Have you ever heard of Iceland’s comedian mayor, Jón Gnarr? He had an unexpected and captivating rise to political power when he became the Mayor of Reykjavik, Iceland.
From Laughter to Leader
Jon Gnarr wasn’t your typical mayoral candidate. Before venturing into the volatile waves of politics, Gnarr was best known for his work as a comedian and actor. His satirical radio shows and television sketches were beloved in Iceland, making him a household name. But it was in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that Gnarr found a new stage for his talents.
Iceland was hit hard by the financial meltdown, leading to widespread public distrust in the political establishment. Sensing the public’s yearning for change and perhaps a bit of levity during tough times, Gnarr founded the Best Party in 2009.
It was a satirical political party that started almost as a joke but quickly gained serious momentum.
Gnarr’s campaign was anything but ordinary. Promising a polar bear for the Reykjavik Zoo, free towels at public swimming pools, and a drug-free Parliament by 2020, his platform was a mix of the absurd and the appealing.
The Best Party’s campaign video, set to Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best,” became a viral sensation, showcasing the party’s unique blend of humor and honesty.
What set Gnarr apart was not just his comedic background but his transparency and refusal to play by the unwritten rules of political campaigning. He openly admitted that some of his promises were not realistic. This honesty, oddly enough, resonated with a populace tired of the same old political rhetoric.
Becoming Iceland’s Comedian Mayor
To the shock of many, Jón Gnarr won the mayoral election in 2010. His victory was seen as a direct response to the public’s frustration with the traditional political class. But the big question loomed: Could a comedian effectively lead a city?
Gnarr’s tenure as mayor was as unconventional as his campaign. He often appeared at official events dressed in drag or as a Star Wars character, yet behind the humor was a serious commitment to change. He prioritized human rights, welfare, and culture, and while not all his policies were successful, he brought a fresh, more human face to Icelandic politics.
Challenges and Controversies
Leading a city was not all laughs for Gnarr. He faced criticism for his lack of political experience and some of his more unconventional approaches. Moreover, governing in coalition with the traditionally serious Independence Party posed its own set of challenges and compromises.
Yet, throughout his term, Gnarr maintained his unique style and approach, arguing that humor could be a powerful tool to address serious issues.
Jón Gnarr chose not to seek re-election after his term ended in 2014.
A jaw-dropping aerial video shared on social media shows a volcano erupting in Iceland on Monday.
Monday’s eruption, which began shortly after 10 p.m. local time, was not unexpected as scientists warned an one was looming, but the event was much larger than expected, according to media reports. The location of the more than 2.5-mile volcanic fissure, which is oozing lava through the cracks, poses a risk to a nearby power plant and town, the New York Times reports.
Scientists have been monitoring the situation for months after magma, which is molten rock beneath the ground, has been showing signs of erupting as lava in a volcanic explosion. Last week, researchers shared their latest findings, following tests around the Icelandic southwest region of Svartsengi.
Roads in the town of Keflavik, Iceland, are pictured as smoke billows with lava coloring the night sky orange from a volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula in western Iceland on December 18, 2023. A volcanic eruption began on Monday night following an earthquake swarm, Iceland’s Meteorological Office reported. Maria Steinunn Johannesdottir / AFP
Nahel Belgherze shared an incredible aerial video on X, formerly Twitter. The clip, which quickly amassed more than 800,000 views in less than 2 hours on the social media platform, also garnered nearly 10,000 likes and 4,000 shares.
“JUST IN: First aerial footage captured just minutes ago of the newly opened volcanic fissure near Grindavík, Iceland,” Nahel Belgherze posted on X. “It is estimated to be about 3 km long!”
JUST IN: First aerial footage captured just minutes ago of the newly opened volcanic fissure near Grindavík, Iceland.
Newsweek reached out via email on Monday night to the Icelandic Meteorological Office for an update.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said in an update on the volcanic eruption early Tuesday morning that the latest aerial observations and seismicity, show the fissure is “expanding to the south.”
“At the time of publication, the southern end of the fissure was close to Sundhnúkur,” the weather agency said in an online statement shortly after 2 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
During the first two hours of the eruption, the rate of lava discharge “was thought to be on a scale of hundreds of cubic meters per second, with the largest lava fountains on the northern end of the fissures,” according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
The agency said that real-time GPS measurements showed areas of “significant” ground deformation.
Around midnight local time, the level of seismicity at the eruption site began to decrease, the meteorological office said.
AccuWeather shared a video on X showing thick smoke that prompted road closures.
