#E09: The Legacy Of Davíð Oddsson with Haukur Már Helgason

The Reykjavík Grapevine has been published out of downtown Reykjavík for more than 20 years, with its offices for most of that time next door to the "World Famous Hot Dog Stand." Every day, people drop-in to our office for various reasons. Sometimes we they tell us interesting stuff that we want to share with you, so we interview them, for your pleasure. There is no theme.

Today we are joined by Haukur Mar Helgason, an author, writer, editor etc. to discuss the complex legacy of former Prime Minister of Iceland, David Oddsson, who died on March 1st this year. Haukur's feature on David's legacy can be found in the latest issue of The Reykjavík Grapevine, see here:
https://grapevine.is/mag/2026/03/06/the-last-king-of-iceland-coming-to-terms-with-david-oddssons-legacy/

Hosted by: Jón Trausti Sigurðarson & Bart Cameron

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Hello and welcome to the drop in, uh where we talk to people who drop into the Rick of Crapon offices uh either uh by request or they simply just show up. This time it's by request, and with us is Hukur Mar Helkerson, author and writer and thinker. And we're gonna start out by talking about the cover feature he did for the last issue, the March issue, which was on the legacy of former Prime Minister and so many other hats, David Hodson. Uh welcome, Hukur. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and having me. And I think I forgot to introduce you in this thing. So the editor in chief is here, and I'm the publisher on Thursday. Um his name is Bart. Sorry. Yeah, this is a this is how unformal the Greyman podcasts are. So uh yeah, like think get it all out. So um just I don't know, a week prior to the publication of the last issue, um David Otson passed, and he had been such a dominant force in Icelandic discourse and politics more or less since the eighties, that it was kind of impossible to not um do something on the man and and his legacy after his passing. And uh Hugo took up the challenge, which is hard to ask because this man was many things to many people with a very sort of um colorful career in politics and aside from that uh was uh you know, he wrote poetry, small stories, lyrics to songs and gener generally sort of considered a rather charismatic uh character. So uh at the same time, like our like this publication's relationship with him was relatively um negative, I would say, in the past.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Um Yeah, we had a very complicated relationship with David.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

We weren't too pleased with some of his policies. Uh we didn't oppose all of them. Uh I personally and I think we here at the time weren't opposed to his uh failed uh media bill, but that's another story.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

But his And by that we're talking about the the failed media bill in 2004 which led to a referendum, uh which was the first such referendum in the history of Iceland.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

And then at the same time, we he we criticized or you specifically his his policies towards the Icelandic financial system, and there are so many other things. So uh Hukur took up the the challenge. Uh it was hard, Hukur.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, actually we I I I I sought Hoykemar out specifically because Huikermar and I had been uh Hoyker has been like a tutor to me for uh things philosophical and uh Iceland-based. Uh we would talk about politics often in what used to we what used to be a nice coffee shop and is now a nice beer shop, but I'd get the background and kind of our different takes on Davos' policies towards the financial markets and just his um his philosophy of ruling, which was really confusing for me to take in. I'd coming from the United States, I had not seen somebody with such power um yielded so seemingly quietly, but behind the scenes, everybody knew what was going on. So when with Davas passing, we dropped we got rid of everything on the magazine, and I thought, I I know somebody who has told me how this works in the past. I'm gonna beg him to kind of drop what he's doing. You're in the middle of promoting a book and raising a child, and I asked you to come like drop everything and rush out some perspective on what David meant and what it means for and and this this is a kind of weird thing, our generation of writers thinkers um who were here, the Grapevine is here because of David's weird approach to um uh capitalism, I feel like. Like we we came out of this uh he's pushing for this enterprise movement, and this is a a launch, a magazine that was launched by kind of free enterprise people in a weird way.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Yeah, so I would I would almost say that I I think like I I would like to like to believe that uh David probably liked the fact that something like the Graphone existed, although he probably disagreed with everything that was in it.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Very vehemently disagreed with uh most of our editorials, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Yeah. So you took you c took on the challenge, and I mean if we all like if we like I'm gonna try to frame this a bit. I mean, we all had our beefs with with the man. Uh but you know, he he passed in the 70s and he had been kind of out of most of the limelight, even though he was editor-in-chief uh at the only remaining daily paper for the past what is it now? Almost 18 years or so? Um and perhaps we weren't therefore forced to think much about him. But did you find it uh a challenge to kind of look like look at look at him and his career in the rearview mirror? Was it did you expect the observations and feelings you had about it when you started doing it?

