Jón Ólafsson

One would tend to think about any political agenda that it is, if it brings success, a beginning, rather than the end of something. Or, if it is a beginning, that it is not also the end. In Iceland, this is different. Here success of a program or initiative, seems to be seal its death. Take Icesave. An enormous movement, a momentum, a decisive victory of NO to aggreeing to pay anything out of state budget to compensate those who lost their money in Britan and Holland when Landsbankinn went bankrupt. And then what? Nothing, as if the steam was out for good. Those who dreamed of forcing the government out of power suddenly look helpless. What they participated in as an action that would lead to a series of events where the government would eventually have to resign, brought nothing. It just deepened the mess, increased the likelihood of a longer crisis, served certain political forces in other countries and as an emotional outburst for Icelanders in need of such outburst. Then nothing. But in this case that is precisely the good news.