Photo Exhibition and Lectures: Friday 23 August 16–18

Posted on 12.08.13

26 August 1991. From left: David Oddsson, Jon B. Hannibalsson, A. Saudargas, Lithuania, J. Jurkans, Latvia, and L. Meri, Estonia.

23 August has been designated, by the European Parliament, as European Day of remembrance for victims of totalitarianism, both communism and nazism. On this day in 1939 Hitler and Stalin made their non-aggression pact, launching the 2nd World War and dividing Central and Eastern Europe up between the two dictators. On 23 August 2013, at 16 o’clock, a photo exhibition on the International Communist Movement and its Activities in Iceland will be opened at the National Library of Iceland. The exhibition is organised by RNH in cooperation with the National Library, with Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson responsible for the photos and the text and Sogumidlun ehf. for the design.

Nutt

On this occasion, historian Dr. Mart Nutt, Member of the Estonian Parliament and of the Supervisory Board of the Estonian Institute of Human Rights, will deliver a paper on “Estonia: a Small Nation Under Foreign Yoke”. Forty years ago, in 1973, an Icelandic translation by then law student David Oddsson appeared of a book by Anders Küng of the same name (in Icelandic, Eistland: Smathjod undir oki erlends valds). As Prime Minister in 1991, Oddsson, in close co-operation with Foreign Minister Jon B. Hannibalsson, led the move to re-recognise the three Baltic states, under foreign occupation from 1940 to 1991. Iceland was the first state to do so after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Born in 1962, Mart Nutt completed his doctorate at the Technical University in Tallinn in 2011. Trained as a historian, his dissertation was on international relations. He has written books on Estonian history and worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but is now a member of Parliament for the centre-right unified Pro Patria and Res Publica parties.

Ukielski

On this occasion, also, Dr. Pawel Ukielski, deputy director of the Warsaw Rising Museum, will give a lecture on the Warsaw Rising in 1944 which the Nazis met with indescribable cruelty, methodically and mercilessly killing all the Poles they caught and trying to raze the whole city to the ground, while Stalin’s Red Army watched, doing nothing, on the other side of Vistula, the river running through Warsaw. In the 18th Century, the Russians, the Austrians and the Prussians divided Poland up between themselves, and after Hitler and Stalin had signed their non-aggression pact in 1939, they divided Poland again up between themselves. After the War, communists ruled the country with the help of the Soviet Army. Poland became fully free only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Born in 1976, Pawel Ukielski completed his doctorate at the Warsaw School of Economics in 2006. He has published numerous books and papers in his field. He works for the Polish Academy of Sciences and teaches politics at the private Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, as well as being deputy director of the Warsaw Rising Museum.

After the two lectures, there will a questions-and-answers session, followed by a reception at the National Library. Iceland’s Atlantic Alliance, Vardberg, and the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland are the co-sponsors of the event. It is a part of the project “Europe of the Victims” which RNH and AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, have been jointly organising since 2012.

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Icelandic Tax Liberation Day 2013

Posted on 09.07.13

In 2013, the Icelandic Tax Liberation Day is, according to calculations made by the Young Independents, on July 7th. This is the day when people can start to work for themselves and are liberated from having to work any longer for government. In Iceland, people now have to pay a little more than 50% of their revenues to government.

The RNH celebration of the Icelandic Tax Freedom Day is a part of a joint project with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. The think tank New Direction with which RNH cooperates also celebrates a Tax Liberation Day in Europe, calculating it slightly differently.

It is a well-established fact that high taxes reduce the propensity of people to work and to create wealth. Tax rises may increase tax revenue in the short run, but in the long run they  may reduce it because the tax basis will contract. This can be seen by comparing Sweden and Switzerland, two affluent countries which in the 20th Century largely escaped the ravages of war or military occupation.

In 1990, the tax rate in Sweden was 52.3% of gross domestic product, GDP, while 25.9% in Switzerland. Tax revenue per capita was in Sweden $14,923 and in Switzerland $9,061. If the relationship between the tax rate and tax revenue had been linear (i.e. the tax base not susceptible to change), then tax revenue per capita should have been double in Sweden what it were in Switzerland, as the tax rate was double.

