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What a fantastic example of author bias. Just because a large amount of the population takes to the streets, and just because the government resigns, it's not

What a fantastic example of author bias. Just because a large amount of the population takes to the streets, and just because the government resigns, it's not a revolution. A revolution means that the people are trying to change the form of government, which is absolutely not what happened. An overwhelming majority of the Icelandic are perfectly happy with their current form of a liberal, western, parliamentary republic. The result of the protests was that the government resigned, held a re-election, and put the icesave bill to a referendum. There's absolutely nothing revolutionary about this, this is exactly how our liberal democracies are supposed to work. But if you're from a region where there aren't any liberal democracies, I can understand why a reporter would write this funnily biased piece, drawing parallells between the actual protests and revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and the protests in Iceland.

dazzawazza 16y ago
Given the stress that the Icelandic people were put under it is a credit to them and their democracy that there wasn't more violence. The media in the UK covered the 'revolution' closely because of the many ties between the two countries. I can imagine most people in the middle east know little or nothing about Iceland so why would the media cover ten thousand people standing peacefully in the cold outside a parliament building making reasonable demands.
chmike 16y ago
We may not have the same information source. The governement resigned and a new government was elected. Althouh the new gouvernement was more social oriented, they wanted to continue the same model. Then the people went on the street to protest and the new government resigned. The revolution here is that a new constitution is rewritten by a group of citizen elected for this purpose. This is a refactoring of a country's fundamental society rules. Maybe your bias comes from your assumptions of what a revolution is usually referred as in the media. The revolution of the Arabian countries is to get the dictators stop their dictatorship. The Icelandic revolution is to get bankers stop to control the country and drive it to its financial collapse by their greed and selfishness. US and European citizen should follow closely how this revolution and new society turns out because it may open a path to a truly new and better world (not the one of Bush) and avoid the world to collapse financially because of speculation bubbles on food, energy, etc.

dazzawazza 16y ago

Given the stress that the Icelandic people were put under it is a credit to them and their democracy that there wasn't more violence. The media in the UK covered the 'revolution' closely because of the many ties between the two countries. I can imagine most people in the middle east know little or nothing about Iceland so why would the media cover ten thousand people standing peacefully in the cold outside a parliament building making reasonable demands.

chmike 16y ago

We may not have the same information source. The governement resigned and a new government was elected. Althouh the new gouvernement was more social oriented, they wanted to continue the same model. Then the people went on the street to protest and the new government resigned. The revolution here is that a new constitution is rewritten by a group of citizen elected for this purpose. This is a refactoring of a country's fundamental society rules. Maybe your bias comes from your assumptions of what a revolution is usually referred as in the media. The revolution of the Arabian countries is to get the dictators stop their dictatorship. The Icelandic revolution is to get bankers stop to control the country and drive it to its financial collapse by their greed and selfishness. US and European citizen should follow closely how this revolution and new society turns out because it may open a path to a truly new and better world (not the one of Bush) and avoid the world to collapse financially because of speculation bubbles on food, energy, etc.