“Volcano erupts near Grindavik after weeks of intense earthquake activity,” AccuWeather posted on X. “Footage shows thick smoke wafting skyward and lava spewing from the volcano’s mouth. The Icelandic Road Administration announced the closure of all roads in the area.”
🚨 Iceland volcano erupts near Grindavik after weeks of intense earthquake activity.
Footage shows thick smoke wafting skyward and lava spewing from the volcano’s mouth. The Icelandic Road Administration announced the closure of all roads in the area. pic.twitter.com/V2aLBkJUrk
A volcanic eruption has begun in the southwest of Iceland after several weeks of relative calm in the area, threatening an evacuated fishing town, a power plant and the country’s main tourist attraction.
Lava is spewing out of the ground close to Grindavik, a town of about 3,700 inhabitants that had been emptied in early November following intense seismic activity. It sits on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of the capital.
The eruption began at 10:17 p.m. local time on Monday, the Met Office said. A Coast Guard helicopter will take off shortly to confirm the exact location and size of the eruption, it said. There are currently no disruptions to arrivals or departures at the main international airport, Keflavik.
“We have an effusive lava-producing eruption in a two-to-three kilometer fissure situated north of Grindavik with lava fountains reaching heights well above 100 meters (330 feet),” Thor Thordarson, professor in volcanology and petrology at University of Iceland, said by phone. “It’s a relatively high discharge eruption, definitely more than what we saw in the previous eruptions in this area.”
The whole peninsula had lain dormant for almost 800 years until early 2020, when intense seismic activity started and magma rose to the surface in 2021, only to emerge again in August 2022 and July this year.
The lava flows seen before Monday’s rupture were fissure eruptions producing no ash and located further away from inhabited areas and infrastructure. Eruptions that extend into the sea are more likely to become explosive, producing ash that could halt air traffic.
“I don‘t think this will have a huge effect on air traffic,” said Thordarson. “But potentially this will have a serious and significant impact on local communities and infrastructure including the town of Grindavik, the Blue Lagoon and Svartsengi power plant.”
In 2010, volcano Eyjafjallajokull in the southern part of the country released a vast plume of ash grounding air traffic across Europe for weeks. Air regulations have since changed, making any interruption less likely to be as widespread as in 2010.
Iceland, which has 30 volcanic systems and more than 600 hot springs, is one of the most geologically active places on earth, due to its position on the mid-Atlantic ridge where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates rift apart.
Though eruptions aren’t infrequent, residents haven’t experienced an event which threatens inhabited areas of this scale since an eruption in 1973 in the Westman Islands buried part of a town of some 5,000 people under lava.
Monday’s eruption is close to Iceland’s biggest tourist attraction, the Blue Lagoon, and the Svartsengi power plant owned by HS Orka hf, which provides heat to about 30,000 inhabitants of peninsula, as well as other businesses centered around geothermal heat.
“For Grindavik, it unfortunately looks like this is the worst possible location for an eruption,” Thordarson said.
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RESIDENTS in Iceland have been urged to abandon their homes as a volcano closes in on its fourth eruption in two years.
Grindavik residents were told to flee to safety by local authorities after 1,000-strong earthquakes shook the Fagradalsfjall volcano into activity earlier this week.
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The Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland is on course for its fourth eruption in two yearsCredit: AFP
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The volcano first erupted in 2021Credit: Getty
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Cracks have already begun to appear on roads due to volcanic activity near a golf course in the town of GrindavikCredit: Reuters
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Iceland has been put into nationwide panic after 1,000-strong earthquakes shook the Fagradalsfjall volcano into activity earlier this weekCredit: vafri.is
It’s feared that a catastrophic eruption could be imminent following the seismic activity three miles below the surface of the Reykjanes Peninsula.
The Icelandic government have since declared a statement of emergency, just two years on from the previous explosion that led to a months-long disaster.
4,000 residents have already been evacuated from Grindavik, a town 25 miles southwest of the capital Reykjavik, with an eruption even possible within “hours or days”.
That’s according to Thorvaldur Thordarson, professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, who told state broadcaster RUV that the chances of an eruption have “increased significantly”.
The quakes and ground lift caused by the magma intrusion have already caused damage to roads and buildings in Grindavik and its surroundings.
A large crack also tore up the greens on the Grindavik golf course, an image widely shared on social media networks.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office, issuing an update on the Fagradalsfjall volcano, said: “There are indications that a considerable amount of magma is moving in an area.
“The amount of magma involved is significantly more than what was observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the eruptions at Fagradalsfjall.”
Scientists have warned that the Fagradalsfjall volcano could produce an eruption even worse than the one in 2021.
Seismic activity measured just a month before that event saw “very similar” activity patterns to those reported on Saturday.
The volcano had been dormant for over 800 years prior to its eruption two years ago, which lasted for six months.
After a few weeks, new fissures formed and new vents started to open while others became inactive.
At one point, six craters were erupting simultaneously.
A second eruption then happened on August 3, 2022, before a third took place on July 10, 2023.
There are now fears that a fourth is on the way after recent rumblings and 1,400 seismic shifts in the last week left experts rattled.
As a result, a state of emergency is in effect with “mandatory evacuation” of Grindavik and the Svartsengi Power Station.
Severe weather expert Nahel Belgherze wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Data from the meteorological office indicate that a magma tunnel has extended under Grindavik.
“That’s why the town was evacuated and the Civil Defence Level of Danger was declared.
“It cannot be ruled out that a volcanic fissure may open within the town limits.”
Some roads have already closed, while the popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa resort shut down earlier this week as a precaution.
A magma tunnel that is forming could reach Grindavik, although the Icelandic authority said it’s impossible to tell if and where the magma might break through.
Iceland has 33 active volcanoes, the highest number in Europe.
That includes the Eyjafjallajokull volcano which erupted in 2010 and caused enormous disruption to air travel across western Europe.
While this eruption is not expected to be as big, the UK foreign office has already warned travellers that “no travel can be guaranteed safe”.
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The Fagradalsfjall volcano has already caused significant damage following a number of earthquakes this weekCredit: Reuters
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Around 4,000 people from Grindavik have already left their homes after the Icelandic government issued a mandatory evacuationCredit: Reuters
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The Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted as recently as JulyCredit: AP
Making fun of the headlines today, so you don’t have to
The news, even that about pilots on magic mushrooms, doesn’t need to be complicated or confusing; that’s what any new release from Microsoft is for. And, as in the case with anything from Microsoft, to keep the news from worrying our pretty little heads over, remember something new and equally indecipherable will come out soon:
Really all you need to do is follow one simple rule: barely pay attention and jump to conclusions. So, here are some headlines today and my first thoughts:
Flying high on magic mushrooms.
The pilot on Alaskan Airways flight that shut down the engines was on magic mushrooms
I’m shocked, shocked he could get anything to eat on a flight.
‘Cursed’ Ted Cruz shows up at Astros game and you can guess what happened
Would’ve gotten away with it, but they came back for a free refill.
President Biden calls for assault weapon ban and other measures to curb gun violence
Hey, we should at least change its name from an AR-15 to an AR-19, so Matt Gaetz won’t be interested it in.
Pennsylvania trio bought a $100K abandoned school and turned it into a packed 31-unit apartment complex
Instead of eviction, they’re sent to detention …
Britney Spears reveals she lived in Orlando with Justin Timberlake in the early 2000s
George Santos: Me, too.
Taylor Swift to be joined by Travis Kelce during the international leg of her ‘Eras’ tour
Wondering, if Taylor Swift did a tour of only songs about old boyfriends, would it be called the ‘Errors’ tour?
RIP Richard Roundtree
They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother. Shut your mouth. God speed.
‘Sponge bombs’ are Israel’s new secret weapon to block Hamas tunnels
That would certainly be ‘sponge’ worthy …
Iceland’s prime minister joins thousands of women on strike
Now, that’s cold …
Larry Elder drops out of the race for President
… Surprising people that he was in the race for President.
Only 2 of the 8 House Speaker candidates voted to certify Biden’s win
The others were just certifiable.
Bulldog ‘thinks she’s a cow’ and the video evidence is priceless
Owners decide not to tell her because they need the milk.
Trump claims he doesn’t know who gave Fauci presidential award. It was him
… Trump: I never met me. Maybe I got myself coffee once. And, besides, I never liked me anyway …
Paul Lander is not sure which he is proudest of — winning the Noble Peace Prize or sending Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege to accept it on his behalf, bringing to light the plight of African women in war-torn countries. In his non-daydreaming hours, Paul has written for Weekly Humorist, National Lampoon, American Bystander, Huff Post Comedy, McSweeney’s, Bombeck Writers Workshop Blog and the Humor Times, written and/or produced for multiple TV shows and written standup material that’s been performed on Maher, The Daily Show, Colbert, Kimmel, etc. Now, on to Paul’s time-commanding Special Forces in Khandahar… (See all of Paul’s “Ripping the Headlines Today” columns here.)
The kvennafrí, or “women’s day off,” includes both paid and unpaid work, and protests the gender pay gap and gender-based violence in the Nordic island nation.
“As you know, we have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023,” Jakobsdóttir told a local news outlet ahead of the protest. “I will not work this day, as I expect all the women [in cabinet] will do as well.”
