2009 Icelandic Financial Crisis Protests - Commentary

Commentary

Roger Boyes, of The Times argued the protests are part of a "new age of rebellion and riot" in Europe, in the background of similar protests caused by the financial crisis in Latvia, Bulgaria and the civil unrest in Greece, triggered by the police killing a teenager, but with deeper roots related to the financial crisis.

London School of Economics professor Robert Wade said that Iceland's government would fall within the coming days and Fredrik Erixon of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy compared the current situation with the French Revolution of 1789.

Eirikur Bergmann, an Icelandic political scientist, wrote in The Guardian that "While Barack Obama was being sworn in to office on Capitol Hill yesterday, the people of Iceland were starting the first revolution in the history of the republic. The word "revolution" might sound a bit of an overstatement, but given the calm temperament that usually prevails in Icelandic politics, the unfolding events represent, at the very least, a revolution in political activism." Valur Gunnarsson, also of The Guardian, writes that "Iceland's government was last night scrambling to avoid becoming the first administration to be ousted by the global financial crisis." He also writes that "The protesters have begun referring to their daily attempt to oust the government as a 'saucepan revolution', because of the noise-inducing pots and pans brought along to the protests."