Posted on 11/02/2006 6:19:37 PM PST by Leifur
The Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands, Jógvan á Lakjuni, accused the Icelandic MP Rannveig Guðmundsdóttir of insulting the Faroese nation with her tough criticism of the lack of legislation against discrimination of homosexuals. He even accused the Danish media of focusing entirely on negative news from the Faroes.
Rannveig Guðmundsdóttir, former President of the Nordic Council, was up on the rostrum several times to point out how the Faroes, as opposed to the other Nordic countries, have no legislation prohibiting the discrimination of homosexuals.
A notable violent incident against a homosexual man on the Faroes led to the Danish media, amongst others, writing about gay rights.
When Rannveig Guðmundsdóttir brought the matter up during question time for the Ministers for Co-operation on Wednesday, Jógvan á Lakjuni thought she had gone too far and insulted the Faroese nation. He complained that there was a one-sided focus on negative aspects. He pointed out that statistics from the Nordic Statistical Yearbook show that the Faroes have fewer suicides and divorces than the other Nordic countries and in many other ways differentiate themselves in a positive way.
The Faroese Minister for Co-operation also pointed out that other Nordic countries do not have legislation against, for example, disabled people but that does not mean that they approve of discriminating against them.
Several Icelandic media have interviewed Jógvan á Lakjuni today. The newspaper ‘Morgunblaðið’ reports amongst other things that the minister had said that the Faroe Islands were the best of the Nordic countries and that they were run according to Christian and conservative values. According to ‘Morgunblaðið’ the minister said that the Faroes ought to maintain their hard line against abortion and that he, personally, was against giving gays more rights through legislation.
But here it seems my nation, the bigger brother and a very close relative of the Faroese people, is putting ourselfs on a high horse against these neighbours of ours, and interfering with their internal matters. The carsism is that in the same time we are complaining against the world interfering in our internal matters, see here:
US claims whaling will cause disputes within IWC: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1729457/posts
Our Way of Life: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1728801/posts
In many ways the Faroese people are like we used to be, closer to the good old ways, good old religion and our old culture, that was somewhat lost in the last century (partly because of american military presence here many say), strangely in the midst of our independence struggle.
Maybe Iceland should try to learn from the Faroese instead of the other way around, maybe they are the last remnants of the old European culture? They also have a healthy birth rate (reported in the icelandic version of this article, strangely not here) in contrast to most European countries.
IBTMBMS
What makes you think the Faroe islands don't have laws against violent crime? Why should they have special laws against violent crime directed at homosexuals? Why would those laws deter violent criminals more than the existing laws?
Mrs VS
Well, I'll confess to have never heard of the Faroese nation. Do they have a seat at the UN?
And where the heck is it?
It is not about attacking, like the media has been depicting it. Of course violence is not legal, weather against homosexuals or anything else.
What they want is that in addition to laws courting the freedom of speach about people not currently being able to say whatever they want about people or relgion, or language and etc. of certein racial or cultural or languagal or religious groups or disability grous or gender, they want to add into that people of certein sexual preferentation, like homosexuals.
That is it is actually a matter of freedom of speach, and Faroese people being more religous than the rest of the Nordic countries, has not been willing to ban criticism of homosexuality, although they have banned other kinds of critical talk about such "minorities".
This icelandic MP is a member of the leftwinged socialdemocratic Alliance, actually a more left winged than british Labour contrary to what is stated here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_%28Iceland%29
It is often said that the Faroese are Icelanders that got sea sick on the way to Iceland and were left on the Faroer islands. They I think say that Icelanders are in fact Faroese people that were lost en route to the Faroese islands and hit Iceland. That can be said to be actually true as that is how Iceland was found.
Although their culture is a little different (due to the fact they stayed the same but we shed much of our old culture sadly), and their language also (due to the fact ours stayed the same but theirs were under heavy Danish influence), it can be said that we are the same people, they just are still under the heal of the Danish.
Its like an Icelandic region that did not get independent when the rest of us did (like Northern Ireland), although I am not sure they would agree on this historical opinion of mine. At least they are our closest relatives by blood, language and culture.
They just kept their christianity, but our national church managed to de-christianice us within a century.
Faroese islands are between Iceland, Norway, Britain and Denmark. Close to the Shetland Islands of Britain, wich used to be part of the same cultural sphere. They are around 50 thousand people (we are 300 thousand) but now we have finally made a free trade agreement (Hoyvík agreement) with them that makes us the same market sphere.
Exactly, they are Danish subjects, just like the Greenlanders, and we used to be prior to our independence of 1944. They have a limited home rule, and are many of them campaigning for independence, at least more home rule. Interestingly, due to their home rule, they are not part of the (evil) EU like Denmark is.
