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Paper short abstract:

Protests and counter-protests: challenges to political ideals and images of a harmonious Iceland.

Paper long abstract:

During several days in March 2019, a group of asylum seekers in Iceland staged protests against the treatment they faced by the authorities; problematic housing and lack of work and educational opportunities, as well as access to the medical system. The asylum seekers camped out in the harsh conditions of an Icelandic winter, facing the use of pepper spray and verbal threats by the local police, and soon attracted the attention of the small Nationalist Party of Iceland, Þjóðfylkingin, which decided that the they were going to stage their own protest in front of Parliament House; 'protesting the violence that asylum seekers have projected on Icelandic society and the Icelandic police'. As the Nationalist Party's intentions were brought to the attention of the public, Facebook and other social media fired up with calls for counter-protests in support of the asylum seekers. A number of people headed these calls, flocking together in front of Parliament House. People waved flags - the national, anti-fascist, environmental, and rainbow flags - and Icelandic bands played, creating a jovial atmosphere which drowned out the activities by the National Party. Reflecting on this case study, this paper draws on some key foci of the 2018 publication Messy Europe: Crisis, Race, and National State in a Postcolonial World (eds. Loftsdóttir, Smith, Hipfl) questioning the nature of political and national ideals and images in Iceland in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe.