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I’ve been writing about Islam in Europe for a quarter century, but I’ve never written a word about Islam in Iceland, and at one point I was naive enough to believe that I would never have to. Pretty much everywhere else you go in Western Europe these days, there’s at least a hint of an Islamic presence and hence, to at least some degree, a sense of being in the presence of a hostile and alien threat. It was never like that in Iceland. In no other Western European urban center have I ever felt as safe as I have in Reykjavik. It’s a clean, charming city of 120,000 in a remote island country of 370,000, and until recently virtually everybody there was Icelandic. It’s like one big family – except it’s not really that big. When I walked the streets, at any time of day or night, the sense of security was palpable; indeed, it was less like wandering around a city than like wandering through the comfortable (if chilly) rooms of a well-secured home. There are high-trust societies and there are low-trust societies; Iceland was as high-trust as you can imagine. And a big part of the reason for that was the extremely low level of immigration – especially Muslim immigration.
Well, that’s over. No, that feeling of security hasn’t disappeared overnight; but it’s definitely taken a hit. On March 7, a session of the Allting – Iceland’s parliament – was interrupted by three foreign men in the visitors’ gallery who have apparently settled illegally in the country and who, in a language that was clearly not Icelandic, shouted out demands that the government provide them with homes, residency permits, and a right to be joined in Iceland by their families. (If they’re this arrogant when there are so few of them, what would it be like if their relatives – and their relatives, and their relatives – came and joined them?) One of the three, who was barechested – not a common sight in Iceland, except, of course, at one of the country’s highly popular geothermal spas – climbed up onto a railing and seemed to be preparing to leap down onto the floor of the chamber, or perhaps, alarmingly, onto one of the legislators.
The drama didn’t last for long. At the Allting, there is always one (yes, one) police officer on duty as a guard. With the help of a couple of MPs – male MPs, of course – the guard subdued the man in a trice. Still, the disturbance was unsettling enough that the members of the Allting chose to take a brief recess. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, for her part, took the opportunity to comment that the three men’s stunt had been reflective of “a clear sense of desperation” and added that “we must work together to address these issues.” Did she mean that these men’s misbehavior should be rewarded? Is this like responding to the Hamas atrocities of October 7 by stepping up efforts to give Gazans their own independent nation?
The timing of this demonstration, it should be noted, was not coincidental. At the moment when the men began to interrupt the proceedings, the Allting had just begun to discuss proposed changes to the Foreign Nationals Act that would treat asylum cases with greater stringency. This proposal came almost exactly a year after the Allting approved of a law under which rejected asylum seekers would lose their right to free housing and medical care thirty days after being turned down. That law – which, needless to say, prompted fierce criticism from Amnesty International and other such groups, and was inevitably described as “controversial” by the mainstream international media – represented an extremely rare example of good sense in these matters on the part of a Western European legislature; in most other Western European countries, being denied asylum actually means little or nothing, with rejected applicants being permitted to hang around (and collect welfare) for years, during which many of them are repeatedly arrested for serious and even deadly crimes – and, all too often, are still not deported.
Amid all this folly, Iceland has always been an outlier. Its small size, harsh climate, and distance from the rest of Europe have long combined to make it a country that neither welcomes nor attracts immigrants. For generations, Icelanders’ concern for their own cultural purity has been so intense that when the need for a new word arises, usually because of a technological development, they don’t just borrow from a foreign language (in Lithuanian, for example, telephone is “telefonas” and computer is “kompiuteris”) but instead put their heads together and come up with something that has its roots in Old Icelandic or Old Norse. Hence telephone is “simi,” an ancient word for “long thread,” and computer is “tölva,” a mash-up of two words meaning “numbers” and “witch.”
In the age of European Islamization, Iceland’s insularity has served it immeasurably well. To be sure, the year 2022 saw what the European Conservative describes as a “surge in immigration,” although the newcomers – no fewer than 17,000 of them – were mostly from Poland, Ukraine, and Romania, countries whose citizens tend to move to the Nordic region to work hard and obey the law. Even so, Iceland’s continued resistance to the Islamic tsunami that has engulfed the rest of Western Europe has faced a growing challenge from local activists who, claiming to be motivated by compassion for the huddled masses of the Muslim world, would like to see the island country open its arms as widely as possible to so-called Muslim refugees – i.e., people who claim to be escaping oppression but who, as soon as they secure residency in the West, have a habit of flying back to the lands from which they “escaped” and spending months at a time there, living on Western welfare largesse.
