Posted by Lev/Christopher on December 14, 2008 at 5:04am in Current Affairs
Icelanders welcome December by storming the Central Bank building in Reykjavik, an event which, not surprisingly, received very little (if any) media coverage in Ireland and the rest of Europe. Iceland is somewhat of a "God's waiting room" when it comes to nationalist political mobilisation, so hopefully these events will lead to something substantial in this small Nordic state, now that its party system appears to be dying in the wake of its main sponsor: the financial system.
Icelanders were gathering on the 90th anniversary of national autonomy to call for the ousting of bankers and politicians they blame for the country's economic collapse. Weekly demonstrations against the government draw several thousand people in a country of 320,000. The global credit crunch brought down the tiny country's three main banks in October. Since then businesses have failed, unemployment has risen, prices have shot up and the value of the country's currency, the krona, has plummeted.