In 2011, the tax rate in Sweden was 44.5% of GDP, while 28.5% in Switzerland. But tax revenue per capita was nearly the same in the two countries, $25,361 in Sweden and $23,948. In other words, almost the same tax revenue could be achieved by a tax rate of 28.5% and 44.5%.


The so-called Laffer Curve illustrates the fact that at 0% tax rate, the tax revenue is zero, $0; and that it goes up with an increased tax rate until it reaches some highest possible level, after all it falls again, and at an 100% tax rate it is also zero, $0: nobody bothers to work in the legal and taxed economy if all his or her income is expropriated. Professor Birgir Thor Runolfsson of the University of Iceland, a member of RNH’s Council of Academic Advisers, has drawn a “Laffer Curve” with the 2011 data from Sweden and Switzerland, although of course such a curve is meant to demonstrate a general truth rather than to reflect the economic reality at any given point in time. It should also be noted that Sweden has been reducing the tax burden significantly, having adopted “The New Swedish Model” described at an RNH meeting 14 January 2013 by Dr. Nils Karlson of Ratio Institute in Stockholm.

It was a good sign that the first public event the President of Iceland participated in after the Icelandic Tax Liberation Day was on 9 July 2013 to sign into law the proposal significantly to lower the special tax imposed by the Radical Left government of 2009–2011 on the fisheries. 20 September 2013, Matthew Elliott of the British Taxpayers’ Alliance will give a talk in Reykjavik, co-sponsored by RNH and the Icelandic Taxpayers’ Alliance. The publishing house Almenna bokafelagid will also soon publish a collection of papers on taxation and the distribution of income, edited by Professors Ragnar Arnason and Birgir Thor Runolfsson.

Here Nobel Laureate Edward C. Prescott, in a lecture in Iceland, makes a pertinent point about taxation, that tax revenue is not directly related to the tax rate:

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Conference on Darwin, Evolution and Liberty

Posted on 30.06.13

Darwin.

The Mont Pelerin Society, an international academy, or debating society, of classical liberals and conservatives, founded in 1947 by Friedrich von Hayek, devoted its regional meeting in the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, 22–29 June 2013, to “Evolution, the Human Sciences and Liberty”. The local organiser was the Ecuadorian University of San Francisco of Quito which operates a branch on San Cristóbal, one of the Islands. The Galapagos Islands which Charles Darwin visited in 1835 are known for their rich diversity of plants and animals, many of them endemic species, such as some kinds of sea lions, iguanas and giant tortoises. The Islands are volcanic islands on the Equator, but because of the cold Humboldt current from the south and warmer currents from the north which meet at the islands, the climate is also very variable. Moreover, it changes markedly with altitude, being mostly dry near the coast, but with more precipitation and consequently a richer vegetation higher up. Many species have lived in isolation in each of the eighteen islands for centuries or millennia, and have had to adapt to the ever-changing environment. It was not least the observation of all these phenomena, especially of birds like finches and mockingbirds, which slowly led Darwin to his theory of natural evolution, first set out fully in the Origin of Species in 1859, as described in detail in a session 23 June by Professor David Kohn, general editor of the Darwin Digital Library of Evolution and author of the 1988 book The Darwinian Heritage.

RNH was represented at the meeting by Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, a longtime member of the MPS and a member of its board in 1998–2004. He chaired the session at the meeting 25 June on “The Political Animal” where Professor Larry Arnhart, Northern Illinois University, and Professor Emeritus Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics, gave papers. Professor Gissurarson’s participation in the meeting was a part of a research project he is leading at the RNH on “green capitalism”, in cooperation with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. Sadly, Professor Minogue passed away after the conference, on the airplane he shared with Professor Gissurarson and some other attendees on the way from the Galapagos Islands to the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil.

Many prominent natural scientists gave papers on the present status of the scientific knowledge of man and evolution. Robert Boyd, Professor of anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles, UCLA, pointed out that cultural evolution consisted in the accumulation and transmission over generations of all kinds of tacit knowledge on how to cope with the environment. Such evolution could both go right or wrong.  Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, discussed his discovery of the limits to the number of individuals with whom any one person can have meaningful and stable relationships, or about 150 people, often known as “Dunbar’s Number”. This limit he traced to genetically evolved traits in human brains.

Fuster.

