101rvk

Film
26
Preserving
The Laxá Explosion
Blowing up dams and restrictions on democracy
Stills
It's dark and silent—nothing unusual around midnight by the river Laxá and lake Mývatn in the
north of Iceland. But somewhere behind the darkness, beneath the silence, something extraordinary
is about to happen. Suddenly, a dynamite explosion disturbs the silence—in what has gone
down in history as a single, but highly important step in a much greater movement of resistance.
More than a hundred farmers officially claimed responsibility
for the explosion, which annihilated a small
dam in the river on August 25, 1970. The area's inhabitants
were determined to prevent the construction of a
much bigger dam, which would have destroyed vast
quantities of this natural area, as well as most of the
surrounding farmlands.
Just as determined to keep the saboteurs away from
legal troubles, those who claimed responsibility kept a
strict policy of silence, making it hard for the authorities
to single out alleged leaders or protagonists. Now,
almost half a century and a saved river later, another
bang has broken that silence.
A WATERSHED ACT IN
ICELANDIC HISTORY
Namely, that is Grímur Hákonarson's documentary
‘Hvellur’ (“Bang”), which premièred at Bíó Paradís earlier
this year. Through dialogues with some of the participants,
many of whom still reside by the river, the
film tells the story of the Laxá conflict. “We kept all
commentators and university professors out,” Grímur
told me a few days before the première, “focusing instead
entirely on those who took part in it.”
The case is often considered the beginning of environmentalism
in Iceland. Shortly thereafter, Nobel
Prize-winning author Halldór Laxness wrote his famous,
hard-headed call-out for nature conservation—
titled ‘The Warfare Against the Land’—and the Laxá
conflict also brought about the Environmental Impact
Assessment, which up until then had been completely
absent in Iceland's energy production.
“What makes the Laxá conflict peculiar is that those
who resisted also succeeded,” Grímur says. “The
planned dam was never built and the area was saved.”
Four years later, parliament passed a law securing the
protection of Laxá and Mývatn, contributing to the explosion's
status as “the most remarkable and powerful
event in the history of environmentalism in Iceland,” as
Sigurður Gizurarson, the bomber’s defence lawyer, put it.
Celebrating the forty-year anniversary of the act in
August 2010, one of Iceland's most remarkable environmentalists,
Guðmundur Páll Ólafsson, remarked
that the act “literally saved the ecosystem of Mývatn
and Laxá.” He also maintained that the dynamite “blew
up a democracy-restriction imposed on the district's
inhabitants and all those who loved the land, by the authorities
and the board of Laxárvirkjun,” the company
that owned the dam. “The arrogance of the authorities
hovered over the land until the bomb exploded, but
then we became free—for a while.”
Sixty-five people were charged for sabotage, but no
one spoke out about any details and the Supreme Court
ended up handing out mild suspended sentences. The
film now reveals that there were three men responsible
for igniting the dynamite. Only one of them is still alive.
STILL THE BONE OF CONTENTION
In any case, exposing secrets is much less the film's
aim than documenting and preserving this extraordinary
story. And for a good reason—it could easily fall
into oblivion. “People over fifty remember this event
very well, but those who are younger don't really
know the story,” Grímur says, adding that during the
film's making, they were told numerous times that they
should have started filming much earlier, as many involved
have since passed away.
But how do those still alive recall these events today
“No one looks back regretfully, and most of them
are still politically radical, opposed to large-scale destruction
of natural areas for energy production. They
“What makes the Laxá conflict peculiar is
that those who resisted also succeeded.”
Laugavegur 54
are proud of the results of their act,” Grímur says.
But as Guðmundur Páll's words, “then we became
free—for a while,” imply, the plans had not been cancelled
for good. During the construction of the huge
Kárahnjúkar dams in Iceland's eastern highlands, a
new construction plan for Laxá was put on the drawing
table. However, as words of warning came from
Mývatn—including that the locals surely hadn't forgotten
how to use dynamite—the plans were later drawn
back. Siv Friðleifsdóttir, then Minister of the Environment,
stated that never before had she been so pleased
to cancel a project.
Many of Iceland's most remarkable natural areas
are still the bone of contention between environmentalists
and industrialists, including geothermal areas
close to Mývatn. Grímur doesn’t consider the film to
be part of the current conflict, but it doesn’t mean that
people won't feel some connection with today's most
pressing environmental issues. “One only needs to listen
to the debates in parliament,” Grímur concludes,
“to notice that the same old discussion is still going on
today.” - Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson