For Cod's Sake - Iceland's cod wars with Britain 1958-1976: exhibition at Vikin, Reykjavik's Maritime Museum

This small vibrant exhibition looks at the three 20th century Cod Wars, þorskastríðin in Icelandic, when Icelandic and foreign trawlers, Icelandic coastguard ships and British gunships, rammed and shot at each other each as Iceland struggled to expand its protected fisheries. Trawl nets were cut, men threatened and one man died as Iceland fought long skirmishes in Landhelgisstríðin, the war for territorial waters against all comers.

Using film footage, newspapers, photographs and cartoons the story builds from 1 September 1958 when a new Icelandic law expanded its fishery zone from four to 12 nautical miles (NM) (22.2 km). The exhibition is not triumphalist or nationalist but inevitably this is a story of a very small country fighting off Britain with a population over 254 times larger. [Pop Iceland 1976 - 220,154 and Britain - 56.21 million]

Heath and the stubborn cod, from Stuttgater Zeitung reprinted in Þjóðviljinn newspaper, 30 May 1973

Föðurland vort hálft er hafið, half of our home is the sea
New technology meant that bigger catches were becoming easier to get and overfishing began to outstrip the ability of the most popular species, including cod to replenish themselves. In 1952 the old international three mile exclusion zone had been extended to four nautical miles in Iceland but it was clear that the four mile exclusion zone was routinely flouted because the catch was much more valuable than the fines imposed by the courts.

All members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) fiercely opposed the extension of Iceland’s exclusion zone—they couldn’t do much about the Soviet Union claiming a 12 mile zone, but the fish-rich water around little Iceland were accessible to dozens of countries and they had no intention of giving up any of it.

Within two days of the new law, a British trawler, Northern Foam, from Grimsby was caught fishing in the expanded exclusive zone. Nine men from the coastguard vessels Þór and Maríu Júlia were sent to take control of the trawler—but ended up not quite prisoners on the British frigate Eastbourne for 12 days because the trawlers refused to come quietly and the coastguards refused to take their men back.

By the following April, the British government was protesting that the crew of þór had fired live shells at the British trawler, Arctic Viking and that Maríu Júlia, “repeatedly executed dangerous maneuvers in attempts to obstruct British trawlers while on the high seas”     

Iceland appeared determined not to back down and other countries wanted the same limit so by 1961 British government accepted the 12 NM limit. But this zone was never going to have been large enough to preserve fish stocks, nor for Icelanders to keep a substantial share of the fish profits and in September 1973 it again extended its fishing limits to 50 NM—93 km.

“Við semjum ekki, við sigrum þá - "We won’t settle, we will beat them"
Necessity being the mother of invention, the Icelandic coast guards began to enforce the new exclusion zone with net cutters designed to slice off the foreign ships’ trawls if they fished within the new exclusion zone. The wire cutters were old mine sweeper equipment with added road grading blades. The captains of the foreign trawlers raged that it was dangerous to cut a trawl—any wire or rope springing back would kill the man it hit. 

The Icelandic coast guards argued that it wasn’t particularly dangerous because the trawl was cut so deep that the tension was released into the sea itself. To prove the point, on 18 January 1973 they cut the nets of eighteen trawlers and British boats were forced out of the Icelandic fishing zone unless they had the protection of the Royal Navy.

Trawl clippers, made out of old mine sweeping gear modified with road grading blades, Vikin Maritme Museum

What was probably much more dangerous was ships ramming each other. British Navy ships rammed Icelandic coast guard ships to prevent them from cutting trawls while the Icelandic trawler Baldur, refitted as a coast guard ship, was so successful at damaging British trawlers that British skippers called it the can-opener.

Killed

Engineer, Halldór Hallfreðsson died by electrocution on the Coast Guard vessel Ægir, as he was holding a welding torch when the ship was hit by a large wave. The British frigate Apollo was blamed for his death as Halldór was repairing the damage Apollo did when it rammed Ægir on 29 August 1973.

The exhibition uses vivid footage of the British journalist Norman Rees who reported from the Þór in 1976. See some of it here.

Three-day Millionaires

The exhibition also includes the work of historian Alec Gill who has interviewed and documented the lives and industry of Hull’s “Three-day millionaires”, the fishermen who worked the Icelandic fisheries until 1976. His invaluable work, done on a shoe-string, records in great detail the ordinary lives and culture that grew out of the Hull fishing industry centred on the community in Hessle Road. 

His series of documentaries on DVDs are available here. This is what the British fisherman were fighting to preserve and what they lost when some 3,500 fishermen and many more men and women on land lost jobs with the Icelandic 200 mile exclusion zone.

Documenting the lives and work of a vanished culture

A nation united?
Each Cod War ended in a negotiated settlement, involving Nato, various foreign ministers and even Presidents Nixon and Pompidou. Many people in the Icelandic fishing industries were unhappy at the outcomes, especially in the 1970s when mass meetings and demonstrations protested the deals made, which included a limited numbers of foreign boats being allowed in to the exclusion zones. Many people couldn't see why any foreign boats should be allowed in. 

As with every struggle in history, there is a fight here for interpretation. The exhibition notes that historian Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, who is currently favourite, with just over 55 percent in the polls for the Icelandic presidential elections held next week, wrote an article in 2011 on the Cod Wars and how they are remembered. 

"The Cod Wars are an important part of Icelander's collective memory. They are said to be a fine example of the resilience that the nation can display when it is confronted and evidence of Icelander's international relevance. Some of this is true, but the history is somewhat more complicated when reviewed closely. The unity is exaggerated, little is made of the fact that Icelanders had to negotiate victory and it perpetuates a misunderstanding about Icelander's initiatives in relation to the Law of the Sea. This results in the myth of united heroes and the real picture fades in the shadows."

Guðni T Jóhannesson and the class he may soon represent like to argue that progress in the world comes from international law. For them, unilateralism and the vehement determination of ordinary people is difficult. For everyone else, it should be apparent that international law is very often made to reflect and contain the struggles of ordinary people.

The victories of the Cod Wars did not solve all the problems of the Icelandic fishing industries and few thought they would. The exclusive fishing zones were effectively privatised and still overfished. As quotas were cut to preserve stocks, they became transferable, were sold and concentrated in fewer hands. Factories closed and the villages that depended on them shared Hull's fate of unemployment and the closure of services as families and young people left to find work. But the Cod Wars were also fought for the self-determination and the independence of ordinary people in a small country frequently used as a pawn between Washington and Moscow.

Coastguard vessel Oðinn fought in the Cod Wars and is now docked in Vikin

For more on the Coastguard vessel Oðinn and its rescue of Hull fishermen click here.And here for more on Capitalism and the destruction of fisheries.

The exhibition runs until end of August 2016, for further information see Vikin Maritime Museum

Celebrating diversity in Reykjavik

Reykjavik city celebrated its 18th annual Multiculturalism Day yesterday with a march and afternoon of music, food and information about the different nationalities now living in Iceland. The marching band was led off by Vikings which neatly made the point that Iceland is a nation of immigrants.

Reykjavik's Multiculturalism Day 2016

The organisations represented in the event in Harpa cultural centre included people from Afghanistan, Cuba, Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, Morocco, Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, Japan, Nepal, Nigeria, Kenya, New Zealand Colombia, South Korea, Muslim and Christian groups and many others.

Reykjavik is a very diverse place these days but celebrating inclusion cannot be taken for granted and events like these are only part of the ongoing battle against racism and bigotry in Iceland.

For some lovely photos of the whole day  go to Helgi Halldórs photos here

Meanwhile, the major chain of bookshops Penninn Eymundsson is prominently displaying the viciously Islamophobic Islam, a national plague by Norwegian journalist Hege Storhaug.

Islamophobia on sale in Iceland

Storhaug was formerly on the left and says she was involved in anti-racist campaigns but has recently built a lucrative career from whipping up racism against Muslims. She says she began her campaign when she discovered that there were forced marriages and "honour killings" in Norway. Instead of seeing the obvious point that no group or culture is free of violence against women and condemning it for what it is, domestic violence, she began her bigoted offensive against Islam and all Muslims in the name of women's rights and freedom.