Dr. Joáquin Fuster, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavourial Sciences at UCLA, and one of the world’s best-known experts on cognitive neuroscience, argued that the human brain was a complex adaptive system which with the evolution of the prefrontal cortex became pre-adaptive, capable of anticipating the future and forming plans; according to Professor Fuster, it brought to man two liberating attributes, prediction and language. His view was that Hayek’s Sensory Order was very relevant to modern scientific research on the brain and on cognition. Fuster’s book, The Neuroscience of Freedom and Creativity, will be published by Cambridge University Press in September 2013.

Professor Peter Whybrow, Director of the Semel Institute at the UCLA, looked at entrepreneurship in the light of evolution theory. His main example was migration. Man migrated out of Africa about 60,000 years ago, probably settling in the two Americas 15–20,000 years ago. Moreover, in many modern societies immigrants constitute a large proportion of the population. Professor Whybrow said that it seemed that amongst immigrants the genes associated with risk-taking and creativity were more frequent than in other groups.

Professor John Tooby, University of California in Santa Barbara, UCSB, an expert on evolutionary anthropology, tried to explain the widespread hostility, not least amongst intellectuals, against market exchanges, profit and personal wealth. He submitted that over millions of years of natural selection in the hunter-gatherer collective man has come to favour mutual gifts as ways to overcome risks in a subsistence society. Such human instincts are deeply based in man’s genes where they work against the demonstrated gains from trade.

Professor Richard Wrangham, Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, discussed aggression, violence and war as a part of man’s genetic heritage, comparing man with other primates such as chimpanzees which have by no means been peaceful creatures. Professor Wrangham argued, however, that the forms which war has taken amongst humans after they emerged from the hunter-gatherer small communities might be culturally, rather than genetically determined.

Many other interesting papers were given at the conference, for example by Professor Deepak Lal, UCLA, about the possibility, or danger, of China replacing the United States as the next dominant world power; by Dr. Charles Murray, American Enterprise Institute, about genetics and public policy; and by Professor John Kay, London Business School and Financial Times, on the difference between uncertainty and risk. At the closing dinner, Professor Allan Meltzer, the 85 years old President of the MPS, gave a (pretaped) presidential address.

Participants on the last day of the conference. Front row from left: Professor Carlos Montúfar, USFQ, Dr. Ed Feulner, Heritage Foundation, US, Dora de Ampuero, Ecuador, Professor Deepak Lal, UCLA, US, Dr. Carl-Johan Westholm, Sweden, Professor Kenneth Minogue, UK, and Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, Iceland. Professor Fuster is in the back row furthest to the right. 24 hours after this photograph was shot, Professor Minogue passed away.

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June–December 2013: RNH Events

Posted on 21.05.13

Twenty events are planned in the latter half of 2013, organised, co-sponsored or supported by RNH. One of the most important research areas of RNH is “green capitalism”, the exploration of possibilities of solving environmental problems by defining property rights to natural resources and facilitating free trade in them. On this note, RNH’s academic director, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, will participate in a Mont Pelerin Society meeting on the Galapagos Islands 22–29 June 2013 on “Evolution, the Human Sciences and Liberty”. He will be chairing a session on “The Political Animal” 25 June, where the speakers will be Professor Larry Arnhart, Northern Illinois University, and Professor Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics. Professor Gissurarson’s participation is a part of the joint AECR-RNH research project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

In July 2013, RNH will, with other institutions and organisations, celebrate Iceland’s Tax Freedom Day, which is the day on which an ordinary Icelander starts to work for himself, and ceases to work for government. RNH’s participation in this event forms a part of the joint AECR-RNH project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

26 August 1991, Iceland reaffirming recognition of Baltic states. From left: D. Oddsson, Prime Minister, J.B. Hannibalsson, Foreign Minister, A. Saudargas, Lithuania, J. Jurkans, Latvia, and L. Meri, Estonia.

