The Polish ambassador in Reykjavik has accused the local leader of an Icelandic political party of “hate speech” against Poles after he told a joke on television related to how many of them there are in the country.
Following mass immigration in recent years, Poles are estimated to constitute up to 8% of Iceland’s population, making them by far the largest foreign national group on the island, reports Polsat News.
Poles are by far the largest immigrant group in Iceland, making up over 40% of the foreign-born population.
'The growth in the Polish population has not caused much friction…Their reputation is often that they are very good workers, hard-working people' https://t.co/PyqxBp98On
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 18, 2019
The quip in question was told by Eyjólfur Ármannsson, leader of the centre-left People’s Party in Iceland’s Northwestern Region. He was appearing on the Oddvitaáskorun Vísis show, where election candidates are given the chance to present themselves casually, including by telling their best joke.
Ármannsson’s came up with one about a Pole, a Frenchman and an Icelander, each of whom took turns to throw something off the Eiffel Tower.
The Frenchman tossed a croissant, because there are so many of them in France. The Pole threw off a sausage, for the same reason. Finally, the Icelander pushed the Pole off the tower, because “there are many of them in Iceland”.
In response, Poland’s ambassador, Gerard Pokruszyński, said he was “forced to intervene when Poles are the object of discrimination or hate speech”. He said he regretted the use of the “language of intolerance” in the campaign ahead of parliamentary elections on 25 September.
Ambasada RP w Reykjaviku interweniowała ws. dowcipu opowiedzianego w telewizji przez islandzkiego polityka. Z żartu wynikało, że Polaków na Islandii jest za dużo. – To przykład mowy nienawiści – podkreślił ambasador Gerard Pokruszyński. @PLinIceland https://t.co/H2gu9vi2dh
— Redakcja Polska Polskiego Radia dla Zagranicy (@RadioZagranica) September 7, 2021
Last week, the joke was also criticised by Aleksander Witold Bogdański, president of the Icelandic Polish Society, who called it “completely distasteful” in an interview with Vísir, an online newspaper
“It seems that the People’s Party will have a difficult task to gain support among Poles in Iceland in the upcoming elections,” said Bogdański. The party won 6.88% of the vote in the last elections in 2017 and is currently polling at 4.3%, according to data from Europe Elects.
Ármannsson has since “sincerely apologise to everyone I have hurt”, admitting in a Facebook post that the joke was “harmful to Poles”.
Inga Sæland, leader of the People’s Party, told Vísir that she believed Ármannsson had meant no wrong. She added that the 8% of Poles in Iceland’s population have “taken [the] economy to a higher level.”
Main image credit: Dany Sternfeld/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
