For those of you who are in Iceland: there is a demonstration TO DEMAND CHANGE, tomrrow at 3 pm on Austurvöllur.
More information here [thanks icegrl for the link].
There’s also a Facebook group: Davíð Oddsson ætti að segja af sér [Davíð Oddsson should resign] for those interested, as well as Ákall til þjóðarinnar [a call to the nation], who as far as I can see are the organizers of the demonstration.
If you can be there, please come out. We need bodies!!
[more later, including weather]
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Go for it! If you don’t let them know, they will make the assumption that you approve of their actions or inaction. I know its an old cliche but, Power to the People!
A useless comment I know, but I wish I could be there to support you.
I’m planning on going! And I think I’ll link my blog to yours.
Good. Even though I haven’t been following events there as closely as I should, it seems Davíð has pretty much made a hash of things.
It looks like it will be just out of range of Eyjan’s web cam. But the “should resign” group has over 2600 members, so maybe it will spill over (and stay peaceful, which I have no doubt it will).
Has Iceland had a demonstration in recent times that didn’t remain peaceful? Not just a shouting match with a few rocks and bottles thrown, but one where ‘heads rolled’. Just curious when that sort of thing happened last.
Takk everyone - and Lissy … sýnum samstöðu!
Steve - I think it was 1944 or something - when the government decided that Iceland should join NATO. It was not a popular decision at the time.
I wish you all well. If the demonstration is big - they should get the message!
Alda - don’t tell me you haven’t read or seen “Atom Station” by Laxness!! It was 1946 - the year after WWII ended.
I’m sure there will be a very large turnout. Very exciting and a good way for the general public to remind the government that they (the govt.) are there to serve the people–not the other way around!
Given ‘em hell!
Alda
All the best with the demonstration. I hope it works and I hope you aren’t hit too hard by the chaos caused by those morons.
Jonathan Byron - Now I have neither read nor seen the “Atom Station” by Laxness, but I know that the protest/riot at the Alþingi when Iceland joined NATO was on march 30th in 1949 and not 1946.
Demonstrating as I did with a million others when Blair took the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq did a fat lot of good, but it’s what needs to be done. I hope it’s a good turnout.
We had probably a bit less than 2000 people (the police says between 400-500, yeah sure!) Could have been more, could have been better, but I think there will be more, once the kreppa starts to really hit home, sorry to say.
Hi Alda and everybody! I blog about Iceland in Greek. My blog is Pame Islandia! (”Let’s Go to Iceland”, sort of). I have also blogged about a demonstration last week, on 10.10.08, where according to Reuters around 200 people gathered (here). I do not know if this was a major event in Reykjavik, but I could’t find anything about in your blog. Anyway, I hope today’s demostration was really successful. Well, it is kind of expected -and much needed, indeed- that demonstrations will be organised after such a mess in Iceland. I believe there are people personally responsible for this economic failure. So, keep up the good work and you should know you have regular reader from Greece.
[If you would like to take a look at my blog I have translated it for you in English with Google Translate machine translation (here)]
Your protest made international news, so it sure is a success.
http://news.google.de/news?as_q=iceland+protest&svnum=10&as_scoring=r&hl=en&ned=us&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=19&as_minm=9&as_maxd=19&as_maxm=10&as_nsrc=&as_nloc=&geo=&as_occt=any
This is applying pressure on your government that can’t be simply ignored. And maybe it will start a domino chain of events leading to real changes. Congratulations, and keep up the good work!
Reuters reports that 2,000 people attended. There is a English language 1.39 minutes free video available at their website.