Thanks for the info. I'll try to learn more about them, but that really is an insignificant population in today's world.
Hum, although they and we are maybe insignificantly small, it is often in obscure places, out of the mainstream where the most rigour is and some long forgotten solutions to problems are stored.
Remember the story about christianity and western culture beeing reintroduced to the rest of Europe after the 100 years war (I beliewe) by the Irish, but they had protected this heritage over the difficult years of the wars in the mainland.
Maybe we and in more extend, the Faroese, but also probably many groups in the US (f.e. the south) have the old european, christian culture, ideals and values that the rest of Europe and way to big part of America has lost.
You can read about this "insignificant" people here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands
At least, even though we and the Faroese are not big, we have been historically a good and even for a while important ally to the US.
Yeah, I think it is very similar to that relationship. I have though never quite understood why the Álands island people are just not part of Sweeden, just across the water, but the people speak Sweedish. But as Finland is a two language nation, with a sisable Sweedish population with a lot of local rights, it is maybe not so strange.
The nordic countries are allways trying to be "nice" to each others and everyone. Sometimes contrary to the neccasery princips, although maybe not in these matters.
In 1948 the pro independence camp in Faroese won (although with a little margin) a referendum on independence, but the Danish, contrary to what they had said prior (to the elections, wich they by the way oversaw), decided it was to little support for independence so they decided not to give it to them.
We on the other hand held that referendum here in 1944, while the Danish were under German occupation and we under British and American (occupation/protection what you call it depends on your political view). The results of our were whopping 99.9 percent, with propably many dead people woting, and although we have historically pretty much agreed on our will to independence the Faroese have had pro-unionist parties. But it seems also, it can matter who runs the elections.
You can read about the Faroese Islands here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroe_Islands
I think you are correct in this.
I mean, is it not correct that in the US there are no laws whatsoever that limit your freedom of speach? Not even hate speach laws, as they are illegal according to the constitution?
This seems to lack here, so we have strangely, and with good intentions (the road to serfdom like Maggie Thatcher said) limited it to much I beliewe. It should be possible to say whatever you like (maybe having though to be able to defend the accuracy of your claim against a court if accused of libel), but I trust people to judge what is right and what is wrong.
The aim of such laws seems to be that those setting the laws think they know better than the people about that, f.e. when it comes to the homosexual matter.
What does that mean?
Someday I would like to learn Icelandic, from an interest in the Germanic languages. But if the Faroese are conservative like this, maybe I should include their language too. =)
Sprechen sie Deutch? Ich habe deutsch gelernt, aber ich bin night ser gut.
Icelandic and Faroese are very close languages, and we can read each others text rather easily. It helps though that every Icelandic child has to learn danish, and many say that Faroese is just Icelandic, corrupted with danish influences.
It is though harder to understand them speaking, but if they speak slowly we can understand them I think. Sadly we often speak together in either danish or english though. I think they understand Icelandic better than we them.
To show you the difference in writing you here is the Lord´s prayer, in Icelandic:
Faðir vor, þú sem er á himnum.
Helgist þitt nafn, til komi þitt ríki,
verði þinn vilji, svo á jörðu sem á himni.
Gef oss í dag vort daglegt brauð.
Fyrirgef oss vorar skuldir,
svo sem vér og fyrirgefum
vorum skuldunautum.
Og eigi leið þú oss í freistni,
heldur frelsa oss frá illu.
[Því að þitt er ríkið, mátturinn og dýrðin
að eilífu.]
Amen.
And Faroese:
Faðir vár, Tú, sum ert í Himli. Heilagt verði navn Títt.
Komi ríki Títt. Verði vilji Tín,
sum í Himli, so á jørð.
Gev okkum í dag okkara dagliga breyð.
Og fyrigev okkum syndir okkara,
so sum vit eisini fyrigeva teimum, ið móti okkum synda.
Leið okkum ikki í frestingum, men frels okkum frá tí illa.
Strangely they seem to skip the last sentence. It is a question how much longer they are going to stay conservative, it seems to be a very strong pressure on them to go the same way as we did, and when once gone down that road, it is no turning back.
There will be an election in their parliment soon about weather to ban negative discussions about homosexuality and discrimination in work places and such against homosexuals. There is a heavy pressure on them now to change these laws, when all the elite is against you, it is difficult to stand against it.
If you want to see pictures from a very beutiful, faroese cultural tradition, dating back for thousand years, you can go to a link here abowe into a thread called:
Our way of life.
Best wishes from Iceland, from a faroesephil, that will have to go there some time,
Leifur
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