The strike is a nod to Oct. 24, 1975, when 90% of women in Iceland took a day off from work and domestic duties. The national strike ultimately led to historic changes that advanced gender parity, including prompting parliament to pass an equal pay law the following year. In 1980, Iceland also became the first country in the world to elect a female as head of state.
Those protesting say that Iceland, despite ranking first in the world for gender equality by the World Economic Forum for the last 14 years, has consistently undervalued and underpaid women in traditionally female-dominated jobs like cleaning, childcare, and caregiving. The WEF puts Iceland’s median wage gap between women and men at 21% in its latest report, though the OECD and others say the gap is closer to 10%—still wider than in other European countries like Belgium and Italy.
“Systemic wage discrimination still affects women, and gender-based violence is a pandemic that must be eradicated,” organizers said ahead of the strike.
The planned strike has led to the closure of streets and schools, as well as the postponement of the day’s parliamentary session.
While it is hard to gauge the exact number of people expected to participate, experts say some 90% of women are likely to have stopped working for the day. BSRB, the country’s biggest federation of public worker unions, is also taking part in the strike, along with 31 associations.
“Workers from all major industries are taking part: healthcare workers, teachers, service workers, finance workers, care workers, energy workers, etc,” Sonja Yr Porbergssdottir, chair of the Icelandic Federation for Public Workers, told The Independent.
The strike will likely affect sectors like healthcare and education most, where women form the majority of the workforce. Ninety-four percent of all kindergarten teachers are women, according to the Icelandic Teachers’ Union, while 80% of workers in the National University Hospital of Iceland, the country’s largest hospital, are women.
When Nuria Shamsed* was a child, she would sit with her family in front of her grandparents’ house on the outskirts of the Western Chinese city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang region and watch the summer sun set at about midnight.
Kashgar is not located particularly far north – it is approximately at the same latitude as the Turkish capital, Ankara, where sundown is several hours earlier.
But the sun goes down late in the Kashgar night because the Chinese Communist Party decided that all of China must operate in the same time zone as Beijing.
This means that clocks in Kashgar are about three hours ahead of the time that the city’s geographical location actually dictates.
“The midnight sunsets with my family are among the fondest memories I have from my childhood in Xinjiang,” 26-year-old Shamsed told Al Jazeera, speaking from her new home in San Diego, California, the United States.
“But at the same time, the phenomenon also shows how the Chinese authorities want to control everything in Xinjiang – even our time,” she said.
Police officers patrol the square in front of Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, in 2021 [File: Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Time is political in China, says Yao-Yuan Yeh, who teaches Chinese history and politics at the University of St Thomas in Houston, the US, and is used to instil a sense of interconnection and control.
“It is used to reinforce the official narrative of a Chinese nation united under the rule of the Communist Party,” Yeh explained.
Time zones are constructs that are constantly being renegotiated, and in few places has this been more true than in China and elsewhere in Asia.
Xinjiang’s provincial capital, Urumqi, is geographically two hours behind Beijing, and Zaydun recounts that when he attended university in Urumqi in the 1980s and 1990s, some of his fellow Uighur students deliberately arrived two hours late for class if classes were only listed in Beijing time.
“They believed that Xinjiang time should be used in Xinjiang, and there was a sense that as an Uighur there was a responsibility to uphold the local time,” Zaydun told Al Jazeera from Maryland in the US.
Therefore, many local shops and businesses in Urumqi also opened and closed following a two-hour time difference in adherence to the local time over Beijing time.
“If you openly challenge the Beijing time now, you can be prosecuted for subversion,” he says.
“My elderly mother never used Beijing time before, but then a few years ago she suddenly started using Beijing time when we talked on the phone because she feared the consequences if she didn’t.”
Canadian-Uighur activist Rukiye Turdush says enforcing the use of Beijing time in Xinjiang is just one of many ways the Chinese authorities are trying to dilute the Uighur identity, alongside means such as social control, large-scale surveillance and mass detentions.
“Language, religion, culture, space and time are all elements of the Uighur national identity that the Chinese are trying to tear apart in Xinjiang,” Turdush says.
Other minorities in China are also experiencing that the keeping of time is the strict preserve of China’s central authorities.
“For other minorities in China’s outer regions such as the Tibetans and the Mongolians time is also controlled from Beijing,” says Yeh of the University of St Thomas.
Although there are practical and economic advantages to a single time zone, the impetus for standardisation was more about a signal the Chinese Communist Party wanted to send when it came to power in 1949.