23 August has been designed, by the European Parliament, as European Day of remembrance for victims of totalitarianism, both communism and nazism. On this day in 1939 Hitler and Stalin made their non-aggression pact, launching the 2nd World War and dividing Central and Eastern Europe up between the two dictators. On Friday 23 August 2013, 16–19, a photo exhibition on the Icelandic communist movement will be opened at the National Library of Iceland. Historian Dr. Mart Nutt, Member of the Estonian Parliament and Chairman of the Estonian Institute of Human Rights, will deliver a paper on “Estonia: a Small Nation Under Foreign Yoke”. Forty years ago, in 1973, an Icelandic translation by then law student David Oddsson appeared of a book by Anders Küng of the same name (in Icelandic, Eistland: Smathjod undir oki erlends valds). As Prime Minister in 1991, Oddsson led the move to re-recognise the three Baltic states, under foreign occupation from 1940 to 1991. On this occasion, also, Dr. Pawel Ukielski, director of the Warsaw Rising Museum, will give a lecture on the Warsaw Rising in 1944.

Andreasen

Friday 30 August 2013, 17–18, in Room N-132 in Askja, the Natural Sciences House of the University of Iceland, Marta Andreasen, MPE for the British Conservatives and former Chief Accounting Officer and Budget Execution Director at the European Commission, will give a paper called: “The European Union: Where is It Going?“ Andreasen has been a long-time critic of the corruption and widespread fraud within the European Union. When Andreasen refused to sign the European Commission accounts, she was suspended. In 2009, she published the book Brussels Laid Bare. It is the Icelandic society Thjodrad which invites Ms. Andreasen to Iceland, but RNH promotes and supports this event, as a part of the joint AECR-RNH research project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. The meeting will be followed by a reception on the premises.

Thursday 12 September 2013, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will give a lecture at a conference organised by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute in Vilnius on “Iceland’s Boom and Bust: Lessons for Europe”. He will also attend a workshop a day later on free market think tanks. Friday evening 13 September 2013, Professor Gissurarson will give a talk at a meeting of the Young Libertarian Association in Lithuania on “Hayek, Popper, and Friedman: Personal Recollections”. His three events in Lithuania form a part of the “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism” joint AECR-RNH project.

Zver

Monday 16 September 2013, the photo exhibition at the National Library will be closed, in a ceremony where late Professor Arnor Hannibalsson will be specially honoured: a tireless critic of totalitarianism, he quietly supported Russian, Polish and Chinese dissidents. The secret Comintern documents on the Icelandic communist movement which Professor Hannibalsson obtained in Moscow after the fall of communism will be handed over to the National Library where they will be made accessible to all. Moreover, a website with online important books, articles and documents about Icelandic communism will be opened. On this occasion, Slovenian historian Dr. Andreja V. Zver will give a paper at the National Library, 15–16, on why we have to remember the victims of totalitarianism, Nazism, fascism and communism. Illugi Gunnarsson, Minister of Education, will chair the meeting. The photo exhibition at the National Library 23 August to 16 September and related events form part of the joint AECR-RNH project “Europe of the Victims”.

Friday 20 September 2013, in Room 101 in Logberg, 12–13, the Law Faculty House of the University of Iceland, Matthew Elliott from the British Taxpayers’ Alliance will give the case for lowering taxes and constraining government at a meeting co-sponsored by the Icelandic Taxpayers’ Alliance. In 2009, Elliott coauthored a book with David Craig, The Great European Rip-Off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Talking Control of Our Lives. This event is a part of the joint AECR-RNH project, “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

Sunday 22 September 2013, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will give a lecture on “Iceland’s Boom and Bust: Lessons for Europe” at a conference organised by the European Young Conservatives, EYC, in Churchill College in Cambridge in England. This event is a part of the joint AECR-RNH project, “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. Thursday 3 October, Professor Gissurarson will discuss his research on the 2008 bank collapse at a “research roundtable” organised by the Department of Politics at the University of Iceland in the meeting room on 3rd floor in Gimli, 11.45–13.00. His talk is titled “Did a Shadow Elite Bring About the Icelandic Bank Collapse?”

