Gimlé

I’m a cynical bastard.

On the 23rd of December, as has become a tradition over here, a large number of people participated in a “peace march” which goes down Reykjavík’s main shopping street.

People who on every other day of the year don’t give a rat’s arse about peace or the poor, don’t recycle, vote the usual bastards into power, don’t support fair trade, think that the World Trade Organisation is something run by Nestlé, and are generally inane, shallow consumerist twats, participate in this mass fantasy that their Christmas has something to do with peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men.

They rush down the shopping street in their GAP gear and Nike shoes, walking past the shops where they have spent the money they don’t have using the credit cards they shouldn’t have, for goods put together by a bunch of people in China, Taiwan or Korea working for a few cents a day.

Then they go home to drink their coffee, grown by impoverished farmers who slash and burn rainforests to be able to grow a cash crops because that’s what the government and the market wants.

Christmas as a celebration of friendship and love for those near and dear is something I get. The idea that this consumerist free-for-all does world peace and world poverty any good is something I don’t get.

Going to the cemetaries to put flowers and such on your relatives’ graves, making your kids aware of the large number of good people their family has had and lost, instilling in them a sense of history, respect for the dead and pride of their family—

That I get.

And that is what we do (as do many other Icelanders).

Near and dear.

Tomorrow I am getting up early in the morning. I’m heading off to the main cemetary in the Fossvogur valley with my Dad, Grandmother, six year old cousin and a couple of other relatives.

We’re going to walk around the cemetary. Make sure the graves and stones for our relatives look fine. Light some candles for them.

And tell each other stories about all the cool people we have had enrichen our lives.

Baldur Bjarnason.
Garðabær, Iceland.