To u r i s m , C u lt u r e
and
Business
I s su e 45 • 2021
Governor
Ásgeir Jónsson’s Revolt
Iceland’s Central Bank has never been better equipped to ensure stability to serve the people, claims Governor Ásgeir Jónsson. With the merger of The Bank and Financial Supervisory at the start of 2020, the Bank is stronger than ever to enforce discipline on financial markets to improve the welfare of the people. By Hallur Hallsson. Photo: Páll Stefánsson
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r. Ásgeir Jónsson was appointed Governor of Iceland’s Central Bank in July 2019, at 49 years of age. His appointment is for five years, so he has three more years to serve. “What will be, will be regarding a second term”, he says. His emphasis is to establish the Bank’s independence. His background is different from many of his predecessors; there was no politicking for his appointment. He has been called a communist and a liberal but has never been active in politics. However, he has made his stance clear on many issues that the Bank has to deal with. Ásgeir Jónsson’s forefathers were farmers and fishermen and he, himself, was a fisherman aboard trawlers from the town of Sauðárkrókur in the North—and never got seasick! However, though Dr. Jónsson is the Bank Governor, the highest office that an economist can attain to, he faced extreme challenges as a child: stammering, illiteracy and bullying. He was raised, until he was eleven years of age, at Bjarnarhöfn, Snæfellsnes – Bear Harbour – where his father Jón Bjarnason [1943] was a farmer jointly with his brother, Hildibrandur [1936-2017] and father, Bjarni Jónsson [1908-1990] from Asparvik – Aspen-Inlet at Strandir in the Northwest.
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A stammer and slow to read
“I had difficulties with reading until finally the age of eight or nine”, Ásgeir says in an inter-view with Icelandic Times. The learning was based on knowing the letters, starting with A and then B and so on. This was Greek to the young boy. To make things worse, he stammered and was bullied. Ásgeir reads differently to most people, as he sees words as pictures. This is possibly a form of dyslexia but Ásgeir has never been diagnosed. He solved that matter himself. “I didn’t do well at school and yearned to be able to read”, he says. Then one day he was able to connect the dots. Words manifested themselves in pictures and he was able to read, the letters were out of the way. This was a major revelation to him. He started reading the Sagas, beginning with Eyrbyggja, the regional Saga and then the other Icelandic Sagas, one by one. A brave new world appeared to him. “In fact, I became a fast reader almost overnight. That has helped a lot in my studies and job”, he says. However, he still makes spelling mistakes as letters tend to mix within words. “I was raised on a farm with no playmates, only adults and the animals. There were no computer games and TV programmes were simple”, he says. He spent his time in his grandfather’s library and became passionate about the Icelandic Sagas—and
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still is. At Akureyri’s College, he attained 10 in Icelandic on the Sagas. “That is the grade that, to this day after all the studying, I’m most proud of.”
Born in Norway 1970
Ásgeir was born at Aas, in Norway in 1970, second of six siblings. His father was studying agronomy at Aas University. In 1971 the family moved to Bjarnarhöfn farm between the towns of Stykkishólmur and Grundarfjörður. It is a well-known farm that had been bought in 1914 by Thor Jensen [1863-1947], a Danish man, who had arrived in Iceland at the age of 13 and led Iceland’s fishery revolution at the start of the 20th century. Thor Jensen built sheep-sheds at Bjarnarhöfn, even though he was leading Iceland’s fisheries revolution. Ásgeir’s grandfather and his sons had 700 sheep. At the age of eleven, Ásgeir moved with his parents to the ancient bishopric at Hólar in Hjaltadal in the north, one of Iceland’s most historic places, where Iceland’s last Catholic Bishop, Jón Arason [1484-1550] was a central figure. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that Ásgeir has written about Jón Arason with deep insight. His historical work, “Uppreisn Jóns Arasonar – Jón Arason’s Revolt” was published this year. Ásgeir puts the power-struggle between the Danes and Germans into perspective.