“The Chinese state did not exercise full control over China before 1949, but the Communists sought to change that in order to consolidate and legitimise their power in China,” Yeh explains.
In pursuing that mission, controlling time became part of an official narrative about a China united under the party’s rule, which spurred the creation of a single time zone that temporally aligned the entire country with Beijing.
“Due to that, the authorities have taken a tougher stance against any kind of separatist notions among the minority groups, including any ideas about belonging to a separate time zone,” Yeh says.
Time is sovereignty
China is not the only place where time is shaped more by politics than by geography.
One look at the jigsaw puzzle that constitutes the world’s distribution of time zones clearly indicates this and recent events in Ukraine are a case in point.
In January, Russian authorities announced that annexed regions of Ukraine were to switch from Ukrainian time to Moscow time.
A wall clock with a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen in this photo illustration taken in a hotel room in Kazan, Russia, in 2015 [File: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters]
In March, Greenland also moved one hour closer to Europe.
Time can also be used by minorities to fight back against state power.
During the 25-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka between the central government and the Tamil Tigers, the government introduced a time change that set the country’s clock back half an hour. However, the Tamil Tigers refused to recognise and implement the change in 1996 in the areas of the island under their control, meaning Sri Lanka effectively existed in two different time zones simultaneously.
Just as time is used politically within the borders of nations, it is also used politically between the borders of nations.
The shift was defended as a belated reckoning with Japanese imperialists that had deprived Korea historically of its time – a reference to the early 20th century when the Japanese, as Korea’s then-colonial rulers, brought the country into the same time zone as the Empire of Japan.
A man adjusts his wristwatch in front of a clock tower in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo taken by Kyodo in 2018 [File: Kyodo via Reuters]
In fact, the establishment of modern timekeeping traces its roots back to the colonial era and it was the world’s colonial powers that confirmed the global time zone system during a conference in the US in 1884, according to Karl Benediktsson, who has studied the connection between politics and time zones at the University of Iceland.
According to Benediktsson, it is revealing that the modern time zone system is based around the so-called Greenwich meridian, or the prime meridian, which runs through Greenwich in London.
“The prime meridian could technically have been placed anywhere, but it was centred around London because Great Britain was the leading power at the time,” Benediktsson says.
While the time zone system established by Britain and the other colonial powers in the 19th century remains largely the same as the system still in use today, the division of the world within time zones has changed frequently since the dismantling of Europe’s colonial empires.
And the repositioning of postcolonial states on the world map has also led to some new and novel time zones.
The Rajabai Clock Tower in Mumbai, India [File: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]
For example, when India gained independence from Britain in 1947, it abolished Mumbai time and Kolkata time and established Indian time as the country’s only official time.
Nepal has aligned its own time zone with the peak of the sacred Gaurishankar Mountain, located east of Kathmandu, which places the country within a quarter-hour time zone unlike most other states that position their time keeping within a certain hourly time zone or more rarely within a half-hour time zone.
Time zones are constructed
The jigsaw puzzle that makes up the map of time zones across borders and around the world reflects the many political considerations and histories at play in the creation of clock time.
Shifting geopolitical circumstances also means that the world’s time zone puzzle will likely continue to change into the future, according to the University of Iceland’s Benediktsson.
“I usually say that time zones are social constructions,” says Benediktsson, noting that the placement of countries within certain time zones was determined by people and can therefore be changed by people over and over again.
Workers are pictured beneath clocks displaying time zones in various parts of the world at an outsourcing centre in Bengaluru [File: Vivek Prakash/Reuters]
Reflecting back on her youth and observing the sun set at midnight during summer time in her native Kashgar, Nuria Shamsed believes that the enduring difference between local time and Beijing’s official time in Xinjiang demonstrates the power of people over timekeeping.
Attempts to deny the observance of local time is another tool to deprive Uighurs of their identity, Shamsed says.
“Time should not be a tool used by authoritarians to pursue their imperialist ambitions,” she says.
“I also consider it a human rights violation when Uighurs in Xinjiang do not have a say in what time defines their lives.”
*Nuria Shamsed is a pseudonym created to respect the source’s request for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.
While a “pretty thought” to express, the assumption made by most (realists) when Beyoncé said, “Who run the world? Girls” back in 2011 was that it was a more “metaphorical” sentiment. For it certainly didn’t apply in practice to the political arena: the sole source of true power on Planet Earth (apart from “billionaire businessman”). Not then, and not even now. Yes, there have been “strides,” but, at present, only about seven percent of women comprise leadership positions in high-ranking government roles. As of 2022, only thirteen countries were represented by women as a Head of State. Sadly, this will no longer include Jacinda Ardern, the beloved prime minister of New Zealand who has decided to step down from her role in February of 2023 and let someone else take on all the stress that comes with it. Ardern was an especially remarkable “anomaly” in the political arena because she was the youngest woman to become a head of state, and then did that one better by becoming the second female head of state to give birth while in office. Proving that, yes, women really can do it all. Often because they’re not given much of a choice.
