen Folket in Norway and Røde Fane in Denmark.
Iceland is also comparatively reliant on imports, and historically had a similar relationship to metropolitan Denmark as the Faroe Islands still have now, but there seems to be far less consensus on Iceland's historical and present relationship to colonialism and imperialism.
But what are your thoughts? What is the present, historical, and even future relationship of the Faroe Islands and Iceland to colonialism and imperialism? How are these things impacted by things like whiteness, population size, natural resources, climate and geographic isolation, and even overtourism?
One of the foremost members of Norway's Red Party at the moment is Mímir Kristjánsson, a Storting member representing Rogaland who is known for his good speeches and for broadly being really cool, and he is half-Icelandic and has a very strikingly Icelandic name. Iceland is not a country I have too many personal connections to, but the few connections I do have to Iceland make me curious about the country.
Being named after the guy who lost his head but still knows everything.
I'm not sure Iceland could ever really be called a colony. It had no indigenous people when the Euros showed up and afaik the mainland didn't place onerous extractive burdens on it. Admittedly I'm not an expert, but my understanding is the Icelanders just kind of did their thing living off sheep, fish, and seaweed.
Being named after the guy who lost his head but still knows everything.
And who is that?
afaik the mainland didn't place onerous extractive burdens on it.
An Icelandic Hexbear said three years ago, "[Iceland was] arguably a colonial holding of Denmark, but without the resources (except for fish).". This is basically all I could find about the topic written by Icelandic communists in a pinch. Not a "definitely yes" or "definitely no", just an "arguably". Someone else replied saying "there was no enslavement of Icelandic people, no systemic resource extraction like there has been with Africa or Asia, no sweat shops built for cheap Icelandic labour." while still ultimately labeling Iceland a former colony.
I think I'm going to stick a pin in the historical role of fish exports in Iceland. That seems like it might lead somewhere interesting. The Cod Wars were after all a pretty notable chapter of modern Icelandic history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mímir
Mimir is a figure in Norse Mythology who was supposed to have been the wisest of the Aesir. He's decapitated during a war but doesn't let that slow him down. Odin carries his head around and consults him for wisdom. I think in one story he tends a magic well of wisdom and Odin trades his eye for a drink from the well, hence Odin having only one eye.
I remember reading about them having an insane bank collapse in 2008, much worse than any other developed country. Their banking sector was like 10x the GDP. Iceland recovered relatively well compared to Greece and others, the losses were so huge they just let the banks collapse instead of bailing them out.
That is a very famous chapter of recent Icelandic history. I remember hearing about some sort of documentary film about that when I was a kid.
Don’t forget the Great Satan maintained a military base in Iceland after WWII and tried to keep it in perpetuity
Those six guys who can't stop eating shark and fucking their cousins seem too incompetent to do an imperialism