Norwegian Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab or niqab, of course, bear the brunt of the racist attacks against Muslims in the streets that books like these encourage.

So Penninn Eymundsson is fuelling hatred and profiting from it by selling this rubbish. It's going to take more than music, dancing and lovely food to challenge this bigory.

No, no, no, no, that's not going to be the case...

When elections for the President of Iceland are held next month, it would be great if that person was someone who remembered what it is like to live as an ordinary person in Iceland, paying taxes, saving for holidays, not being married to a multi, multi millionaire - that sort of thing. The current President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who is standing again is still the favourite by a long way but then he assured CNN News that his family would not be found anywhere near the tax haven scandals that have engulfed leading politicians in the ruling coalition. He had to do a very sharp u-turn when the news about his rich wife's super-rich family and their money in the tax haven got out.

Here's a little mashup from Sveinbjorn Palsson of Ólafur Ragnar impressing on us just how much he will never be found in any such scandal. It won't be long til we know what the voters think.

Farewell Sigmundur Davið

Iceland's Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson from the poorly named Progressive Party, Framsóknarflokkurinn, has graciously admitted this evening that he has actually resigned and not just asked a colleague to stand in for him for a bit. This only happened because of the enormous demo this week against Sigmundur Davið by tens of thousands of ordinary people sick of the corruption that appears to be endemic to Iceland's elite. Here's an article I wrote yesterday about the situation. And here's hoping the Icelandic left are working on a coherent strategy now that they have a new opportunity to fight austerity and get rid of everyone in the government who has got richer from the financial crisis.

Two books that swim against the tide

I have written an article reviewing two books in the latest issue of International Socialism Journal which deal with the crises of modern fisheries and the lives of fishers around the world. These are Fishers and Plunderers: Theft, Slavery and Violence at Sea by Alistair Couper, Hance D Smith and Bruno Ciceri, (Pluto Press 2015), and Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries and Aquaculture by Stefano B Longo, Rebecca Clausen and Brett Clark (Rutgers University Press, 2015).

Human activity has pushed the world’s oceans into crisis from overfishing, pollution and warming water linked to climate change—and if nothing is done about it the results will be catastrophic for marine systems and the billions of humans who rely on them. The World Wildlife Fund’s 2015 Living Blue Planet Report: Species, Habitats and Human Wellbeing clearly shows that in just over 40 years, marine vertebrate populations have declined by 49 percent. These vertebrates include all our favourite dinner fish such as cod, haddock, salmon and tuna while a quarter of shark, ray and skate species are now threatened by extinction, mostly due to overfishing and environmental degradation. 

At the same time fishing remains one of the most dangerous occupations. Even in advanced capitalist countries such as the United States, with theoretically stringent safety rules and equipment, fishers are 25 times more likely to die at work than the national all-worker fatal injury rate.

Fishers and Plunderers and The Tragedy of the Commodity are part of the contested solutions offered to this crisis and they complement each other in that they centre on powerful, fragile marine ecosystems and the ordinary people who live by working them. Both books recognise capitalism’s drive for profit and the commodification of every aspect of fishing as part of the problem and argue that the solutions arrived at have only exacerbated the problems of overfishing and environmental degradation.

Find the rest of the article at here or at isj.org.uk

Iceland's crisis and the power of its working class

It is good to see the article in Jacobin magazine online, Iceland’s Revolution by Viðar Þorsteinsson this month that summarises the political situation in Iceland since the 2008 crash. It points out that the lack of a clear left alternative with a coherent strategy for tackling the cuts in living standards and the debt burden, has wasted the enormous angry protests that surged as the crisis unfolded. As we know a lot of nonsense has been written and repeated about the Icelandic establishment putting people before the banks. As Viðar puts it, the story goes; 

“The Icelanders put the bankers in jail. The Icelanders crowdsourced a new constitution. The Icelanders refused to bail out the banks. The Icelanders held a national referendum on sovereign debt.”