Ardern’s decision to leave her post, however, proves that when a woman is given the opportunity not to have to juggle it all, she should take it. And Ardern was very candid in openly declaring, “I know what this job takes and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple. We need a fresh set of shoulders for that challenge.” This is something that, clearly, most men would fail to admit. Complete with “statesmen” like Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and Joe Biden taking on the presidency at an age that calls into question a particular mental fitness required for such a rigorous job. Or what should be a rigorous job if one is actually doing it. Nonetheless, these men are given the green light to take on positions they have no business “performing” (and it is all ultimately just a performance for them).
But Beyoncé clearly didn’t want to think about that when she touted repeatedly, “Who run the world? Girls.” In addition to, “My persuasion [read: vagina]/Can build a nation/Endless power/With our love we can devour.” But it’s obviously the hate-driven subjugation spurred by men that has continued to succeed in this life. With messages of hate, if we’re being honest with ourselves, truly winning out over “radical love.”
What’s more, the type of women that do seek power often end up being walking examples—see: Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, Marjorie Taylor Greene—of internalized misogyny within the very gender that should seek to obliterate it at all costs. The only shining beacon of that obliteration has been Iceland (whose current prime minister is Katrín Jakobsdóttir). This not only being the first country to have a female president with the election of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1980, but also the first openly gay (female or otherwise) president in the form of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who took office in 2009. And it was Finnbogadóttir who said that her election would not have been possible without Kvennafrídagurinn, or the Women’s Day Off strike that took place on Friday, October 24, 1975. On this day, ninety percent of Iceland’s female population participated in the strike, which entailed not going to their jobs or doing housework/child care of any kind.
The intent, of course, was to show men “the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society.” That indispensability wasn’t just in Iceland, but worldwide. And yet, Iceland remains among the few countries with something vaguely resembling gender parity. So sure, if Beyoncé was thinking about Iceland when she sang “Run the World (Girls),” the lyrics might apply. For even Finland, for all its Scandinavian progressiveness in having a youthful female prime minister like Sanna Marin, couldn’t avoid the “scandal” that arose when videos of Marin drinking and partying at a private residence with her friends leaked to the public. The question of whether or not a man in power would be subject to even half as much scrutiny was immediately raised by women, including those who showed support for Marin’s right to party by posting videos of themselves drinking, dancing and generally having a good time in the wake of her “moral fitness” being put under a microscope. Indeed, a woman having a good time is still a cardinal sin in most men’s eyes—especially when she’s in a position of authority. Authority that is constantly undermined by male judgment, hypocritical accusations and a general petulant outcrying. All designed to somehow “prove” that women are “inept” and “too emotional” to shoulder the responsibility of running a nation. Cue the abrupt record scratch sound effect over the tune of this song potentially playing over an election win for Hillary Clinton.
Even Beyoncé’s lyrics don’t provide much in the way of a “vote of confidence” for female capability as she says things like, “This goes out to all my girls/That’s in the club rocking the latest.” As though the highest achievement a woman can reveal to accent her “power” is being well-dressed in the most expensive garb. Which is ultimately just a reiteration of the stereotype of women’s frivolity (hear also: “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”) more than a “boosting” commentary on a woman’s ability to pay for her own shit. To that point, Beyoncé also declares, “I work my nine to five [no she doesn’t], better cut my check.” This being yet another prime instance of Beyoncé pretending to act like she’s ever been a part of the conventional working world (with the “nine to five” trope also cropping up in “Haunted” via the lyrics, “Workin’ nine to five/Just to stay alive/How come?”). The most recent sonic illustration of that being “Break My Soul,” during which she urges the masses to quit their job by insisting, in this alternate universe where she’s an office worker, “I just quit my job I’m gonna find new drive/Damn, they work me so damn hard/Work by nine, then off past five [once again, Bey clearly hasn’t updated herself on what more modern working hours are]/And they work my nerves/That’s why I cannot sleep at night.” Really? It has nothing to do with the pain of a lie like, “Who run the world? Girls”?
