Posted on 05/15/2015 5:17:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Basques can now safely visit Iceland without the threat of being killed on sight. P
In a small town on the western coast of Iceland last week, authorities finally revoked a 400-year-old order that allowed Basques to be killed on sight.
For the last four centuries people hailing from the Basque Country could have been legally hunted down and killed had they dared to step foot in Iceland.
But last week, authorities finally repealed an order issued 400 years ago that led to the massacre of 32 Basque whalers.
It came about after three Basque whaling vessels entered a fjord in Iceland during the summer of 1615 after reaching an agreement with the Icelanders.
But when the ships were laden with their cargo and ready for departure they were shipwrecked in a gale.
The surviving Basque whalers made it ashore but after a conflict with locals, Ari Magnússon of Ögur, the then commissioner of the West Fjords district ordered that they be tracked down and killed.
In October 1615, 32 Basque whalers were killed by the locals, an event that to this day is the only recorded mass murder in Iceland.
When Jónas Gudmundsson, the West Fjords district commissioner, officially repealed the order on April 22nd at an event to inaugurate amemorial commemorating the ‘Slaying of the Spaniards’.
The commissioner joked: “It’s safe for Basques to come here now”.
He added that the order had not been carried out for some years. “Of course (repealing it is) more for fun; there are laws in this country which prohibit the killing of Basques,” Jónas told Icelandic newspaper, mbl.is.
The event was attended by the Basque Gipuzkoa Governor Martin Garitanoand the Icelandic Minister of Education and Culture Illugi Gunnarsson.
It also saw a ‘symbolic reconcillation’ acted out by Xabier Irujo, descendant of one of the murdered Basque whale hunters, and Magnús Rafnsson, descendant of one of the murderers, according to the Iceland Review.
Basques in Spain welcomed the move, even though it came four hundred years too late.
"The ceremony was a public homage to those Basques that were killed four centuries ago and it is a symbol of respect finally done," MP Jon Inarritu of the Basque pro-independence party Amaiur told The Local.
"The repealing of the old order that allowed the killing of Basque people is a first step to promote relations between the two European people. It’s a step of friendship and peace between two peoples," he said.
Be real nice if the muslims would do this for us infidels and Jews.
“In a small town on the western coast of Iceland last week, authorities finally revoked a 400-year-old order that allowed Basques to be killed on sight.”
Considering their record in Spain...
It was only in the 21st Century that a law forbidding Indians (native American variety) from spending the night in Boston was repealed. There was no reconciliation ceremony between the descendants of King Phillip’s braves and New England colonists.
“We have nothing better to do, so...”
Hmmm, one track mind, huh :-)
Twelve years later, in 1627, Muslims from North Africa raided Iceland and hauled hundreds of Icelanders off to be sold as slaves on the Barbary Coast.
Pretty much. :-)
I’m good with them too.
I know, right.
Other way around. In 400 years my descendants may be in a position to forgive the Muzzies.
Time to buy a ticket! One way should be fine!
Seems a little unspecific in Step B here. PC much? Just my guess, considering we're talking sailors here: too much to drink and disrespect for the chief's daughter?
But there`s only 4 hours of daylight in wintertime in Iceland so they had to work fast to kill them on sight..
“In Chester, a person is permitted to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow, as long as he is inside the city walls after midnight. 4. All English males over the age of 14 are required by law to have two hours of longbow practice each week.”
Still on the books.
Man, I got about five or six wives up there somewhere.......
It was back in the 70’s maybe 80’s, the city of Houston rescinded a law stating it was illegal to shoot Indians on Main Street. Now, I don’t recall whether or not that by rescinding the law it made shooting Indians on Main Street legal. But, im guessing not :)
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