Foreigners? No way!
"Foreigners need not apply," reads the underlined text.
A classified ad placed in a recent edition of the Icelandic Fréttablaðið newspaper is causing something of a stir on social media. “Reliable woman wanted for cleaning work. Good wages. Foreigners need not apply,” reads the controversial text.
Heated debate
The advert was picked up and posted on the ‘United against Racism and Xenophobia in Iceland’ Facebook page. The poster questions the legality of the wording used in the advertisement and suggests that Fréttablaðið was irresponsible to have let the advert through and published it.
The post was subsequently shared on a Facebook group serving the needs of Iceland’s expatriate community and has generated a rather heated debate. Since the image was made available at around 11pm last night, over 100 comments have been posted. As always with these things, a range of views are expressed.
“Illegal”
Many posters make the point that, as far as they are concerned, discriminating on the basis of race or gender (the advertiser wants a woman of Icelandic nationality) is illegal under Icelandic law. Others defend the advertiser’s right to lay down specific requirements for their potential future employee. Some indicate that such an advertisement would be entirely unthinkable back in their home country.
A language issue?
Most posters hazard a guess that the motivation behind the nationality stipulation was a language-based one, i.e. that the advertiser does not speak any other language than Icelandic. Others point out that, if this is indeed the key to our advertiser’s controversial formulation, we are dealing with the unacceptable assumption that no foreigners can speak Icelandic. “What about all those expatriates who are fluent in Icelandic?” wonder some posters.
Passions run high
Perhaps the advertiser is wholly innocent and has simply fallen foul of the perceived interchangeability of the words ‘foreigner’ and ‘a non-speaker of Icelandic’. Perhaps we are dealing with an example of real xenophobia. Perhaps the advert is a hoax.
Who knows? What is clear is that perceived xenophobia and expatriate relations in Iceland are topics where passions run high and sensitivities are easily hurt.