For what Beyoncé is really alluding to in that song is the Lysistrata-based fact that women “run the world” with their sexual power (e.g., “You’ll do anything for me”—yeah, because pussy runs dick, hence the term, “Pussy Power”). As Samantha Jones once said of giving head (as opposed to head of state), “The sense of power is such a turn-on—maybe you’re on your knees, but you got him by the balls.” This being one of those things women have to tell themselves in order to keep going. That no matter how demeaned they are, they still have their ultimate power: the threat of withholding sex (once more: Lysistrata). And even that isn’t much of a source of power when it’s so often ripped from them through sexual assault.
To boot, what will become of that power in a world ever-changing with regard to gender fluidity and sexuality? It seems that’s the real reason “conventional” women like Giorgia Meloni end up in high government positions: to somehow ensure that they can keep what little power they have with the cisgender straight white males who actually run the world by championing discriminatory practices that exclude trans and LGTQIA+ rights. It’s a bleak reality, to be sure—but it is reality. And according the UN’s prognostications for gender parity in government at the current rate, it will remain a reality for another “130 years.” At which time, most of the population will probably be dead because of male decisions made (or rather, not made) about how to conserve what’s left of the environment.
To add insult to the injury of it all, Beyoncé chose to kick off 2023 by performing in the United Arab Emirates—even if somewhere as “progressive” as Dubai. Where laws against women (including a husband’s “right” beat his wife) are notoriously not in favor of the Bey-backed sentiment regarding women running the world (but “principles” tend to go effortlessly out the window when one is paid twenty-four million dollars to lose them). Not to mention the Emirates being very anti-LGBTQIA+ a.k.a. the community that Bey freely pillaged from for her Renaissance album.
In short, it’s pretty hard evidence that she’s not all that committed to making a point about women running the world in any way other than “symbolically.” And the same goes for women like Meloni, who actively seek to reinforce the patriarchal system we’re trapped in by working “within it” instead of against it.
“The need for a new economic model has never been clearer,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told CNBC. “Which I think is why we’re seeing such growing interest in the well-being economy approach, both here in Scotland and around the world.”
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LONDON — For a small but growing network of countries, the world’s go-to metric of economic health is no longer fit for purpose.
Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. The coalition, which is expected to expand in the coming months, aims to transform economies around the world to deliver shared well-being for people and the planet by 2040.
That means abandoning the idea that the percentage change in gross domestic product is a good indicator of progress, and instead reframing economic policy to deliver quality of life for all people in harmony with the environment.
“The need for a new economic model has never been clearer,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told CNBC. “Which I think is why we’re seeing such growing interest in the well-being economy approach, both here in Scotland and around the world.”
Encouraging other policymakers to consider an economic approach centered on well-being, Sturgeon said multiple global crises, such as the climate emergency, biodiversity loss and the cost-of-living crisis, “raise fundamental questions about what we value — and what our economies are actually for.”
“Building a wellbeing economy is a huge challenge for any country, at any time, and the current crises we are facing make it harder — but they also underline why we need to make this transformation as a matter of urgency,” Sturgeon said. “We’ve made progress over the past five years, but we still have much more to do.”
I often say that we need to shift from power, profit and patriarchy to people, planet and prosperity.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève
Co-president of the Club of Rome
In just the last few months, New Zealand published its first national Wellbeing Report; the European Union recognized the need to shift to a well-being economy; and the World Health Organization launched an initiative that calls for well-being to be at the heart of economic recovery.
Australia, Canada and Costa Rica are among some of the countries to have worked closely with the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership in recent months, and “post-growth” advocates believe it is just a matter of time before more countries embrace the well-being movement. A post-growth society is one that resists the demand for constant economic growth.
Dominick Stephens, chief economic advisor at the Treasury in New Zealand, hailed the country’s first well-being report as a “landmark moment,” saying it aims to provide lawmakers with a big-picture view of what life is like in the South Pacific nation.
“We want to look beyond GDP to understand progress, but we don’t have a singular measure of wellbeing — so we need to look across a range of indicators and evidence to understand progress in this broader sense,” Stephens told CNBC.
“This helps us all to understand where New Zealand is doing well, where we are lagging and how wellbeing is experienced differently for different people in our country.”
Among the findings published on Nov. 24, the report highlighted the wide and growing gap between the well-being of older citizens and that of younger citizens, with older citizens faring better on a range of metrics.
Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership.
Fiona Goodall | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Treasury identified three priority areas in need of improvement: mental health; educational achievement; and housing affordability and quality.
Stephens said that while the report would not be the final word, it’s now up to New Zealanders to decide on the extent to which they are concerned about those issues and the actions needed to address them.
“We do not have a silver bullet in New Zealand on how to do Wellbeing Reporting well,” Stephens said. “Different countries have taken different approaches. We are, in some ways, building the plane as we fly it.”
