(12:55 a.m. PDT, 7:55 a.m in Reykjavik)
With a good night’s sleep, yesterday was a big improvement. I felt like myself again, and we were able to walk all over downtown Reykjavik without feeling like zombies. The weather turned cold and damp, and it turns out that September in Iceland is a lot like January in Oregon. Erin and I weren’t about to let rain and wind stop us from seeing what we could see…and it’s been an interesting couple of days. There are a couple of things that I’ve found difficult to miss in our first two days here. One is that we’ve yet to see any sort of police presence. The police here are unarmed and apparently also unobtrusive. Iceland is, if memory serves, the most heavily armed nation in the world in per capita terms. Despite that, their police carry no weapons, and the crime rate is extremely low. Things just seem to work, and people appear to coexist without difficulty or conflict. There’s a lesson we Americans could learn from this…if we were so inclined.
The argument I’ve heard by some Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © is that Iceland is a very homogeneous society lacking the divisiveness that (supposedly as a matter of course) accompanies multiculturalism in the U.S. I suppose that point of view makes sense if you proceed from the assumption that human beings in their natural state are at odds with one another and that human nature makes conflict inevitable. Here in Iceland, though, the assumption (and the fact) is that people can and do coexist if they decide that’s the path they want to follow. I’ve noticed a common respect and kindness among the people here that’s refreshing; I suppose you can do that when you assume the best of people instead of fearing the worst.
People get along because they choose to. Skin color, ethnicity, religion, politics, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum are merely excuses that make it easier to divide us one from another. The truth is that when you strip away the divisiveness and the artificial distinctions, people are far more similar than different. Sure, Iceland is a small, homogeneous country with a solid social ethos…but to argue that could never happen in the U.S. is to abandon faith in humanity’s ability to adapt and thrive.
The second thing that stands out for me is that Iceland has no military, at least in the conventional sense. There’s no standing army or navy, but there is a Coast Guard and an International Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) that can respond to international crises when necessary. Because of this, Iceland has ample resources to spend on its people. We’ve yet to see any obviously homeless people or chronic late stage alcoholics wandering the streets. That’s not to say there are none, of course, but we’ve yet to see any of the obvious social ills commonplace in the U.S. That speaks volumes to me about where Icelander’s priorities lie…and that our own could stand reexamination.
I can’t help but wonder how much things could change for the better at home if we were to devote even a fraction of what we spend on our military to things like infrastructure and caring for each other. That’s not “socialism,” it’s recognizing we have a responsibility to one another. It’s a matter of priorities, and as I look around in Iceland, I can’t help but thinking that we Americans have ours backasswards.
I don’t mean to paint the picture that Iceland is Paradise on Earth. It’s not, and this country has problems like any other place in the world. That said, I’m struck by how well things work here with no overbearing police presence and without the military sucking up a good chunk of GDP. It’s refreshing to see what can happens when people and their government put people first.