SPEAKER_02 5:56

It was sort of like uh maybe a sudden reminder that we have entered a different era than that one. You know, so certainly I had to like um dig up uh memories both within myself and and in media, but like, okay, whoa, yeah, right. Well what was that? Well, you know, because it it was so all his political presence was so all encompassing uh during the years in which he was prime minister in any case. Uh and I think well to some extent, probably the Independence Party still has been living under his shadow. There hasn't been a leader of that like weight for the party uh since that time. Uh and all of a sudden you realize, oh, yeah, yeah, that's not long gone. That's uh it's history, you know, not exactly ancient history, but but it's a different era. And so it it like it was definitely a challenge to um within the time frame of what three days to sort of uh you know crunch through uh trying to figure out what was that, what what was it uh he stood for and what was it we were actually against then at the time and so on. Uh and and partly perhaps to my surprise and partly not, uh my my uh like conclusion in in that article is that uh much of the many of the actual uh many of his uh uh large parts of his political agenda have now become completely like the absolute consensus, like the framework of politics in Iceland. Uh of course uh that is also um influenced by the fact that today there is no actual left wing with a parliamentary representation. So we we are living in a country where politics at the moment reaches from the like center left to the far right, but uh uh the left is momentarily absent basically. And and so you know for for this particular time point in Icelandic politics, I I think there would be no big disputes with most of uh David's agendas at the time. I think most parliamentarians today would like substantially agree with most of what David uh fought for at the time. Yeah. Uh uh having said that, uh you know that's not the same as agreeing uh with that agenda myself, but right some uh some commentators have actually noted that uh perhaps the era in which he was prime minister was you know it may have been the easiest point in time to be prime minister at all. Uh Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

This is like when like the GE uh former former uh president of GE like uh points out that he raised the company to the absolute premium profits, but it turned out he just was placed in the right spot.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

David, the the the foundation of Iceland was so strong when he took power, he Well, and and then you had like these obvious things happening the world over where you know the there's of course the it's before his uh before his time in in in as Prime Minister that uh beer was allowed in Iceland, or that you know the the the more varied uh sorts of chocolates we have now than we had in the 90s are are thanks to the EEA agreement rather than uh his person and so on. Uh so basically like after the after the around the fall of the Berlin Wall and during like the the global changes taking uh place at the time, uh much of what took place locally within Iceland was sort of like an on autopilot, you could say. You know, that the you know m even left-wing uh governments would have implemented many of the changes.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Uh could we say that basically he was the he was the face of all of these changes in Iceland, but absolutely not the well, I think you the word you used was primus motor or something like that? Primary.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

I guess it's an open question. This is not deep political analysis, just to frame it correctly. You know, but it but uh and I think it's actually interesting, and I don't think that has yet taken place. You know, the the man leaves no autobiography, his biography has not been written. A history of a convincing like uh history book about that era in in Iceland has not been written yet. We are not very good as a society, perhaps, at like basically looking at ourselves. And the the analysis is yet to take place, I think. We are definitely that uh I think that's uh uh uh a uh a plausible uh framework, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

12 people not to leave a memoir, though, or have an autobiography. This is shocking to me that he wouldn't, because his actual life story is more compelling than most prime ministers in the history of the country. I mean, he's uh a really fascinating biographical story, right? Yeah, it's interesting. Just to recap, I mean, he's raised The man could write, you know, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

He was a storyteller. Yes, yeah, and he could have. So I mean he was raised by a single mother in a s like in a small town in the countryside.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Which is near Celphos, isn't it correct?

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Yeah, or it was Celphos. He then moves to the city to go to Metaskola or College.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

He then does Which is the college right up the street, which is Mentaskoly Reykjavik. Which is where most of our prime ministers have been at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

You're M Howe, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

And then uh he gets soon into city politics after graduating, aside from being like with the comedy show on on the state broadcaster. He then gets into city politics, he becomes mayor in what, 1982 or so? 81, 82. He stays made mayor until he becomes prime minister in 1981. And then he's prime minister till 2004, when he becomes uh foreign minister for a year and then leaves to become the chairman of the Central Bank, where he sits till 2009, where he's ousted by the left-wing government, and then he becomes the editor of the of the uh Morgan Blood daily. So it's uh it's a pretty impressive career in many ways.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

But uh so I I wanted to speak to this thing you were saying about just to like uh situate him for for listeners that may not be familiar with this history at all. He was the face of laissez-fair politics in Iceland, he was the phase of deregulation, he was the phase of uh the privatization implementation of uh neoliberal ideology, privatization, and he was also the phase of of of like the um the tendency never to be wrong. Like, you know, the so maybe that's maybe that complicates writing uh leaving memoirs or writing an autobiography. If you've if you went through your whole political or professional career uh like bulldozing through on uh the uh like absolute assumption that uh whatever happens, you you were not wrong in about anything ever. Uh uh, that may not make for compelling writing, though you know, even if you have the I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, I think about this because when we were preparing to publish your piece and and I was talking to you, we were having a little like pitch meetings and reviewing. Uh Morganblot that was coming, slowly came out with Hannes Homestead's uh Obit. I think it came out after even though they had they ended up taking, I think, twelve days to get that thing out, their article out, but it was a dear leader article. It was I was shocked it was a dear dear leader, like it was a North Korea obit. Yeah. I I I was so confounded that this was put into print.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

I I I I'd like to put put in a few things in here. So, first of all, like it's I would say like when it comes to writing history, it's kind of normal to have like a quarter century pass. So we are about we're at the time where doing academic study of the nineties or the eighties is due. That's that's true. However, it's interesting and it points back to like what what sources are you gonna use? He didn't leave an autobiography, and after his passing now, there's been precious little outside of your piece about his legacy in the contemporary landscape of of of publishing, except for those uh very sort of well you can call them North Korean obituaries, but that you know, that kind of a thing, which is what the obituaries tend to be. They're quite positive, obviously. But there is nobody trying to like write up um what he meant or what he did. The other thing you were getting into, which I found interesting, is probably good to frame here into a larger context, is uh this question about like you know, how much uh did he push for the things that that that he is the face of during his tenure as prime minister, uh where does he actually have much agency? And uh it's good to remind us uh of the fact that like this is the eighties and the then the nineties, and it's in this global atmosphere of like first of all the Soviet Union collapses, but uh we have the ras re rise of neoliberal neoliberal policies, privatization, touchmak, reactionism, and we just get right on board with that. And I think you're also right, whether or not it's a left-wing or right-wing government probably wouldn't have mattered. Because like in in France they had a left-wing government during the 80s and the 90s, they did exactly the same things to an extent as the Brits were doing. Yeah. So it was just a trend. So that's that kind of goes back to the question of the man, which is like he he he was the sort of physical uh representation of these policies or these things happening, but a lot of them were at the same time just trends that were international and and you know things just happen the same way here as they did elsewhere.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

One thing when when when like uh uh when having to like uh pick my memory for you know for the the that period, of course I'm confronted by the fact also that I was you know a kid and then a a young person in in those years. Like when he becomes Prime Minister, I'm 13, 14. It's in my early teens, I guess. You would be 13, yeah. Yeah. And then that period lasts uh you know until my mid-twenties. Um for me, as you know, and these are these are very uh these are years that leave a strong imprint. Uh and so I can't say if this was actually, you know, if if older people experienced it the same way, but for a kid, for a teenager and then a young man at the time, it was like you know, the this person was there saying, Your freedom, it is I. Really incorporating uh the fundamental notions of of you know Western liberalism in his own persona. Uh and and I think well that at least young people at the time uh would have assumed that uh you know, even like yeah, basic changes that happened which had nothing to do with him personally or happened before his era or you know, in in in through different channels, were still sort of, you know, uh his work, you know, you know, because it is you also didn't you didn't have like this uh what everyone knew was that his his political power was not confined, sorry, was not confined by uh clear the clear outlines of uh legislation or you know that he actually had his fingers in various things because the it's a funny fact about I the the role of the Prime Minister is not very well defined in like by law or in or through any sort of textual uh work. You know, what the Prime Minister does is very dependent on who the Prime Minister is, uh whether he actually, you know, like uh leads his cohort of ministers uh in a uh coherent government or or leaves them alone to do their, you know, each doing their own thing in their own ministry and so on. It's completely dependent on the on the person. And everyone knew that uh, or at least it felt as if uh David Osson uh was a you know that his power uh reached further than that of many other people in his in that role before and after.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