Monday 7 October 2013, precisely five years will have passed since the collapse of the Icelandic banks. On this occasion, 17–19, in meeting room N-132, in Askja, the Natural Sciences House of the University of Iceland, Dr. Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute in London, will analyse “The Causes of the International Financial Crisis”. Dr. Pythagoras Petratos, Lecturer in Finance at the Said Business School at Oxford University, will discuss “Cyprus in the Financial Crisis”. This topic is of particular interest in Iceland, since both Iceland and Cyprus are islands, while the difference is that Cyprus is a member of the EU and in the eurozone. Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will talk about “Reasons for the Icelandic Bank Collapse”. Dr. Asgeir Jonsson will give a paper on “The Aftermath of the Bank Collapse”, on which he is presently writing a book. Dr. Stefania Oskarsdottir, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Iceland, will respond to the papers. Ms. Asta Moller, Director of the Institute of Public Administration and Politics, will chair the meeting. The conference forms a part of the joint AECR-RNH project on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. The Small States Centre at the University of Iceland is a co-sponsor of the conference. The same evening, RNH will host its annual Freedom dinner in Bjortuloft in Harpa, the Reykjavik opera house, with a distinguished speaker, David Oddsson, Prime Minister 1991–2004, Foreign Minister 2004–2005, and Governor of the Central Bank 2005–2009. He will reflect on the chain of events culminating in the bank collapse 6–8 October 2008, including the famous television interview with him on 7 October. Previous speakers at the Freedom Dinners are Dr. Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute in 2011 and Dr. Matt Ridley, the famous science author, in 2012.

Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will attend a meeting of the Pallanza Group in Italy 10–12 October 2012. Other attendees include Brian Carney of the Wall Street Journal and Professor Pascal Salin from France, Professor Leszek Balcerowicz from Poland (former Governor of Poland’s Central Bank) and Professors Kevin Dowd and Geoffrey Wood from the United Kingdom, but also officials from the European Union and the German Federal Bank.

Thatcher

Sunday 13 October 2013 marks the birthday of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Kesteven, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1979–1990, who passed away this year. On this occasion, Mr. John O’Sullivan, former editor of National Review, who assisted Mrs. Thatcher with her autobiography will talk about “The Real Iron Lady” at a meeting organised by SUS, the Young Independents. Before his talk, a short documentary about Mrs. Thatcher will be shown. Ms. Hanna Birna Kristjansdottir, Minister of the Interior, will chair the meeting. RNH supports this event as a part of the joint AECR-RNH project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”. It will be held in Room N-132 in the Natural Sciences House, 17–18, followed by a reception on the premises, 18–19.

Monday 14 October 2013, 17–18.30, in the Ceremonies Hall of the University of Iceland, a conference on “The Quota System and the Resource Rent Tax” will be held in honour of late Professor Arni Vilhjalmsson, a leading Icelandic scholar, entrepreneur and supporter of the free market. On this occasion, one of Vilhjalmsson’s companies, Hvalur Inc., will present the University of Iceland with a bust of Vilhjalmsson, sculpted by Gerdur Gunnarsdottir. Professor Ralph Townsend will give a paper about the ITQ—Individual Transferable Quotas—system in fisheries. Professor Ragnar Arnason will discuss the demand for special resource rent taxes in fisheries. Dr. Gunnar Haraldsson, director of the Economic Research Institute at the University of Iceland, will provide an appraisal of the CFP, the Common Fisheries Policy of the EU, the experience and the outlook. Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will discuss moral arguments on the initial creation of rights to scarce resources. Dr. Dadi Mar Kristofersson, director of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland, will chair the meeting. After the conference, there will be a reception on the premises. This event forms a part of the joint AECR-RNH project “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

Friday 25th October 2013 will see the 14th annual conference on the social sciences, held at the University of Iceland. The conference is called “Thjodarspegillinn”, The Mirror of the Nation. At a seminar in Haskolatorg, HT-101, 9–10.45, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will deliver a paper on “Explanations of the Icelandic Bank Collapse.” He will argue that some common explanations for the collapse are not backed up by sufficient evidence. His paper is a part of the joint AECR-RNH project on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism.” At a seminar in the main building of the University, room 220, 11–12.45, Professor Gissurarson will then, with one of his students, Helena Ros Sturludottir, present another paper, “Different Nations, Shared Experiences: The Baltic Countries and Iceland.” Their paper is a part of the joint AECR-RNH project on “Europe of the Victims: Remembering Communism”. The research on it was conducted in cooperation with Unitas Foundation in Estonia and the Occupation Museum Association of Latvia which are working together on a EU-supported project, “Different Nations — Shared Experiences.”

Tuesday 29 october 2013, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will give a lecture about the Icelandic bank collapse at a breakfast meeting in Stockholm, organised by Timbro. The other speaker at the meeting is Urban Bäckström, former Governor of the Swedish Central Bank and presently the director of the Swedish Employers’ Association. Professor Gissurarson’s participation in this even forms a part of the joint AECR-RNH project, “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

Rand

Friday 1 November 2013, an Icelandic translation of We the Living by Ayn Rand will be published in an edition prepared by broadcaster Frosti Logason, with a postscript by philosopher and lawyer Asgeir Johannesson. Taking place in the first years of the Soviet Union, this is Ayn Rand’s most autobiographical novel. On this occasion, Dr. Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute in California will talk about Rand and her message for modern man. Short segments of the film made in Italy in 1942 after Rand’s novel will also be shown. The meeting will take place in room N-132 in Askja, the Natural Sciences House of the University of Iceland, 17.15–18.00, followed with a reception on the premises from 18.00–19.00. The publication of the novel and Brook’s lecture form a part of the joint AECR-RNH project “Europe of the Victims”.

Monday 4 November 2013, 12-13 in Room N-131 at the House of Natural Sciences at the University of Iceland, Dr. Daniel Mitchell, tax specialist at the Cato Institute, will talk about “The Laffer Curve: How Tax Revenue Can Increase with a Lower Tax Rate”. This meeting is co-sponsored by RNH and the Icelandic Taxpayers’ Union. It is also a part of the joint AECR-RNH project on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

Tuesday 5 November 2013, 12-13, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson will give a lecture at a seminar organised by the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Iceland on the topic: “Did an Octopus control the Icelandic economy until the 1990s? And what happened after that?” This refers to a thesis presented in some works in English on the 2008 Icelandic bank collapse, for example works by Roger Boyes and Robert Wade, that the Icelandic economy was controlled by an “Octopus”, or alternatively the “Fourteen Families”, until the late 1990s, to be replaced by a few powerful business groups.

12–13 November 2013, Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, as the RNH representative, will attend a Platform of European Memory and Conscience conference in the Hague. Immediately afterwards, 14–15 November 2013, Professor Gissurarson will attend a conference in Budapest on the “Financial Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures”, and give a paper on Iceland. Thursday 14 November 2013, RNH representatives will attend the annual Freedom Dinner at the Intercontinental Times Square in New York, organised by the Atlas Network with which RNH cooperates; some of the Icelandic attendees will participate in the Liberty Forum taking place in the two days prior to the gala dinner.

RNH will also support various initiatives on the Internet and in publishing, in cooperation with Almenna bokafelagid and others, trying to make the research undertaken at the Institute available and accessible, not only to scholars, but also to the general public, through multi-media and by other means. (Some dates here are subject to change.

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Seminar Remembering Totalitarian Victims

Posted on 17.05.13

A seminar was held in Warsaw 14–15 May 2013 on how best to remember and honour the victims of 20th Century totalitarianism, both Communism and Nazism. Scholars estimate that Communism cost about 100 million lives, and Nazism about 20 million lives. The seminar was organised by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, PEMC, in cooperation with The Museum of the Warsaw 1944 Uprising, MPW, The Polish Institute of National Remembrance, IPN, and the Czech Institute for the study of totalitarian regimes, USTR. Professor Hannes Gissurarson participated in the seminar, the research project on “Europe of the Victims” being a joint effort of RNH and AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists.

Göran Lindblad; in the background Dr. Pavel Zeman. Photo Pjotr Gaweski.

Göran Lindblad, former Swedish MP and President of PEMC, opened the seminar. He led the successful effort in the European Council in 2006 to declare 23 August a special day of remembrance for the victims of Nazism and Stalinism; on this day, in 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact making war in Europe possible and enabling the two dictators to divide between them Central and Eastern Europe. 2009, the European Parliament accepted a resolution in the same spirit. Lindblad had indeed given a talk in Iceland 31 August 2009 when an Icelandic translation of The Black Book of Communism was published.

Dr. Pawel Ukielski from MPW speaking. Hannes H. Gissurarson sits in fourth row, in the middle. Photo: Pjotr Gaweski.

