Thursday, 20/Nov/2008. Note #5.
[Making a start now and it's only 18:00h]
There was a remarkable program on Radio 4 this morning (11:00h) illustrating the affect of the current “credit crunch” on the people of Iceland. One man, only weeks before, had owned a good house , a new car and all the other accoutrements of modern life. Now he was living in a shed in a field. The amazing thing was that the people were so ashamed of what they saw as their country’s bad behaviour! Opinions were expressed that, when the redundancy money ran out - in about 2 months - the choice would be to fight or to flee. Icelanders are - perhaps unexpectedly - a very peaceful people (all 300,000 of them) but anger at their government and banks is mounting. Meanwhile there were orderly queues at Red Cross soup kitchens, with individuals careful not to take too much in case others received too little (what a Christian attitude - not often witnessed elsewhere in our modern acquisitive world). Those who thought the might leave, were not inclined towards Denmark - the equivalent of a colonial master with a questionable attitude towards Greenlanders. Some said they would be too ashamed to go to UK after the losses suffered there due to Iceland’s financial collapse. [Since starting this message, violence - on a relatively modest scale - has broken out in Rekjavik].
My own Herts. County Council made deposits in Icelandic banks in the hope of huge profits. So much for financial whiz-kids. Also, I believe my local St Albans council intended to follow the county council’s example but, fortunately, the had no ready-money to invest - squander might be a better word to use.
Could we, a nation of about sixty million people, find ourselves in a similar predicament? How would we react? Would we feel a communal shame or would a search for a scapegoat lead quickly to serious violence and police brutality? Let’s hope we don’t have to find out!
Jim Naisbitt. <jim_naisbitt@talk21.com> St Albans. 20/NOV/2008.
[Posted on Sat. 29/11/08]