“More countries trying different approaches to integrating wellbeing analysis into policy means more opportunities for New Zealand, and other countries, to learn from the experiences of others,” he added.
The gathering momentum for a transformation of the current economic system comes half a century after the Club of Rome think tank published its groundbreaking “Limits to Growth” report.
The 1972 book warned that the planet’s resources would not be able to support the exponential rates of economic and population growth and would therefore collapse before the end of this century. Broadly speaking — and following a sharp backlash to its dire predictions at the time — the world has gone down the path that the book’s authors predicted it would.
“If they hadn’t realized it 50 years ago that we already needed to shift, I think now is the time because we are confronted with a polycrisis,” Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome think tank, told CNBC via telephone.
The term “polycrisis” refers to crises that occur in multiple global systems and become entangled in such a way that they produce harms greater than those crises would in aggregate.
“Not only is our planet sick from continued growth scenarios, because we have gone way beyond a healthy use of natural resources, but our people are getting increasingly sick, and our young people are making less and less money,” Dixson-Declève said.
When asked whether that means she believes there is no alternative to a well-being strategy, Dixson-Declève replied, “Yes, absolutely. I often say that we need to shift from power, profit and patriarchy to people, planet and prosperity.”
U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy once said a country’s GDP measures everything “except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Critics of GDP, which represents the total value of goods and services over a specific time period, argue that the indicator is misleading because it measures “the good, the bad and the ugly” of economic activity and calls it all good.
GDP does not, for instance, take into account unpaid work, nor does it distinguish between economic activity which contributes positively or negatively to the health and well-being of people and the natural environment.
I think it just shows our lack of imagination. We can’t even imagine an economy that is better than growth.
Katherine Trebeck
Co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance
In the U.K., Rishi Sunak said in his first speech as prime minister that his predecessor Liz Truss was not wrong to want to improve economic growth in the country. “It is a noble aim,” Sunak said outside Downing Street on Oct. 25.
Three months earlier, opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said Britain needed three things to fix its broken social contract. “Growth. Growth. And growth.”
“I think it just shows our lack of imagination. We can’t even imagine an economy that is better than growth,” said Katherine Trebeck, co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a network of academics, businesses and social movements.
“The best we can do is put some nice adjectives in front of growth — sustainable growth, green growth, inclusive growth, shared growth — but we are almost not allowed to entertain the prospect that a growing economy is a 20th-century recipe,” she added.
“High-income nations have got enough in overall terms but there are huge profound inequalities within the richest countries. So, what they need to do is think about how to share and cherish those resources,” Trebeck said.
“I use the phrase that they need to recognize that they’ve arrived. The job of growth has been done and they need to now move to a second project which is about making themselves at home.”
Trebeck described well-being economics as a “picnic blanket term,” which encompasses movements such as “degrowth,” “doughnut” economics or circular and regenerative models rather than an alternative policy.
“I think there is a profound moral obligation [on high-income countries] because they are taking up more than their ecological fair share which is implicitly saying that countries around the world that don’t have enough to meet the basic material needs of their citizens are effectively going to stay there,” Trebeck said.
“It is about really saying how do we live fairly on this one finite planet?”
The push to look beyond economic growth comes at a time of growing calls to end fossil fuel production worldwide.
“Basically, with a growth commitment, you have a commitment to more energy and material use which then consequently results in environmental impacts — and it makes decarbonization harder,” Julia Steinberger, ecological economist at the University of Lausanne, told CNBC via telephone.
“What you need to do for decarbonization is you need to stop using all fossil fuels and replace energy demand with renewable or low or zero-carbon energy sources and that is harder to do [and] it is going to take longer to do if we have constantly growing energy demand,” Steinberger said. “That’s the climate case for it.”
The South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu last month became the first country to use the U.N.’s annual climate summit to push for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The European Parliament, the Vatican and WHO have all backed the proposal.
But only a handful of small countries have endorsed the initiative to date, and the fossil fuel industry has typically sought to underline the importance of energy security in the planned transition to renewables.
The burning of fossil fuels — such as coal, oil and gas — is the chief driver of the climate emergency.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also recently joined a chorus of voices calling for GDP to be dropped as the world’s go-to indicator of economic growth, pushing instead for policymakers to shift to a circular economy.
This refers to an economic system that is based on the reuse and repair of materials to extend the life cycle of products for as long as possible and moves away from the world’s current “take, make, throw away” model.
“We need to change course — now — and end our senseless and suicidal war against nature,” Guterres said at a major international environmental meeting in early June.
“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond Gross Domestic Product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing,” Guterres said. “Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP. GDP is not a way to measure richness in the present situation in the world.”
