Loud

Mood: Foul (pre-coffee). 

Icelanders always think that Iceland has a reputation for clean air, a clean countryside and beautiful people. The way Icelanders are behaving though, you’d guess that they’re proud of the opposite.

Road pollution here is worse than many of the worst places in Bristol. Not just smog but also dust that’s ground up from the roads by the off-road tires that are commonly used by Icelanders — which highlights another aspect of this nation’s disconnect with their self-image. The countryside is piece by piece being turned into an industrialised hellhole, a dam in every big river, a factory in every town.

The inhumanity is what gets to me the most, and it is getting worse. The number of women that have gone to seek help for rape has increased by 50% in 2006. The organisation that provides help and advice to rape victims does so anonymously and without prejudice and so have much more accurate numbers.

The dramatic rise in rape cases does not, unfortunately, come as a surprise. The number of attempted rape stories I’ve heard anecdotally boggles the mind. The media only highlights the “raped by a foreigner” stories which highlights another Icelandic quality: Xenophobia. The fact is that in most of these cases the perpetrator is either a friend or acquaintance of the woman or one of our proud new generation of Icelandic adults (18-25 year old).

Iceland has a reputation for partying hard and loose women. It seems now that the women aren’t loose as much as they are pried loose and violated.