Gnarr (6 page)

In addition, we are committed to environmental protection: we want systematic recycling, a transparent use of natural resources, electric cars, and less pollution of the air and the environment, all on the basis of equality and equal authority—in line with the values of our party. We do not smoke and we do not drink alcohol. We will turn up at all meetings and gatherings and, whenever possible, be in a good mood—we will also be thoughtful, take responsibility, and make decisions.

We want a new society—the best society that ever existed!

Democracy is not perfect. It can be extremely tedious and time-consuming. Democracy stands or falls with participation and involvement. Democratically organized states don’t have an easy go of it in times of crisis. It is still to this day the most equitable social order that man has invented. When Iceland was enjoying a turbo-capitalist boom, we put our democracy too thoughtlessly at risk. Now we have to pay for this.

Politicians in democratic states are a fairly uniform bunch; they can organize themselves into crossover associations that share a certain ideology and by which they are linked internationally. For example, the Swedish Social Democrats are pretty good buddies of Socialist Democrats in other countries, they meet at Social Democratic Party meetings and international congresses. The same is true for the Green Party or the Conservatives.

If we don’t get involved, we neglect democracy, and it evolves accordingly. In one way, what prevails in the Western world is a kind of political inbreeding. True newcomers are extremely rare; after all, things are not made easy for them. A new arrival gets in the way and is therefore unattractive. In the few cases where a
new arrival succeeds, such as the Pirate Party in Berlin, which fights for transparency in government and open telecommunications policy, or the Best Party in Reykjavík, new political actors immediately find themselves in the spotlight of world opinion. This is stressful and takes some getting used to.

Everyone knows the feeling that creeps over us just before elections, the sense that we really shouldn’t go and vote. That in any case, there’s nothing on the ballot to stand by or identify with. And so we just choose the lesser of two evils. That makes things awfully complicated. And behind it all, behind the politicians, political parties, and movements, stands the System, the apparatus that ultimately holds the reins in our society. And there again everything is based on rules and laws, but also on customs and traditions, and not infrequently on the views or personalities of individuals. In many democracies there is, besides the actual, official system, a second power structure that blossoms and flourishes in tandem with it—a System based on corruption, organized crime, opportunism, sleaze, and the black market.

Everyone wants freedom and direct democracy and individuals with the power to decide. But when it really comes down to it, only a tiny number want to make use of this power. Why? It’s obvious—those who decide must also take responsibility themselves. Having power is always good, and freedom too, of course, but both are connected with responsibility. Without
responsibility, freedom turns into chaos and power to dictatorship. Perhaps this is exactly the problem that the modern democracies face. Take responsibility? Who wants to do that? It puts us off. How often have we seen a politician being put through the mangle in a live interview or talk show, or seen how the slightest error earned him a place in the newspaper headlines! We expect politicians to be infallible and superhuman. In so doing, we deprive them of their humanity. When they make a slip of the tongue, we make fun of them. If they have personal problems in their marriage or with other people, this gets exploited mercilessly.

Change requires courage and initiative. Grassroots movements promise only limited success. The System does not sleep and now knows exactly how to cut off new political movements from below—well before they are developed. We are all familiar with images of angry crowds battling it out with cops in bitter street fighting. Such actions generally achieve nothing. A lot of effort to no great effect. What they do achieve is in convincing society, the politicians, and the System to set up more surveillance cameras, or send out more policemen with even better equipment and more weapons. The only realistic way to change things is direct participation in democracy. Direct involvement. If you find politics dumb and boring, and politicians too, then you just have to create your own party or platform. If you find the politics of the others dumb, it’s up to you get in and make it better.

Are you mad at the politicians and the conditions prevailing in this country? Would you prefer to write something in a blog or organize a demo? Why not use your time and creativity to find out how you can actively participate in democracy? Found a party or run for office!

How do you do that? It’s actually pretty simple—you need a little imagination and some courage, and the rest follows. But before you begin, you need to make a few principles clear: What bugs you? What’s wrong? Where’s the problem? You’re committed to environmental protection, but there isn’t a Green Party in your country? Then just found one. Or there
is
a Green Party, but it’s not working effectively enough? Then become a member and lend a hand. But be prepared to invest a bit of time that you’ll have to take from other activities. Be prepared to make certain sacrifices. Time that you would have otherwise devoted to your family, your friends, your hobbies, or your work.

In earlier days I’d sometimes ramble on about what it would be like to found a party and become minister of culture. I’d make sure I could have my own comedy show with the public broadcasters, then admit to corruption and resign from ministerial office—but continue with the TV show. Even with my friends I kept starting off on this track, over and over, until they said, “So why don’t you do it, instead of just talking about it? Why don’t you just found a party?” And so that’s what I did. The craziest, wackiest party that ever saw
the light of day. I posted it on Facebook and created a blog in which I circulated surrealist prose on social issues. One article attracted some attention, and so it happened that the media dropped by and asked me for interviews.

So I went to the tax office and entered the Best Party as a not-for-profit organization. That’s how you apply to found a political party. The whole thing took about an hour and cost 5,000 krónur, or about 30 euros.

As the Best Party had only just seen the light of day, the media paid me a certain, slightly patronizing interest. At first I must have been a kind of comic relief for them. I tried to use this to draw attention to myself, pulling out of an interview, giving impossible replies, or coming out with totally absurd statements. The political conditions in the country were, as far as I could see, completely out of control. One scandal followed the next. Public funds were being squandered on poorly planned, dubious projects. Politicians vied with each other to keep the citizens happy and promised economic stability, reliability, and responsible use of taxpayers’ money. One hundred percent transparency. Meanwhile, the financial system had long since swelled into a giant monster that grew bigger and rolled on relentlessly.

