Serious matters
Jul. 30th, 2004 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hildigunnurI was wondering if I should be person number eighty-seven thousand or something to comment on the whole Ron/character-hate/etc. thing but then I found a much more serious and really quite important subject to muse about.
The weekend preceding the first Monday in August is the biggest festival weekend every year here in Iceland. The first Monday of August is a Bank Holiday and somehow it has become a tradition to throw these great big festivals with music, entertainment, excessive drinking etc. this weekend every year. We call it "Verslunarmannahelgi" - Weekend of the Merchants. And every year after "Verslunarmannahelgi" - we get the numbers. How many were arrested for disturbance of the peace, for selling and/or possession of illegal drugs, how many car accidents were (in the bad years we get a death toll too) and how many rapes were reported.
In recent years, there have been awareness campaigns. You know, advice to girls not to drink too much and such things. This year the campaigns are directed towards the guys. There are mainly two kinds of posters I've been seeing. One has a picture of the middle section of a girl with a "Give way" road sign over her crotch and a guy's hand looming there nearby. The text underneath says "Be a man. Respect the signs." The other has a picture of a girl with her eyes closed and a Stop sign over her mouth and a guy looming by. The text on this posters says: "Some guys only have a chance with girls who are passed out."
As a columnist who writes for an Icelandic newspaper said, these are campaigns to try dissuade people from committing a serious crime. Why do we need this campaign? We don't go around with slogans like "Don't steal cars because it's not cool" or "Murdering someone is actually a very serious thing. Think about it."
Is fucking an unconscious person at an outdoors festival just a part of the festivities for some? (Apparently last year one of the rapes was photographed and the pictures were put on the internet and no, the perpetrators are not in jail ... yet).
What do you think?
The weekend preceding the first Monday in August is the biggest festival weekend every year here in Iceland. The first Monday of August is a Bank Holiday and somehow it has become a tradition to throw these great big festivals with music, entertainment, excessive drinking etc. this weekend every year. We call it "Verslunarmannahelgi" - Weekend of the Merchants. And every year after "Verslunarmannahelgi" - we get the numbers. How many were arrested for disturbance of the peace, for selling and/or possession of illegal drugs, how many car accidents were (in the bad years we get a death toll too) and how many rapes were reported.
In recent years, there have been awareness campaigns. You know, advice to girls not to drink too much and such things. This year the campaigns are directed towards the guys. There are mainly two kinds of posters I've been seeing. One has a picture of the middle section of a girl with a "Give way" road sign over her crotch and a guy's hand looming there nearby. The text underneath says "Be a man. Respect the signs." The other has a picture of a girl with her eyes closed and a Stop sign over her mouth and a guy looming by. The text on this posters says: "Some guys only have a chance with girls who are passed out."
As a columnist who writes for an Icelandic newspaper said, these are campaigns to try dissuade people from committing a serious crime. Why do we need this campaign? We don't go around with slogans like "Don't steal cars because it's not cool" or "Murdering someone is actually a very serious thing. Think about it."
Is fucking an unconscious person at an outdoors festival just a part of the festivities for some? (Apparently last year one of the rapes was photographed and the pictures were put on the internet and no, the perpetrators are not in jail ... yet).
What do you think?