So that was that was the feeling, and I I I agree with that. And then it then it comes back to the autobiography, the autobiography, and and per perhaps the dilemma of writing one for himself, which is he I think he reveled in appearing to be more powerful and and than he actually was, yeah. And therefore more in in charge of the all of these changes, and then then when they didn't go perfectly his way, he always tried to distance himself from those things, but given his past ten years of presenting himself as the all-knowing, all-ruling man, it was difficult for him to do that. And I wonder if that is what you were saying before about the problem with writing an autobiography, it's just gonna seem so in disingenuous when you first present yourself as this savior or a political figure, maybe, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

And and when a person takes on that role so um easily, or you know, it doesn't dispute it, like yes, you know, it it is I. And you uh in his case, in any case, uh you had like a society where you know half of the people said, Oh thank you, you know, you thank you for doing this for us. And it's all thanks to him, and and and and the other half like blamed him for all the society's woes. Uh and both views may have been equally distorted, yes, I guess. Which is not to like um not to uh uh act as if you know uh uh he didn't matter at all, but uh uh but yeah, it probably his his actual um the scope of his power was probably exaggerated in the minds both of his followers and his uh opponents, I guess, to some extent.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, I think I I feel I feel I feel comfortable with that position. I think that's a good position.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

He stayed in power for so long, though that that allows the greater impact, and then he has these visuals that you can't ever forget. Like, I don't know, I'm just thinking, isn't he in a on a video with him and Rod Stewart? Just with him and Rod Stewart, yeah. Him and Rod Stewart, where they're each each holding holding a pose of equal like they're of equal stature, and it's like he would he would uh surround himself with people of importance in popular culture, and he would be uh There's him and Leonard Cohen in have they obviously him and Leonard Cohen, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Is there a picture of him and Gorbachev somewhere? I've never seen that one. Probably is we we talked about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

But he w he would have been with the city for the for the meeting of uh Gorbachev and Reagan?

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yeah, I know the I know the Soviet delegation gave him a samovar, which is some sort of a tea kettle or something. Right. And this was in the news last year because uh it was being auctioned off for money. Yeah. And it opened up a dispute about whether or not it was actually his or the cities. But it was another story. But uh no, this is this is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Uh yeah, the public image I felt like was built on he'd be the quiet guy standing confidently next to a major historical figure, uh holding uh obviously most. Famously with Margaret Thatcher, right? I mean, holding court as though he was on equal playing field with them and it was only personality. There was nothing there is no reason he should have been able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

But we've been we couldn't be dapp we kinda been have been dabbling with like the sort of a mark Marxist take on the nineties here, you know, that people don't matter, you're just there for the right, and history just happens because of larger factors or because of you know struggles between struggles between struggles between the uh you know the the m the classes or whatever. But there is also like we still have cases where he has a lot of agency. And in my personal opinion, like one of the decisions he had massive agency in taking is the one I resented the most for taking, and that was the joy joining the coalition of the willing in in 2003. Okay, and and yeah in that case you go from like this philosophical discussion about you know how much agency does a person have in in whatever environment they have, into like specifics where you know they had agency because there was a choice. And other countries at the same time chose differently. We all remember Freedom Fries, right, where French fries didn't go, the Germans didn't go, etc. And there are other instances such as this one.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

But if we dwell on that for a minute, you know, we also and even you know primarily have ourselves to blame, I guess, because you know, for for for leaders in France and Germany to uh abstain from joining the coalition of the willing, they had marches of millions of people literally uh uh demonstrating against the invasion before it happened. You know, so they had uh very widespread and and and very uh like uh massive uh public support for that decision. I know I I I wasn't in Iceland at the time, but I remember coming uh back here in the summer of 2003, and I it was just so shocking having been on the continent to experience like the an absolute lack of any sort of movement against involvement. And you know, that that happened later on, like one or two years into the invasion, uh there was actually this petition of you know, not in our name and blah blah blah blah. But in the advent of it, and at the beginning of it, uh there was no critique, there was no demonstration, there was no uh will acting against his or their like rather uh simple agenda of keeping the military presence in Keplavik and and and the employment levels high by you know succumbing to whatever the the the US wanted.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