I won’t deny that the prospect of a steady job with a fixed salary—instead of never-ending, poorly paid drudgery—has played no small role in my political commitment, but I hoped to kill two birds with one
stone: to have a job, and to commit myself to a good cause at the same time. And I was sure I wouldn’t be a worse mayor than my predecessors. Many assumed that this would mean I’d cross comedy off my list of activities. But I can’t say this has happened. I’m as much a comedian as I ever was. That’s what I am, it’s part of my personality. Comedy is neither my hobby nor my day job—it’s my life.

Half a year before the elections for the city council on May 29, 2010, the first opinion polls were published. The Best Party got zero-point-something percent. The public TV station interviewed me, and I didn’t make anything of it. I laughed and said that, after all, it was still just the beginning—the run-up to an epoch-making victory. At that time I was acting as court jester at Reykjavík City Theatre for a pittance and at the same time writing a play.

Some politician had uploaded a yawn-inducing, tedious monologue onto YouTube. I looked at it. The whole thing was incredibly bogus and embarrassing, so I decided to do something similar. As a backdrop I chose a theater poster that was stuck behind the desk where I worked—the announcement of an American stage comedy from the fifties. With the morose face of the female lead in the background, my confused election twaddle took on a downright surreal quality.

At about the same time I was the guest on a popular talk show. With my TV make-up on, I met a woman who greeted me kindly. I greeted her back.

“We’ll be meeting on the campaign trail!” she exclaimed to me in a jocular tone of voice.

“Yes, we will,” I replied. When she’d gone, I asked the make-up artist who she was. The lady was called Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, the incumbent mayor of Reykjavík. I clearly didn’t have much of a grasp on Icelandic politics.

Our campaign played out primarily on Facebook, YouTube, and Blogspot. I didn’t put in an appearance on any of the official candidates’ tours. I declared on my Facebook page that I did not intend to waste time on sterile let’s-get-our-sleeves-rolled-up conferences. When I was interviewed on TV, I tried to provide a large dollop of complete nonsense. When it came to unemployment, I suggested opening a Disneyland in Reykjavík. After all, it would create a lot of new jobs, and there would definitely be plenty of people who’d be willing to get into Disney costumes and sell cheap trinkets for a few krónur. And we could attract the unemployed with special offers—free admission on Mondays, for example, plus a personal photo with Mickey Mouse!

My friend and collaborator Heiða Kristín Helgadóttir took care of all the practical and organizational questions of Party work. I would have an idea—and she’d already implemented it. My sons also energetically joined it. We decided to create a homepage with the name
bestiflokkurinn.is
, and to make it the ugliest website that a party had ever put on the Internet. “Thumbs up,” the international symbol for friendship, approval, and recognition was to be our motto and
trademark. On the logo, the thumb was deliberately made a tad too long, which gave the gesture a somewhat racy look.

We chose the ugliest typography and most hideous color combinations that we could find. We unabashedly pilfered stuff from the websites of other parties. We copied fragments of text from their respective election manifestos and mixed it all up (in the proper surrealistic manner) into a unique cocktail, completely meaningless but totally positive. Early in the spring we moved our campaign office to the center of Reykjavík. We designed and sold buttons, stickers, and T-shirts, and tried to attract external sponsors. But no one wanted to give us any money, so we were more or less on our own.

As the election approached, poll numbers for the Best Party climbed inexorably higher. It was obvious that this was largely due to votes from the left-wing electorate: their loss was our gain. And the left-wing intelligentsia woke up too, and the movers and shakers in that camp came after me guns blazing. So I was reproached with, among other things, having formerly
been a member of the Independents and the Association of Icelandic Libertarians. They also mentioned that I wanted to legalize cannabis. Some went so far as to put me on the same level as Silvio Berlusconi. Others went even further and compared me to Hitler. I myself was mainly amused—all this, after all, just proved that people now saw us as a serious threat.

The Independence Party initially seemed happy about our success, because it was at the expense of the Left. Otherwise, they didn’t appear all that worried; in any case they didn’t think we’d ever get serious. But when the poll numbers left no doubt that the Best Party was nibbling away at the Independents’ vote as well, they realized they couldn’t just stand idly by. The party dominates the executive suites of all the major media companies, and from those quarters the cry started to echo ever more loudly: the country’s problems weren’t going to be solved by silly antics. I responded with even more silly antics. Every time another party made any election promises, we sat down together and discussed how we could top them. The Left-Green Alliance promised children and teens free access to swimming pools—our response was to offer free admission for ALL—with free towels INCLUDED!

On the whole, all the parties kept their language politically correct. As soon as there was talk of immigrants or women’s equality, they all trotted out their standard formulations, and their waterproof, carefully rehearsed slogans. Meanwhile I took the liberty of
saying that the Best Party would also do something for women and girls, and even for the elderly and disabled. For the underdogs, you see. On the subject of immigrants, I reminded them that the man who had brought the toilet to Icelanders had also been a foreigner. To begin with, nobody had taken him seriously—but it was unlikely that anyone now would be prepared to go without his invention. Then I suggested launching a major campaign to promote the immigration of Jews—they’d definitely help us float the economy again.