The Icelandic Kitchenware Revolution (Communications & Media Research Paper)

The Icelandic Kitchenware Revolution
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
The Icelandic Kitchenware Revolution
Introduction
In the aftermath of the financial crisis in Iceland, the 2009-2011 Icelandic protests, also termed as Kitchen Implement, Kitchenware, or Pots and Pans Revolution, emerged to address the financial crisis. From October 2008, there were demonstrations against how the governments of Iceland handled the financial turmoil (Grenier & Hafsteinsson, 2016). In 2009, the demonstrations reached the parliament in Reyjavik with the thousands who gathered at the parliament on 20th January marked as the highest protests in the history of the nation. This marked a crucial step in the history of the country, marking its first ever revolution. As such, deeper analysis and understanding of the revolution is presented in this analysis. The analysis presents the following; an historical analysis of how and why the social movement emerged; an explanation of how the participants of the social movement understood or interpreted the oppression they sought to challenge; the activities of the social movement, its participants, visions, strategies, dissemination of information and mobilization; what the social movement achieved, didn’t achieve or has yet to achieve in terms of the movement itself, and its communicative properties; and also presents a detailed explanation of what adversaries say about the social movement, and whether or not I agree/disagree with their perspective and what I have discounted as merely rhetoric.
Historical Analysis of how and why the social movements you have chosen has emerged.
The major grievances addressed by angry protesters included government officials vacate offices for new elections. Therefore, demonstrations continued until key old government resignations occurred in the Independence Party’s right wing. The changes led to formation of a new left left-wing government in 2009, whose reforms included prosecution of government officials such as former Prime Minister Geir Haarde before Landsdуmur (Hall, 2017). There followed referenda that sought to know if the Icelandic people would support financial settlement of the Icesave debt. These changes started with formation of an independent board of 25 elected citizens who formed a Constitutional Assembly to formulate Iceland’s new constitution. Despite facing several legal complications, on 29 July 2011, the Constitutional Council formed by some of the 25 member non-political party representatives wrote and presented a Constitutional Draft.
Explain how the participants of the social movement understood or interpreted the oppression they sought to challenge. Who were the dominate and subordinate groups.
The protests majorly focused on the financial turmoil of 2008 where three main commercial banks collapsed. According to the Economist, this failure was the largest of its kind globally in history compared to the population size of Iceland (Landstrцm, 2015). The real protests of 2009 highlighted government pressure to restore major sectors of the economy. For instance, the first day in parliament for the Icelandic coalition government convened after Christmas to discuss issues such as smoking areas in food joints and if shops should sell alcohol.
Although protesters continued to air their grievances through mass action that included stoning the parliament building, the high tension between the people and government did not change the situation as the government continued to show its arrogance and lack of cooperation under closed doors. Therefore, the heightened protests of 20th January 2009 took a new mechanism where thousands surrounded the parliament buildings with pots and saucers to draw political attention, hence termed as Kitchenware Revolutioon.
Explain what the social movement achieved, didn’t achieve or has yet to achieve in terms of the movement itself, and its communicative properties.
Despite the challenges that the revolutionists faced, they made several achievements. In 2009-2010, the revolution led to changes in the constitution and citizen forums. The protests led to the parliament passing the Constitutional Act on 16th June 2010, and also summoned a new Forum. According to the Act, members of the Forum were to be sampled randomly from the National Population Register (Hall, 2020). This was decided to ensure participants were reasonably distributed within the country and equality in gender representation. This shows that the social movement achieved equality in terms of reasonable distribution across the country and gender representation. Further, the government initiated the National Forum 2010 on 6th November 2010, and it included the 950 members who had been selected randomly. A 700-page document was also drafted to act as the guide for constitutional changes, implying that the social movement also led to constitutional changes in the country (Carr, Sanchez, & Daros, 2020). Overall, the formation of the Forum 2010 was a combined effort of the Anthill Group and the governing parties, further showing the achievements of the Kitchenware Revolution.
Further, the protests against the economic and political neviornment in the country led to the drafting of new constitution. The constitution was presented on 29th July 2011, creating the need for a referendum on the adoption of the new constitution. The parliament agreed that voting would be on 24th May, 2012; 35 voted in favor while 15 voted against (Casado da Rocha & Calzada, 2020). In this case, it shows that the protests by the Kitchenware Revolution eventually resulted in meaningful constitutional changes. The protests also led to the parliament considering the concerns raised by the people and the need to address then if peace was to be restored in the country. Further, the voting results by the parliamentarians show that the protests led to majorit...