By Mike Adams
Director’s Note: Iceland is an extremely beautiful and unique nation (and tourist destination!). Fellow Oregonians will remember Iceland as the final destination for our beloved Keiko, (known on screen as Free Willy) the first captive orca to be released into the wild.
Iceland also has its own special horse breed, protected vigorously by regulations which guard the health and purity of the Icelandic Horse. The health of the horse breed is taken so seriously that no other horse can enter the country, and if a horse leaves Iceland, it cannot return.
Our hope is that the Icelandic people may also see themselves at least a fraction as precious as their horse. Losing the Icelandic culture and ethnicity to immigration and multiculturalism would be a loss to Iceland and the world.
In this spirit, we welcome Mike Adams' evaluation of the former Minister for Social Affairs and Labour, Mr. Guðmundur Ingi Guðbrandsson's proposal for Iceland's first comprehensive immigration policy. Despite no longer being a member of parliament, we know the left is persistent and Guðbrandsson's is not the last of such proposals.
I am addressing this piece directly to the good people of Iceland.
In September of last year your Minister for Social Affairs and Labour, one Mr. Guðmundur Ingi Guðbrandsson, published what he hoped would become Iceland’s first comprehensive immigration policy. The document runs to some 56 pages in the official English translation and would be nothing short of a complete catastrophe for a small country of 383,726 people.
As an American who has watched his own nation’s elite stay the course on their complete dedication to suicidal immigration policies, I feel a strong obligation to warn the Icelandic people away from this course of action. Stop while you are still a coherent nation-state, Iceland!
You’ve already had more than your fair share of immigrants.
Indeed, a quick check of your latest demographic statistics shows that of a population of 383,726 you have a first and second generation immigrant population of 77,042 people, or about 20% of your overall population. This is an incredible increase in the immigrant population considering that in 2006 the population was 93% Icelandic by origin and in 1996 the population was an incredible 97% Icelandic. This transformation concerns me, especially with the immigration policy that Guðbrandsson put forward in September.
What concerns me? One look at the “key targets” of the policy is all I need to make my case:
Active immigrant participation in elections and society
Positive public attitudes towards immigrants and multiculturalism
Equitable employment in public and private sectors
Strong, early support for refugees
Efficient recognition of foreign qualifications
Equal access to housing for immigrants
Accessible, high-quality Icelandic language instruction
Where to start … Why would any people, any nation, want to give a fresh off the boat immigrant the power to have a say in its political process? The document goes on to explain that it wants to fund education for these immigrants and any children they may have by sending them information and documentation about how to vote. So, Icelandic taxpayers are going to fund the subversion of their own, unique, ethnic democracy. Indeed, the immigration policy would teach Icelandic children and youth that immigrants are a vital part of Icelandic democracy.
This is interesting considering that Iceland has perhaps the oldest parliament in the world.
The Icelandic Althing (Alþingi) is just short of 1,100 years old.
So far as I can tell it has functioned as a uniquely Icelandic institution for the entirety of that time, without needing immigrants. Icelandic democracy will not be strengthened by mass immigration and immigrant participation in politics. It will be destroyed by it. Introducing immigrants to your political process will introduce ethnic, religious, and in-group lobbies and competition for resources that should be solely to the benefit of the Icelandic nation.
More worrying is the second position. The state would actively seek to create a multicultural society and foster positive public attitudes. I don’t mean to sound common but what kind of 1984-tier nonsense is this? The state has no place in fostering a public attitude toward immigration. It is the Icelandic state’s job to represent the native Icelandic people. The Icelandic state was created by the Iceland people to protect your interests and prosperity, not to give it away to others. The document also proclaims on page 1 that “Iceland is a multicultural society that is inclusive … “.
I ask the people of Iceland; did you vote for a multicultural society? It would seem not.
For those unaware Iceland had an election in November of 2024 and the minister who penned this document along with his entire party (all eight of them) were voted out of office, but they were replaced by the Social Democratic Alliance—a party also dedicated to multiculturalism and immigration.
Along with transforming Iceland into a multicultural society where immigrants get a hefty political say in Icelandic affairs, this would-be immigration strategy seeks to give equal access to housing for immigrants, as well as public sector jobs and “support” (read: money) for self-proclaimed refugees.
Again, call me old-fashioned but the Icelandic people pay the taxes for this public housing, and maintain the fat salaries and benefits packages for these public jobs. It should be the Icelandic people who benefit first and foremost from them. Icelandic public housing should be for the most vulnerable Icelandic people such as widowed grandmothers or those who lost their home in a natural disaster. It should not be given to any random Somali, Syrian, or Indian who steps off a plane in Reykjavik.
This document proposes the creation of massive new bureaucracies to educate, train, reskill, survey, cooperate with immigrants, bring public and private sector agencies together, and a myriad of other actions. Who will fill these numerous roles necessary to create this multicultural society? I doubt it will be Icelanders, though you will be funding it.
And you certainly should not give them the ability to vote themselves even more public benefits funded by your taxes. In my own country immigrants vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, the party which publicly promises taxpayer funded benefits for immigrants and non-White communities while attacking the pioneering European population that built the United States. The same is true in Sweden where immigrants and their descendants overwhelmingly vote for left-wing parties that give away Swedish tax money and public benefits to all foreigners who show up at the borders.
The Icelandic people need an immigration strategy that puts them first. Namely that means extremely limited immigration of peoples who are very culturally similar such as other Nordic ethnic groups.
Right now, Iceland is in the same place that my country was in the 1960s. The overwhelming share of your immigrants are from Europe. Countries like Poland (21,000), other Nordic countries (8,000), and Germany (2,400) are responsible for the greatest share of your immigrants. In the 1960s European immigrants made up some 80% of immigrants to the United States and they integrated within a single generation.
Iceland has two choices:
You can choose to tighten immigration so that you can assimilate the overwhelmingly European immigrants you already have, thus transforming their children into members of the Icelandic nation like your own children.
Or you can allow your political class to open the floodgates and declare your country to be a “multicultural” state designed to service the entire global population so long as they can make it through airport security. These non-European immigrants will form insulated, hostile, and foreign communities with different faiths, languages, and customs to Icelanders.
Multiculturalism has been a complete disaster for my country and is tearing it apart socially, politically, economically, and morally. Ask any Swede, Briton, German, or Frenchman if they think that multiculturalism has worked for their nation and 8 out of 10 times they will voice regrets about the path their country has taken.
Just because you voted Guðbrandsson out of office does not mean that this insane immigration policy idea will go away. To quote Ann Coulter on Amnesty for immigrants in Adios America: "Nothing ever gets struck from the Left's To Do list."
Iceland must unequivocally reject the multicultural project and reaffirm its uniqueness as a nation-state established by and for the Icelandic people in perpetuity.