The menace posed by these Islam-friendly Icelanders should not be taken lightly. I began this piece by saying that I’d never written about Islam in Iceland; but I have talked, in a 2017 video for the Glazov Gang, about what happened to one particular critic of Islam during a visit to that country. In May of that year, in a Reykjavik restaurant, an Icelander surreptitiously put something toxic into the drink of my FrontPage colleague and friend Robert Spencer, who’d just delivered a very well-received talk about the jihadist threat. “About fifteen minutes later, when I got back in my hotel room, I began to feel numbness in my face, hands, and feet,” wrote Robert afterwards. “I began trembling and vomiting. My heart was racing dangerously. I spent the night in a Reykjavik hospital.” At the hospital, Robert’s treatment was, according to a doctor who later examined his emergency-room records, “dismissive”; Robert filed a complaint, but nothing was done. The day after the crime, Robert reported it to the police, but they never did anything, either.
As Robert noted in recounting his experience in Reykjavik, his talk had been a success, indicating that there are Icelanders who recognize the jihadist threat; indeed, the island’s immigration policies suggest that most of its natives lean toward sanity on the topic. Still, in Iceland, as throughout the Western world, a preponderance of academics, journalists, and professionals tend to lean quite strongly in the other direction. We’re talking about the so-called educated class here – but for all their education they seem not to be very good at basic math. For those of us who can do simple sums, however, it’s terrifying to think how quickly a country with the population of Iceland could be overwhelmed – its resources drained, its traditions trampled, its language silenced, its freedoms quashed – by a wave of immigrants of the type who stormed its parliament the other day.
Given all this, I was surprised and dismayed to read, in one Norwegian account of the March 7 dust-up, that the Allting had actually voted recently to grant residency to 72 people from Gaza who “are already on their way to Iceland by way of Cairo.” Note that 72 Gazans headed for Iceland is the rough equivalent of 65,000 Gazans headed for the U.S. – which, just for reference, is approximately the number of people currently living in Youngstown, Ohio, or Skokie, Illinois. How many more Gazans will Iceland end up taking in? How soon before tiny Reykjavik starts looking like the iciest ever version of Karachi or Lahore or Peshawar, and the benighted fools who poisoned Robert Spencer in 2017 wake up to realize that the American bigot was right?
When did it become our chore to take in the world’s refuse of Islamic jihadists from Gaza where the severe majority (80%+) are still jubilant over Oct 7th!?
Once upon a time a rare, VERY rare, robbery happened in Iceland. It was done by a foreigner, and was the only serious crime that happened at the time
Now some idiots in power thought it wise to bring jihadist supporters onto their shores who WILL commit crimes as a default.
Those that initiated, or caved in to importing Islam in Iceland should be forced to domicile those Gazan’s in their homes.
An example among 100s . . .
A tranquil town in Idaho also had islamists dumped in their community during jug-eared Barry’s reign.
Multiple rapes followed.
The citizens of Idaho heretofore never experienced such crime and complained to the B. Hussein administration. Their concerns were met with threats of “hate crime” charges from A.G. Loretta Lynch, if the native citizens didn’t shut up about it.
Icelandic women better prepare themselves for this garbage, or suffer the same (as many women in Sweden have also found out.)
That’s there goal, to take over the world and over run the infidels.
Good article, Bruce.
Iceland has been wholly sympathetic to Gaza and unsympathetic to Israel, perhaps because icelanders have not yet been subjected to unspeakable atrocities and threatened with mass extermination.
Iceland came close to boycotting this year’s Eurovision contest because of Israeli participation (which Iceland first tried to block, unsuccessfully) but relented 2 days ago,
Starting May.7, the contest will be held in Malmo, Sweden, which as I am sure you know has long been a hotbed of radical islamist activity., where the Swedish police normally fear to tread.
Malmo, Sweden?!!! I never have trouble finding words to make some comments. But this time words fail me.
Goodbye blonde hair.
Why do Western countries have this suicidal impulse? Do they not know the history, goals, and doctrines of Islam? Does Iceland not see what is happening in that other island nation, Great Britain? The “Religion of Peace” has had centuries of experience in subverting other cultures. It will start with demands for halal lunches in schools. Next, calls to prayer over loud speakers. Then blasphemy laws. And, before you know, you’re in Dar, Al Islam. Kick them out, Iceland. You have no obligation to them and they will destroy your society given half a chance.
You would think that Iceland of all places would have an awareness of history, given the raid carried out on Iceland by Barbary privateers in 1627.
I have a copy of “The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson” which describes the raid. These Islamic terrorists carried out a raid that was very similar to the casus belli of October 7th: slaughtering people for sport, setting fire to buildings, in once instance forcing a woman and her child into the flames at the point of their spears, laughing as they did so . . .
They carried the survivors off into slavery in North Africa.
Have the Icelanders forgotten all this?
I don’t think it’s that the country has a suicidal impulse. I think it is the politicians who have it. They have something, anyway.