The economic impact was complicated because also there's a lot of cash flow, US dollars floating the currency, the kroner while the base was there. There were a lot of things that we were talking about at the time because the fear was the base could leave if we didn't bend to the will of the US military, was the thought.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

And so, you know, if you if you you have the like yeah, if you have the the obvious negative effect locally and uh no hint of a positive effect locally, because the you know the public is not like uh declaring uh its opposition to the invasion. And you uh and you know it'd be hard to uh blame that 100% on on David. As much as uh we might despise the decision, uh we are to blame as well. You know, that we were not there, we were not doing our part. Like we as in the public or the left or or whoever.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Is this something he he a mess he made for himself though, with some of the media, the way he'd controlled the media to that point, influenced the media media at that point. In 2003, we had uh we were influenced by a few major newspapers. It was Ferreta Bladith, which was kind of a new school of Independence Party members, but at that point they were following him. Morgan Bladeth, which is old school Independence Party. Um and I don't know that there was any non-party paper at that point. There was Ruves.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

Diavaf was still there. Uh there was a bunch of magazines. I mean it was a different media environment altogether.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

But who was gonna who was gonna sound the beat the drums for protesting?

SPEAKER_03 26:19

All of the party papers had more or less ceased to exist at that point.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

It wasn't until after 2003 that Fred and Bobbit really veered away.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

And the blogs and the whole like uh internet ecosystem was not there yet, like as a not as uh an opinion-forming uh element, basically.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Essentially he had uh an echo chamber in the media for him. Everything was pro-Dobbit in the papers, and nobody could would challenge him.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

Yeah. You're being more empathetic towards his decision making than I am. I'm happy to see that.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I I'm not empathetic to the decision making, but you're but I th but I think like we uh I think there's good reason to again hesitate before putting all the blame on one person. And I think it may be opportunistic for a country to like uh find uh you know it it's hard to call like uh a man in that role, the Prime Minister, a scapegoat for decisions that he obviously made. And yet uh you know when a country is or like a a community is complicit, I think it would be uh uh uh like a m uh uh yeah uh a healthier move to sort of uh acknowledge that. Yes, no, I have nothing against it.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

It's uh I'm I'm I'm uh I'm impressed by uh the the your take on this. I think it's uh it's a it's it's very fair and probably accurate. So I'm yeah, so I like it.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

It is the great stain. I mean one of the greater stains on his legacy will be the the Coalition of the Willing. It's hard to hard to paint that in a in a good light.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Well, should we talk about his other big stain, which is his he's he's he was largely rightfully wrongfully blamed for the uh the economic crash in 2008? He's kind of a figurehead for it, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

He's identified Newsweek and a few other major world publications cite him as the top twenty figures for the collapse. And this is because he spoke so eloquently in favor of the free market and stating his role in it.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah, again, and it was like you know, and and this sense of you know, it's not just free to decide, but like capitalism. That's also me. You know, I'm I'm I'm I'm capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

The human embodiment of capitalism. And therefore Iceland became the human embodiment of capitalism.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

