Australian writer Anna Funder gave a talk 24 September 2012 at a meeting arranged by the Vigdis Finnbogadottir Institute of Foreign Languages at the University of Iceland, on both her book on daily life in East Germany, Stasiland, and her new novel, All That I Am, which takes place in Nazi Germany and England. Funder was also interviewed both in Morgunbladid 24 September and on television, in Kiljan, a weekly programme on literature, pretaped and broadcast 23 January 2013. Moreover, there was an account of her talk in student.is, an Internet student magazine at the University of Iceland, and a discussion of Stasiland on Radio Channel One, of the Icelandic Broadcasting Service, 14 October.

Anna Funder’s message and that of other participants in the RNH international conference on 22 September provoked much discussion, Professor Stefan Olafsson for example attempting to make fun of it, and Polish-born mathematician Pawel Bartozsek defending our right and our duty to discuss the fate of communism’s countless victims. Funder’s talk at the conference is available here on Youtube. Her visit to Iceland formed a part of a joint project by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe of the Victims: Remembering Communism”. Ms. Funder spoke about her Iceland tour to the Australian magazine The Monthly.

Egill Helgason introduces Stéphane Courtois. Hannes H. Gissurarson sitting to the right. Photo: Arni Saeberg.

Five lectures were given at an international conference at the University of Iceland on “Europe of the Victims: Remembering Communism” 22 September 2012. In his keynote paper, Professor Stéphane Courtois, the editor of the Black Book of Communism, discussed the difficulties of fully comprehending the enormous scale of communist repression in the 20th Century, arguing that much historical work was still to be done. Such work was welcomed in many countries, for example in the Baltic States and elsewhere where communists or ex-communists were not in power. He said that the Black Book had been published in 26 languages, the most recent editions being those in Icelandic and in Georgian. It had however neither been published in Chinese nor Vietnamese.

Thor Whitehead and Stéphane Courtois (centre) listening to papers. Photo: Arni Saeberg.

Professor Oystein Sorensen, of the University of Oslo, analysed the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the light of marxist practice. He pointed out that Engels in one place mentions the Icelanders and other Nordic nations in a very unflattering way. Dr. Roman Joch of the Czech Republic described the marxist rule in Central and Eastern Europe. Australian writer Anna Funder gave an account of the main characters in her prize-winning Stasiland. Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, of the University of Iceland, provided a brief summary of the history of the Icelandic communist movement, from 1918, when two young Icelandic students in Copenhagen became communists, until 1998, when the last action of the People’s Alliance was to send a group of people to Cuba. In his concluding remarks, Professor Thor Whitehead, of the University of Iceland, pointed out that the evidence discovered in archives in formerly communist countries tended to confirm the historical interpretations of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Robert Conquest.

Anna Funder. Photo: Arni Saeberg.

In the audience, there were some prominent Icelandic historians, including Professor Anna Agnarsdottir, Dr. Gudni Th. Johannesson, chairman of the Icelandic Historical Society, and Professor Jon Olafsson, author of a book on the Kremlin ties of the Icelandic communists. The conference generated much publicity in Iceland. Both Anna Funder and Oystein Sorensen were interviewed by Morgunbladid. Anna Funder also appeared on a weekly television programme on literature, „Kiljan,“ pretaped and broadcast 23 January 2013. Four lectures at the conference can be accessed on Youtube: those of Stéphane Courtois, Oystein Sorensen, Roman Joch, and Anna Funder. Stéphane Courtois was interviewed by television host Egill Helgason for his weekly show on current affairs, pretaped and broadcast 10 February 2013:

Gissurarson Slides 22.09.2012

Sørensen giving his talk. Photo: Eggert

Professor Oystein Sorensen, of the University of Oslo, gave a lecture at the University of Iceland 21 September 2012 on “The Totalitarian Mindset of Anders Breivik”. Professor Sorensen maintained that the manifesto that Breivik left behind before he engaged in his mass murders showed a typical totalitarian mindset, deeply dissatisfied with liberal Western culture, and trying to play God, recreating society in some image. Sorensen said that despite Breivik’s known hostility to Islamism, the society most closely related to his ideas would appear to be Iran of the Ayatollahs. Essentially, though, Breivik could be classified as a neo-fascist. In the discussion after the lecture, Sorensen mentioned that he had written a book about those Norwegian communists who became fascists in the 1930s and 1940s. The distance between right-wing and left-wing extremism was not that long.

There was a lively exchange of ideas betweeen Sorensen and Dr. Michael Minkenberg, an Erasmus scholar currently residing in Iceland, doing research on European right-wing extremism. In Minkenberg’s opinion, Breivik’s terrorist acts served a publicity purpose. Mr. Fridrik Sophusson, former Icelandic Finance Minister, who lived in Norway for some years with his wife, then the Icelandic Ambassador there, asked how the Norwegian people had responded to Breivik’s acts. Sorensen responded that the nation had been totally unprepared for, and shocked by, them. There was a thorough account of Sorensen’s paper in Morgunbladid on 22 September 2012. His lecture can be watched here on Youtube.

From Morgunbladid 22 September 2012.

Dr. Michael Walker, the retired director of the Fraser Institute in Canada, gave a talk at a breakfast meeting sponsored by an RNH partner, the institute RSE, Monday 17 September 2012 on “The Index of Economic Freedom and Iceland”. Walker described the evolution and composition of the Index of Economic Freedom, and pointed out that Iceland which had one of the freest economies in the world at the beginning of the 21st Century, is in the group where economic freedom has decreased the most in the last few years, with Venezuela and Argentina. In 2004, Iceland had the 13th freest economy in the world of the 130 countries analysed. In 2010, however, Iceland is in the 65th place, of 144 countries, far behind all the other Nordic countries. Sweden which used to be the Nordic country with the least economic freedom, has for example moved from the 39th to the 30th place from 2009 to 2010. Iceland shares the 65th place with Saudi-Arabia.

Gisli Hauksson, chairman of the RNH board, was the commentator on Walker’ talk (which was broadcast via satellite from Canada).  Morgunbladid carried the news about Iceland’s decreasing economic freedom 18 September, the website journal Andriki immediately commenting on it. However, some vocal critics of capitalism were not worried about this trend, including Professor Stefan Snaevarr and Professor Stefan Olafsson. Vidskiptabladid put interviews with Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson and lawyer Birgir Tjorvi Petursson about the results for Iceland on its website 18 September. Professor Birgir Thor Runolfsson has used the index of economic freedom as the substance of several blogs, with graphs.