The Grass is not Greener in Iceland

“When reading your blog, I’m wondering if it would not be better to move somewhere else,” writes a friend. He lives in South Africa. His motivation is in part also to protect his wife and children from the high crime rate in the country.

My suggestion to him was to consider Northern Europe: Very low crime rate; prosperous; high on freedom of speech and religion.

And then, this morning another friend sent me the link to a blogpost by someone in Iceland. And suddenly Northern Europe doesn’t seem like such a good suggestion anymore. The blogger writes: “It’s like we know the system is broken, we know it’s gone, but we can’t see it. We can’t tell what’s real, what’s still there, and what are just the ghosts of yesterday, when Iceland was one of the richest countries in the world. A pale reflection of the golden age in Icelandic economy which is now going up in flames. Where’s the smoke?”

I don’t know how to end off this post. What does one say before the brink of disaster? I cannot even say God have mercy, ‘cause that will insinuate that God is somehow to blame and that I don’t believe for a minute. We are to blame. We humans, and our greed and selfishness, are to blame.