Speakers at the Warsaw seminar included Dr. Neela Winkelmann, director of PEMC, Professor (Emeritus) Gundega Michele, director of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1940–1989, Dr. Andreja Valic Zver, director of the Study Centre for National Reconciliation in Slovenia, and  Uve Poom, director of the Unitas Foundation in Estonia, established by Mart Laar. Dr. Winkelmann described the development of a illustrated textbook for grammar schools or senior high schools on the totalitarian experience, with collected stories about Nazism and Communism from different  countries, with an acompanying CD containing documentary films and reviews. Professor Adam Daniel Rotfeld, former Foreign Minister of Poland, closed the seminar with reflections about the Polish-Russian relationship.

Many difficult and sensitive issues were raised at the conference, such as when victims become perpetrators, and oppressed minorities turn into oppressing majorities, in the complex course of events in 20th Century Central and Eastern Europe; and what is the real and clear meaning of the words “Genocide” and “Crimes against Humanity”; and whether it is appropriate to reserve use of the designation the “Holocaust” only for the Nazi conscious decision and attempt to exterminate all Jews in Central and Eastern Europe or whether other atrocities should be included, such as the mass-starving by Stalin of the Ukrainian peasantry in the 1930s, or Tibet under Chinese communist rule, or Cambodia under Pol Pot. On the agenda was a visit to the Warsaw Museum of the 1944 Uprising, with a display of a film made about the city in 1945 when the Nazis, especially the SS, had almost razed the city to a ground and killed most of the immigrants, as well as the Polish freedom fighters. Meanwhile, in the crucial months of August and September 1944, the Red Army under Stalin had sat without doing anything except looking at the atrocities at the other side of Vistula, the river running through Warsaw. The film on Warsaw after the uprising can be watched on Youtube:

Also, a film on Warsaw in 1939 when it was regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and called “Little Paris” can also be seen on Youtube:

All participants were given a book put together by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance about the massacre in the Katyn woods in 1941, where Stalin sought to eliminate the Polish elite by killing it, especially officers in the Polish Army, and then blaming the mass murders on Hitler.

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Arnason: Icelandic Quota System Efficient

Posted on 12.05.13

Ragnar Arnason discussed utilisation of natural resources.

Two members of the RNH Academic Council gave lectures at the board meeting and conference of AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, in Reykjavik 9–12 May 2013. Professor Ragnar Arnason spoke about the utilisation of natural resources, arguing that, whenever possible, it was most efficient to develop private property rights or exclusive use rights to such resources, in effect creating custodians of them. The Icelandic system of individual transferable quotas, ITQs, in the fisheries was efficient, according to Professor Arnason, because the quota-holders had an interest in minimizing the cost of their fishing effort. The general public also gained indirectly from this. Arnason criticized the CFP, Common Fisheries Policy, of the EU, European Union, for being both inefficient and unjust.

Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson gave an account of the main events organised by RNH, in cooperation with AECR, in the preceding fifteen months, including two international conferences, one on the victims of communism, the other one on sustainable and profitable fisheries, and many individual lectures, given by well-known writers and academics such as Dr. Matt Ridley, the 5th Viscount Ridley, Ms. Anna Funder, Professor Bent Jensen, Professor Douglas Rasmussen and Professor Philip Booth. Professor Gissurarson mentioned some forthcoming events, such as a photo exhibition on communism in the National Library of Iceland, a seminar on Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, a party on the occasion of the publication of an Icelandic translation of We the Living by Ayn Rand, and a conference on capitalism and the use of natural resources in the memory of Professor Arni Vilhjalmsson, a leading Icelandic scholar and entrepreneur. Professor Gissurarson also showed the audience a video on RNH which is accessible on Youtube.

Daniel Hannan at dinner, enjoying the view from Harpa.

Bjarni Benediktsson, chairman of the Independence Party, Iceland’s conservative-reformist party, gave a talk at a special AECR dinner. Other Icelandic speakers at the conference were MPs Hanna Birna Kristjansdottir, Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson, and Ragnheidur Elin Arnadottir; they informed the foreign guests about the political situation in Iceland and about the position of the country in today’s world. Other speakers at the conference included Rich S. Williamson, former US Ambassador to the UN and an advisor on international affairs to Republican presidents. The chairman of AECR is MEP Jan Zahradil from the Czech Republic, and the general secretary is a long-time friend of Iceland, MEP Daniel Hannan, from the United Kingdom. A tape where he criticized Labour leader Gordon Brown has been viewed by almost three million people on Youtube.

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