So he obviously like tried to like minimize his role in this and saying he he did say that he'd warned about this, I guess, as early as 2007 or something or six, and made some preparations as central bank manager. I'm not sure how true that is. Uh it's the the the famous big report on the whole thing that came out in twenty ten or eleven. Uh I haven't read it for fifteen years, so I don't really remember what the details were on this. But that was kind of his his take on it. But uh he I feel like there's a pretty bit of a complex relationship that he had with with the Icelandic economic wonder, if we can call it that. Like he is I mean, at least responsible for the policy of privatizing the banks, but again privatizing banks and removing legislation in and around uh financial markets was very much the in vogue in the nineties and then early noughties. Like Glas Deacol in in in uh the US is kind of a famous example of deregulating, I guess. And but you know, we can find fault with then how those sales eventually took place. Uh they turned out to be kinda botched.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah, I mean you you had the the policy and then you had the implementation, and and the implementation, like I I think to all observers like from the get-go seemed very suspicious to say the least, in in you know how who who were given basically.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Uh uh, it was the goal it was the old 50-50 rule. The Progressive Party gets one part uh one part and and people close closely associated with the Independence Party get one part. So it was uh without getting into those details. Uh but it's uh I guess what I mean by that he had like a r a kind of a complicated relationship with these things is that it it were his policies to deregulate these things and and privatize these things. As much as that was a global trend, we have to acknowledge that too. But once it had happened and uh you know, these new young uh people started running these uh banks or ins institutions you you could see that he got pissed off uh at some of the things they were doing. I can't remember the exact details, but very publicly when he was still Prime Minister in 2004 probably, he went uh live on television or something to withdraw his uh his money from uh a crypting bank. Right. What what were the okay okay? So I wonder if he had this thing where he was going like, yeah, this is what I wanted, and then you have uh, you know, b people in the free market running a mock, and then he's going like, Maybe this is a little bit too much. And that thought kind of took me back to the famous Alan Greenspan um uh committee hearing where he was talking about uh just wasn't expecting greed? He wasn't expecting greed. He was exp expecting the market to behave rationally, not greedily. And I wonder that if that kinda came up in in his head too. Uh I'm not asking you to get into his hat, but it's but it's kinda like it makes the whole it it makes it very hard to pin down or blame him completely for many things, because like you were saying with the coalition of the willing, these things are quite complicated sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Well uh it's also a little hard to speak about David Hodson in isolation in this context as a you know as a as a person because uh the way he communicated uh in like these uh places of authority was through anecdotes and through you know, uh he was a storyteller and and he was good at the sound bite and and like you know like interfering and you know m making this throwing out remarks and so on, uh all the while also relying on uh like um his cooperatives to like articulate his position to some extent, such as uh now Professor Emeritus Hannes Holzer Giselson, who like was his uh uh yeah, what did you call it, like ideological uh note-taker or or or or you know he he like uh supporting uh the uh decisions of David Otson uh with uh ideological underpinnings. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Um and uh yeah the the question can be I guess it was more like an observation about like because you were talking about the coalition of Willing, and I was saying like, well, maybe in in the other thing he's completely blamed for, which is the economic collapse, it's a bit more ambivalent too. And so you look at these Yeah, so it's the ambivalence of it.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

So the the whole time during the this era of privatization and deregulation, and and all the when the you know the state didn't actually shrink as as it was, you know, as it the as they sold it as a as a as a shrinkage of a of the role of the state, but it was just like transferred uh uh and and uh changed in various ways. But uh that whole like um mission was commented on and followed through by men such as uh the aforementioned Hanna Scholzet Kiserson, a very like uh prominent figure in Iceland at the time also. And um I guess they you know if you so if you if you like combine them, if you allow ourselves to combine them into like one figure for a minute uh and make Hannes' words you know act as if if if David spoke them, then um the uh Hannes Holstein actually after the after the uh crash, the 2008 economic or financial collapse, uh turned more conservative than he was before that. You know, as the as the uh face of uh neoliberalism in the academia, he has since become more xenophobic, or at least more openly so, and more openly uh well, you know, nationalist tendencies and and and and so on. Uh probably well, the Tadi seems to have done that as sort of more complex as well. Uh so uh you know, going together down that route. So this is this is I think at some point around uh the uh crisis, around the 2008 crisis, uh Hannes Holmstead said that uh yes, he had been for you know all these changes, the privatization of the banks and so on, but that he had like um uh underappreciated the role of uh common uh decency or whatever, you know, you call it like of of a good upbringing that you you know you need uh a certain class of people to uh do these things properly, things like you know, managing a bank and and and so on. So like uh uh there was a slide that happened from uh neoliberalism to a more conservative elitist stand on you know who should actually handle the money. And of course, you know uh the people whose families have handled money for a long time are better suited for this role. Um I I I'm not quoting David on this, but I I I think uh it would not be very far-fetched to like assume that that both may have uh uh taken that position.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

So David is outside of that that family order, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Yeah, so so this amuses me in a sense greatly because uh this also goes back to the Alan Greenspan quote again. Yeah. So I guess so if you what you're saying here is that one of the paths you take if you were one of these people, when you implement these policies and they and you feel disappointed by it, you just go into like almost almost like uh you know pre-twentieth century take on on like how society should work, which is a kind of a weird way to go, but it makes sense as you're saying it. And uh that's kind of in a sense what you've seen other former neocons kind of do. Right. So they go into like, yeah, maybe we should just be running this like as you know in the way before like you know the middle class existed or something. So that's yeah, that's that's an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