The reality, Marxist economist Michael Roberts reiterated on his blog earlier this month is,

“Iceland did not renege on the huge debts that its corrupt banks ran up with foreign institutions (mainly the UK and the Netherlands). It eventually renegotiated them and is now paying them back like Greece.

“And devaluation did not mean that Icelanders escaped from a huge loss in living standards. They have done little better than the Greeks on that score – although of course, Icelanders started from a much higher standard of living than the Greeks. In euro terms, Icelandic employee real incomes fell 50% and are still 25% below pre-crisis levels.”

Viðar Þorsteinsson adds that government responses to the crash, “were only modestly progressive...In some cases, debt-relief policies have been outright reactionary in their upward redistribution of wealth.” And that's without mentioning the immediate raid on pensions as the crash unfolded.

Viðar goes on, “Remarkably, popular sentiment against banking and indebtedness has not been channelled into building any long-term prospects for the Icelandic left. Rather, the country's establishment parties have successfully promoted their own weak measures against mortgage plight to recover from the loss of trust they suffered following the crash.” The left will have to address missed opportunities and he concludes;

“Above all the Icelandic experience reveals the urgency of finding an egalitarian and redistributive approach to debt politics; one which can relay popular sentiment without falling into nationalism, limiting itself to superficial reform or making the finance sector a scapegoat for the systemic failures of capitalism.”

This is fine as far as it goes - though I don’t care whether bankers are made scapegoats—theses parasites caused this global financial crisis, but the point here is the systemic failures of capitalism. and Iceland's Revolution does not mention the force in Iceland with the economic muscle to challenge capital. Last summer Iceland's workers went on strike against the cuts they have been made to endure.

Last year opened with doctors in Iceland striking for 11 weeks and winning better terms and conditions. Over April and May some 10,000 workers struck for an increased minimum wage in food processing plants such as slaughterhouses and fish factories, the tourist industry and cleaning services. A general strike began on 26 May at midnight and there were huge protests of angry workers.

The government used legislation to end and ban further strikes while discussions with the unions continued. This affected thousands of workers including striking vets, radiologists, nurses, midwives and lawyers. While unions considered legal action against the government, nurses and radiologists resigned on mass arguing that if the government wouldn’t pay them the same as in other Scandinavian countries then they would work in those countries instead.

Then last October the large unions, the Icelandic Professional Trade Association (SGS) and Flóabandalagið—the Bay Alliance, which includes the unions Efling, Hlíf and the Labour and Seamen’s Association of Keflavík, agreed a deal with the government negotiator. The deal, backdated to 1 May, means an extra 25.000 krónur (kr) a month, then another 5.5 percent raise from 1 June 2016 with at least 15.000 kr extra a month. Wages will then rise another 4.5 percent in June 2017 with a further 3 percent in June 2018. In February 2019 fulltime workers will then get an extra 45.000 kr, with part time workers getting the rate according to their hours. All of this means that the basic wage rate should rise to 300.000 kr for everyone over 18 years old.

It’s a substantial improvement, and would never have happened without the strikes—but it could have been achieved much faster than 2018 if the strikes had continued. This would mean workers organising so that they could overcome vacillating union leaders who tend to fold in the face of underhand new laws. That is how the working class and the left in Iceland could work together to create a serious challenge to capital.

This is not an abstract debate. Like everywhere else in Europe there is a polarisation and rise in racism and a new party has recently been founded, the Icelandic National Front  - Íslenska þjóðfylkingin. This is a nasty chauvinist, Islamophobic party that is feeding off anger at continuing austerity and scapegoating minorities. It can be stopped and capital can be challenged but it will take a coherent strategy and workers' social and economic muscle to do it.

Solidarity at sea - update

Since I posted my last piece, Solidarity at sea on the Hull trawler sinkings and heroic rescue in the great storm off Iceland in 1968, Brian W Lavery has sold the film rights to his book The Headscarf Revolutionaries: Lillian Bilocca and the Hull triple trawler disaster.

Brian W Lavery with The Headscarf Revolutionaries

Everyone involved in the campaign for safety which forced the trawler owners to put men's lives before profit deserves this to be a really good film.In the meantime, here is footage from British Pathé news which briefly covered the story at the time.