I read part of a new book the other day, which describes counter-insurgency (COIN) tactics. One of these tactics is called “import and dilute.” According to this description of COIN tactics, diluting a native population with another smothers potential insurgencies. This is what these politicians are doing to their own countries. They are not only bringing in an alien population into our countries, they are making it impossible for anyone to resist this “import and dilute” tactic.
Think about that. What they are doing to us actually has a name – it’s an official counter-insurgency strategy.
As to why – I cannot imagine why anyone would do such a thing.
At least – there is no rational reason. To find any kind of answer, you have to bring in the devil, the father of lies, and the accuser of our brothers and sisters – this is all the devil’s work – and it has been since September 11th 2001. This is all part of a larger strategy to destroy everything good that has ever come from Judeo-Christianity.
After 9/11
1. Immediately declare that Islam is a religion of peace. (Which Bush and Blair did.)
2. Attack the wrong Islamic countries to get the Islamic world stirred up and give them a sense of grievance against “the West.”
3. Create a super-surveillance state in the name of fighting “terrorism” but use it to spy on your own citizens.
4. Create hate speech laws so that naming the true enemy ist verboten.
5. Start importing millions of foreigners from the Islamic world as part of a “import and dilute” project of unprecedented scale.
6. Throw money at these immigrants, so as to give them a sense of entitlement.
7. Jail a few people who speak out against this pour encourager les autres.
8. Preach “white guilt” so the native population in our countries will start to believe that they deserve to be overrun by people from the Islamic world.
9. Accelerate the mass illegal immigration.
10. Repeat and enforce until a tipping point is reached, and the home country is no more.
PS. When (not if) Israel is attacked by Islamic terrorists, side with the terrorists and try to stop Israel from destroying their enemy – SO THAT WHEN THE WAR ESCALATES ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO FIGHT A TWO FRONT WAR!
That’s what our politicians have been busy doing for the last twenty odd years . . .
1 Peter 5:8.
Excellent analysis of what has happened to every free society I can think of… sadly with no or inefficient resistance.
It’s called Agenda 21!!
The agenda for the 21st century!
Its being implemented right before your eyes!
Bring in third worlders to ruin western white countries and then look, no more western world!
Everybody is then a third world country. It’s happening people!!
They aren’t the first muslims in Iceland as back in the mid 1600s the Barbary Pirates launched slave catching raids to Iceland
Is there a citation to the fact that the people coming from Muslim nations tend to return there indicating a lack of persecution. I have seen this point and I am interested in any primary source of that fact
It’s been noted in Sweden amongst Muslim “asylum seekers” and many people in Sweden have been up in arms about subsidizing their trips “home.” But the government has sheepishly acquiesced fearing those dreaded accusations of RACISM and ISLAMOPHOBIA.
Icelanistan. Celebrate the big D! Its our strength (or so we’re told).
“Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, for her part”
That’s how it usually begins.
The end of Iceland is coming soon. Murder, robbery and rape will become the norm. You people had better see the handwriting on the wall.
A very good article, Mr. Bawer. My question is: When does the weeping for the US start?
Perhaps an early warning of the Nordic concept of Ragnarok, when the forces of evil (the Fenrus wolf?) break their bonds and destroy everything in their path. And the truly gloomy part is that it WILL happen, being fore-ordained. There is no stopping it.
I believe that the Judeo-Christian views of eschatology are significantly different.
Depraved psychopathic murderous intolerant berserk Islam has been a scourge on humanity for 1400 years.
Enough already.
Islam is the enemy of all Western countries and societies and cultures.
The elite ruling class in Western societies understands only the wealth of the Islamic OPEC scum Royal Families.
That is why Israel and the European and US working and middle class are being, and will continue to be sacrificed.
America and US citizens have been betrayed by their elite political government and corporate and cultural leaders.
Biden and the woke leftist democrat party will not even protect America and US citizens from INVASION by hordes of millions of illegal aliens from Mexico, and the murder of more than 100,000 US citizens every year by Mexico with Mexican manufactured drugs …. encouraged, condoned, facilitated, and conducted by the corrupt Mexican government.
This mass murder of US citizens by Mexico and the Mexican government is blown off by American leaders as a trifle.
Israel will also be sacrificed, just like America and US citizens, for access to the Islamic OPEC coffers.
Wake up America … Time is getting short.
I wouldn’t bet on Israel being sacrificed. They have a Friend in a very, very high place, and He keeps His promises.
So, a nation that prides itself on largely doing away with Downs Syndrome, which threatened nobody, have found a sure-fire way to commit cultural and genetic suicide. What is the matter with these people? The ‘refugees/migrants’ that have enjoyed raping their way through Sweden will have a ball in Iceland. They need to wake up. No western nation should taken them in. There are 57 countries in the OIC, let them take the refugees.
Islamic Prime Directive: SHARIA UBER ALLES
Beating the world into Submission, Dhimmitude & Jizya payments.
Just Say No!