I'd love to go from the macro to the micro on this, just to trace it. Like have we talked about Lansponky? Because I feel like this is kind of interpersonal relations that I really remember witnessing. Lanspunky is privatized when? 2002.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yeah. Yeah. And Krypting the following year.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Okay. How long before how long before the devastation kicks in? How long did it last? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

So yeah, that's the funny part. It's five years. Five years. So it it's like I remember taking uh what is the there were some classes in around after the collapse on on the collapse that I took at the university and and one professor was talking about like he was talking about a book that had been published after the crash by the current chair of the central bank, Oskar Jonsson, and he described the the rise of the banks. The book was like threefold. There was the rise, the like booming time, and then the collapse. And this professor made a lot of fun of this. He said, like, you know, you can kind of talk about something like the Roman Empire in the these terms, because it lasts for like a millennia, but talking about the five-year period as the rise, as the like good years and then fall is kind of overdoing it.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

But halfway through Lanz Baki's existence, you know, um they differ they distance themselves from Dobbeth, I feel like, and distance their support from him publicly, relatively publicly. That's when the media bill gets going, and they're they're throwing their weight behind, Bjogovarthor is throwing his weight behind Fretebladeth, and this different class of people, this and the Fretbladeth and the those people are hanging out more with Oliver Ragnar Grimson, and there becomes a schism. And I don't feel like Davita was taken along for a ride with the wealthier group.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Wasn't it Islandsponky who supported uh Fretblan, who then became Glitner?

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Uh that makes a lot of sense to me, at least fine probably financially, because Jon Auskir was in the board of Islandsponky. Okay. But then the other banks may have been aligned with more with that sort of block rather than the old Independence Party block.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

No, I think I misstated my bank of the major banks. But Islandsponky would be the one and that that publicly distanced themselves from him and kind of attack him publicly, which is an alarming. He gives rise to this, and within two years they're after him. And nobody would question him before. And now suddenly he's questioned publicly in these papers that were his darling. I mean, he was the media star, and then he wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Well then the Fretteblader may never have been his darling because they undermined the like role of Morgenblad from the start and were established to sort of shake that uh monopoly. Yeah. And so uh at least it it's definitely been complicated from the the the get-go, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

That's true. But they really veered off pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

No, and it must have been like, you know, in as much as as you would assume that a person believes in you know what he fights for, and you know, that that may be like here and there, but but then you know, I I guess to some extent uh David Hodson and his cohort has like felt as if they you know uh just created a monster, uh which may not have been their intention. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

I mean in many cases going back to the Alan Greenspan thing, may have felt that way. And it's it's a very interesting take as you have here that this may have pushed some people into becoming sort of very weird weirdly right-wing conservative nationalists, which is uh which is what uh Hannes Olmsted is saying in the past two interviews I've I've heard with him. Which is kind of like his his view of things right now. Which is like strangely and thoroughly illiberal, also.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

