Saving Iceland Summer of Resistance Kicks off in Reykjavik

12.07.2007
A day of action in Reyk­javik kick starts Sav­ing Ice­land’s Sum­mer of Resis­tance to heavy indus­try and the alu­mini­um indus­try’s cor­po­rate inva­sion of Europe’s largest wilder­ness.

Iceland blockade12.07.2007
A day of action in Reyk­javik kick starts Sav­ing Ice­land’s Sum­mer of Resis­tance to heavy indus­try and the alu­mini­um indus­try’s cor­po­rate inva­sion of Europe’s largest wilder­ness.

Fol­low­ing on from Sav­ing Ice­land’s inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence: ‘The Glob­al Con­se­quences of Heavy Indus­try’ where speak­ers and del­e­gates from five con­ti­nents gath­ered to unite strug­gles against the alu­mini­um indus­try, was a day of pub­lic actions.

The Inter­na­tion­al Sum­mer of Dis­sent begins!

First­ly at Kringlan Shop­ping Mall:

Over 50 peo­ple from 5 dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents start­ed the day at Kringlan Shop­ping Mall, Reyk­javik, to protest against the con­sumer cul­ture that demands new alu­mini­um fac­to­ries. Rev­erend Bil­ly, from the Church of Stop Shop­ping, and his new deci­ple Rev­erend Snor­ri, lead a flock of devot­ed and extreme­ly noisy earth lovers (also known as Sav­ing Ice­land activists) through the con­sumerist hell that is a the shop­ping mall.

“The for­eign cor­po­ra­tions who want to dam Ice­lands great rivers, and put pol­lut­ing smelters on our shores — they want us to keep shop­ping.”

“The Alu­mini­um indus­try makes most of its mon­ey from war­planes, tanks and mis­siles (30%, actu­al­ly.) They pro­pose the com­plete damming of Ice­lands wilder­ness rivers, this isnald’s famouse beau­ty buried under indus­tri­al reser­voirs. Let us stop the war machine and the ruin of Ice­land’s wilder­ness. The same cor­po­ra­tions that keep us shop­ping, make war around the world. Isn’t a shop­ping mall like a ‘human’ dam? We re stopped, hyp­no­tized, put in debt. Our ener­gy is tak­en from us. Save the coun­try and save our­selves…”

…Then a march down Lau­gave­g­ur (Reyk­javik’s busiest street)…

… for a ral­ly at Alþin­gi

On the lawn out­side the Alþin­gi, the Ice­landic Par­lai­ment, peo­ple gath­ered togeth­er to speak out against the alu­mini­um indus­try. Peo­ple from Trinidad, who are win­ning a fight against Alcoa, from South Africa, who are fight­ing a nuclear pow­ered Alcan plant, from the East of Ice­land, who have been dev­as­tat­ed by the recent Alcoa Rey­dar­fj­dur fac­to­ry and Karah­n­jukar dams, from Brasil, who is fight­ing the damming of the Ama­zon for alu­mini­um fac­to­ry ener­gy, and many more gave inspir­ing speech­es and lead ener­gy filled songs against the alu­mini­um indus­try.

…and final­ly at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Office
Street the­atre activists then set up an alu­mini­um smelter, installed some tomb stones and hand­ed out dirty Ice­landic water (Ice­land prides itself on its pure water, yet it is pol­lut­ing and destroy­ing its water for the sake of heavy indus­try dams).

activist video footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJF7uK4cCOM
RUV cov­er­age (Ice­land’s state TV): http://dagskra.ruv.is/streaming/sjonvarpid/?file=4338360/5

For updates and details of upcom­ing actions see: http://www.savingiceland.org/
For more videos of Sav­ing Ice­land actions and the recent con­fer­ence see: http://www.youtube.com/user/octoplasm