On collective trauma and betrayal blindness

Or, why are Icelanders such suckers for abuse?

The other day I ran an AMA (ask me anything) on my other Substack newsletter, Letter from Iceland. One of the questions I received I think is better answered in this space, since it has to do with … well, you’ll see.

The question, from Liv, is this:

Hæ hæ 😃 I have been to Iceland a few times, and made some friends there, and have talked to a few over the years now. Out of every Icelander I have talked to, not a single one has supported Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn and the existing regime, everybody is outraged over everything that is going on with the politics, corruption and so on, but the same people keep getting elected over and over again. Why do you think that is? What is happening in Icelandic society in order to change things? I know there have been a few a bit desperate attempts to shake things up (Jón Gnarr in Reykjavik, The Pirate party a few years ago), but after a while everything seems to settle and things go back to the way they were before. Why are people drawn to vote for these people? Do you know?

The reason I think this question is better suited for this newsletter is because here I write (among other things) about trauma. And I believe that the Icelanders’ blindness when it comes to political corruption in this country is inextricably tied up with generational trauma. More specifically, with betrayal blindness.

Here’s why.

When an individual suffers a trauma, that trauma continues to affect him or her until it a) its impact is made conscious and b) it is systematically worked through in therapy or some other form of emotional/psychosomatic work. Unresolved trauma is always detrimental to the wellbeing of an individual, and can even be fatal.

I have come to realize that, in this respect, nations are no different to individuals. Nations, made up of a collective group of individuals, can also suffer trauma—and do, all the time. And until the nation, as a collective, works through its trauma, it will continue to play out in ways that are detrimental, and even deadly. I could name many, many examples of this, but I’m sure you can think of a few. If not, you need only to look at the news, especially right now.

Photo by Roan Lavery on Unsplash

For centuries the Icelandic nation was oppressed: downtrodden, impoverished and abused. For nearly seven centuries Iceland was a colony, first under Norwegian, and then Danish, rule. Like all colonies, it was exploited. The colonizers laid claim to our natural resources, which at that time were primarily fish and wool. They imposed a trading ban that made it illegal for Icelanders to trade goods with anyone else but them. This left the Icelandic nation abjectly poor, and starving.

Yet it was not only the colonizers who exploited the populace. The Icelandic elite, that comprised around 5 percent of the population, were actively engaged in oppressing the remaining 95 percent. The oppression was systemic and enforced by laws that provided the elite with cheap or free labour and ensured that the poor remained impoverished. Some of the ways this was achieved:

• Through the vistarband, which was a law that obliged all poor and landless people to have a place at a farm and work for the farmer as indentured servants. This law was in place for around 400 years.

• The only way for people to escape from this enforced servitude was to save enough money to start their own farm. However, this was almost impossible for them to do, at least during the years when they had the most energy, which also happened to be their reproductive years. Almost impossible, because their wages were negligible.

• If people had no land and were under the vistarband they were prohibited from marrying. If they had children out of wedlock they were subjected to severe fines, not to mention the scorn of the community.

• But say a couple had been able to save enough and had their own farm, which usually meant they were tenant farmers. If the breadwinner died (usually the man, and many, many men died at sea) the household was almost always dissolved, the family’s belongings were auctioned off, and the living parent was sent to be a labourer at another farm. This was done even if the remaining parent, who was most often a widow, could easily have continued farming by herself with the help of her children.

• When the dissolution of the household happened, the children were fostered out to other farms, which was usually not the farm where their parent was. “Fostered out” is a generous term, because they were effectively sold to the lowest bidder. The district paid a fee with each foster child, and the child was sent to whoever agreed to take them for the lowest price. These children were often subject to harsh treatment, including hard labour, and were very often malnourished.

• The fee paid by the district for the child accumulated as a debt that the district attempted to claim back from the surviving parent. But—again—farmhands earned hardly anything, especially women, so they were almost always unable to pay back the debt. Owing a debt to the district restricted their rights. They were, for instance, not allowed to marry again until the debt was paid.

This is a bullet-point, fairly incomprehensive summary of what the system was like back then. Still, you get the idea. Seven centuries of this—being a nonentity next to the privileged few—inflicted some deep wounds. There is no doubt in my mind that the trauma is embedded into the DNA of the Icelandic nation, as it has never been fully acknowledged and worked through. There is deep shame attached to this period in Icelandic history. In many families the experience of being a “dependent of the district” and owing a debt that could never be repaid was deeply shameful, and never talked about. Why, I do not know. After all, these people were at the mercy of a system that was against them from the start. They did nothing to call their fate upon themselves.

And so, back to the original question.

There is such a thing as betrayal blindness, which is closely connected to Stockholm Syndrome. Basically it happens when you are so dependent on your abuser or oppressor that facing the abuse or betrayal is life-threatening, so you become blind to it, and instead align yourself with the abuser. It’s a survival tactic.

The Icelandic commoners had no recourse when it came to the exploitation and abuse that they were subject to. They had to bend to it. Life was harsh, and there was no capacity for revolution. It was a matter of getting by, each and every day, malnourished, hungry, overworked, and physically and emotionally depleted.

This is the essence, I believe, of why we Icelanders continue to vote for people who exploit us, who appropriate our common resources, who get away with staggering instances of corruption—all with impunity. It is because betrayal blindness is coded into our DNA. It’s the shame about our past, the shame about being less-than, about being indentured and indebted, about being exploited and abused. We look at those who are “above” us—who live in big houses, drive fancy cars, have plenty of money to throw around, are generally revered and admired, and we are so blinded by our own generational trauma that we cannot get angry about the fact that they are taking our common resources from under our noses, and removing the profits to their bank accounts in foreign lands. Our own power and capacity for revolution eludes us. We become complacent, and sink into the familiar—being tossed scraps from the tables of the mighty.

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Did you know that you can buy hard cover versions of (most of) my books via my website? They make awesome Christmas gifts. 🎄✨ Paperback versions of my books are available via Amazon, ebook versions via most online ebook retailers, and audiobooks via Audible. You can also purchase ebooks and the audiobook version of Daughter directly from me via my website (this is best because it means I do not have to share the proceeds with a third party).

If you are interested in learning more about the Icelanders in centuries past, you may want to check out my Little Book of the Icelanders in the Old Days.

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