And when they bring the class discussion in, which I feel like they hint at in the way the banking could have been done differently with a different class of people, the irony isn't lost that Davith was a different class of person who made it to Prime Minister. I just keep going back to what you said at the beginning of the interview that this is the end of an era we had uh we talked off off camera, and we can stop if this becomes too personal, but we all um had a relationship with Davith, and I had a relationship with David's staff, not so much Davith with his staff trying to cover him. Sometimes very alarming relationship with his staff. Um but I felt an affinity and affection for this man who'd built something and was now seemed to me to be aghast at what the results were, but it still I still felt some human connection. So when it came time of her funeral, I wanted to go, I I felt an obligation, and we went out to his funeral. And as we we were invited in and sat with um nobody from our generation was was there, uh, which I found alarming. I know a lot of people who work at Morganbladeth and they weren't there, which I found alarming. I just felt that this was not I wanted to pay my respects to Davis family and then to um and just to remember him as a human being because I know we often covered his policies. So we sat down and I just felt, as you said, it was a crystal moment of that era's gone. There's not even anybody from my generation who might even remember that era. It's all being and you're sitting in Halgramskirke and it's so crystallized because this is like you're sitting inside of a bomb shelter. It it is nothing but concrete. Um and you're like, this was the nuclear age, and it's gone now. And now we're we're post nuclear age. We've when I step out of here I'll be in the internet again. Like um, it was such a a shock to me that it is clearly the end of an era and i uh that that bomb shelter that is the Hogramskirke on the inside uh uh is uh is lost seems lost to time and I equitated it. Of all things, as we walked out, if anybody ever goes through shocking depression, as as many those of us in this room have sometimes been through, and they and they've acquired the Planet of the Apes box set, which is are a bunch of movies about the end of the world, either told from the perspective of apes or their cohorts. Um the second Planet of the Apes movies has uh like people who survived one nuclear war and then they're worshiping the next nuclear bomb, and the inside interior of this chapel is exactly like Holcomb's curk yeah, and the end of the movie is they intentionally set off the bomb again to just to end it all. And I was like, I feel like I'm watching a nuclear detonation and the end of this uh this era. This era and this confidence that it was existed.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Yeah, the confidence what a vision of you know you maybe not a vision one you you may agree with it or not, but but a vision of the future. Yeah. Or or at least the the a notion of a vision of the future. You thought you had a vision of the future, and like I guess during that whole era and until maybe the uh maybe the 2008 crash. I don't know, there's been a series of events that have like shaken the foundation of of of uh things uh in recent years. Uh but I mean I I think like at the moment uh we are going you have these dystopias that uh uh are being spread by you know the tech crowd or or the fascist crowd, or you know, you but there is no like clear bright vision of a future that people enthusiastically like say, Yeah, let's that's what I feel.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Maybe that's what it was. It was like the funeral of the idea of progress, yeah. Because that's what we had up until then. And I sometimes make the observation when I'm flicking through various streaming services that they are really heavy and providing you with like nostalgic TV series, which I think is because if you're looking at them, you're in them, and you know the people who are in them still believe in the future and you don't. Right? Do you know what I mean? And we are there now and woo. Yeah. And and and that's the appeal, actually, like to feel that way for uh 45 minutes. And maybe that's the feeling that you're talking about that.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Which may also be the appeal of like Chernobyl and and and and like stories that happen in in like uh east of the wall at the time.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

That you know they were looking westwards, and you know, hope hopefully, like, yeah, but you look at look at the this thing and and think, yeah, they I mean it didn't turn out great, but they had hope. Right, right, right. We don't have that. Yeah. And maybe that's the feeling because that's the contrast. Like that that was the end of that era where we still had hope, and now we live in a completely different world where uh things are just like whatever comes next is not something you look forward to.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

And it's not something you feel you have any control of or what you're saying? No. Uh it's like it's a very passive uh sort of uh position towards uh uh uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Yeah, if you want a mantra, my son my son said about current events, he said, just remember the only fact you the only m the only saying you need to know about life now is cringe is forever. Cringe is forever? Oh, so you're only gonna regret things like doing being too earnest. Never be too earnest. I was like, that's that's that's the darkness we're headed to to.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

Um Yeah, but all but all the other context is like during those eras, and we were so m angry about different things that were happening in the nineties and the noughties, and they all seemed so minuscule. Well they weren't fascism. They were not fascism.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Yeah, whatever they were.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

You know, fascism, they were not all out war. Right. Well, sometimes uh at least they were like they seemed like more what would you like if we had war, it seemed like it wasn't necessarily like the start of something bigger. Right. It was contained. So yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's a weird feeling. Um but that's perfect. I think this is good. I think we've gone gone far enough here with you and ourselves. And I'm sorry about my my whole introduction into aesthetics that we then just completely skipped.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

That's okay.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

Uh but uh look look up the article if you want to find out about it. The article, sadly, we'll check out the channel with it.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Which which we which we forced the title on you of the last last king of Iceland, but is what I come up with after came up with after reading, and I felt like it was. But yeah, the sad thing when you when you're reading magazines, you don't realize that uh really aggressive editors force headlines on people's work.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Well, I think you do better headlines than I do, so you know it's good.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

So it's Darwin Elson and what was the guy from Uganda? The last game of Scotland.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh E.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

Thank you for rest in peace. All right, thank you for dropping in and uh look forward to seeing and hearing more of you. Thanks everybody for listening and watching. Thank you. See you next time. Bye bye.