Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.06.2010, Síða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2010
We begin by talking about celebrated The Wire,
which has for some reason become a sort of call-
ing card for his campaign [as you constant readers
might remember, Jón told us in the last issue that
he would only consider working with politicians
that agreed that The Wire was the best thing to
happen to television]. He tells us that season one is
his favourite, his most beloved character is Omar
Little, that his favourite Wire-quote is “It’s all in the
game, baby”, and that he feels television storytell-
ing reached new heights with the series. He feels
The Wire needs more public acknowledgment.
“Most brilliant accomplishments do not get the
recognition they deserve until after the fact. Peo-
ple are busy or caught up in preconceptions that
blind them from appreciating them. Like [great
Icelandic author] Þórbergur Þórðarson remarked:
“You can spot a genius from the fact that he is de-
spised and snubbed by the majority.” Genius is of-
ten overlooked or disregarded. I think that is a big
waste.
You yourself can hardly be described as “over-
looked or disregarded,” having just won the Reyk-
javík City elections and all. Does this mean you’re
not a genius?
Well I haven’t... Ehrm. It’s of course an act of ge-
nius to form a political party in December that
goes on to become the largest one and win an elec-
tion in May. That’s pretty genius.

How does it feel to win an election?
It’s a good feeling. It’s been very fun; an interplay
of certain factors that I feel are very valuable some-
how managed to come together harmoniously. It
also feels good to have gotten all these good people
to join our ranks and to stand by me and believe in
this; to be ready to give it a chance and even try and
understand what I was all about. To take a risk. It
is not a given that people would do that.
Did you have a timed action-plan for winning the
election since starting the party in December? Or
was it all improvised?
It wasn’t improvised, but I didn’t study Machia-
velli or anything. I’ve never read him. But it was
focused and rather thought out from the begin-
ning. My plan entailed winning a clear majority
with eight seats, which I didn’t accomplish. Per-
haps this failure can be ascribed to some mistake
I made in the campaign. If everything had gone
according to plan, I would have won eight seats.
The environment and public perception of your
party changed a lot from the time we conducted
our interview three weeks before the election until
it was published a week before the election, and
then in the week leading up to it. There was almost
a sea change in the discourse every week—it went
from humouring you, to angrily questioning you,
to being sort of panicky...
Lev Tolstoy has been a great inf luence on me, es-
pecially his religious and philosophical writings.
There is a famous phrase from Ghandi that is root-
ed in him: “First they ignore you, then they mock
you, then they attack you, and then you win.” And
I sort of observed that process and feel it corre-
sponded to how our campaign was received.
Because I felt I was going forward in total
honesty and non-violence. I took great care in not
speaking ill of any man; I take the non-violent,
non-aggressive route very much to heart.
What was your experience of the public’s—and es-
pecially the political parties’—changing attitudes
towards your campaign over the last month?
I made one discovery. I’ve often wondered about
the concept of politics and ideologies. Of living by
ideologies, like politics and political parties often
entail. I’ve tried most of them on, but never com-
pletely identified with any of them.
I agree with parts of every political ideology,
except the really nasty ones. I do not agree with
racists or fascists or any of that. But in every corner
of ‘conventional politics,’ I’ve been able to find a
lot of things I can agree with. I can agree that we
as a society should protect and take care of those
in need, and I can also agree that entrepreneurs
and creative people should enjoy the fruits of their
labour. The left and right extremes.
My discovery through this campaign was this:
the line between ideals and personal interests is,
with many people, often very thin when examined
closely. When pushed, people will protect their
self interest, but refer to their ideals in justifying
themselves. This is dishonest. They do not want
to admit to being driven by their own selfish in-
terests, so they attempt to place them on a higher
pedestal by calling them ideals.
This is a concept I’ve been interested in for a
while, interests versus ideologies, and I’ve played
with it a bit. For instance with the [infamous] char-
acter Georg Bjarnfreðarson. He is a big idealist,
and his every action is motivated by protecting his
self-interest. I think that is interesting, and it is re-
velatory to learn that it indeed goes on to the extent
that it does in our society. This dishonesty.
The truth is always a liberating force, even
though it may be painful and uncomfortable at
times. It is always for the better. As Jesus said:
“The truth shall set you free.” It is the greatest
threat to any kind of evil—I can attest that from
my personal life—while the lie is the queen of evil.
Nazism was all based on a lie. The lie begets
irresponsibility, which breeds evil. Everyone is
free to act as they will—those that are no longer
responsible or accountable can be so evil, and they
can always find someone to blame for their mis-
fortunes or their actions.
Righteous rage is the vilest form of anger. Ev-
ery bit of human wisdom indicates that anger is
to be avoided; it is indeed one of the seven deadly
sins. Yet all of the sudden we find ourselves living
in a society where anger is almost considered a vir-
tue, where it commands a degree of respect, even.
In the media, one hears phrases like “peoples’ an-
ger is understandable,” and “of course everyone is
burning up with rage”—as if we’ve released this
monster and it’s just fine? Everyone keeps on liv-
ing their lives as if it’s alright that we have a soci-
ety that is sick with rage and anger. As if that’s just
right? It isn’t.
Anger isn’t creative or nourishing. It is like
sustaining oneself on junk food or candy. You feel
energized and full for a while, but it contains no
nutrition or sustenance. And then there is the in-
evitable sugar-crash.
You say true. How were the party leaders’ reacting
to you that last week before the elections?
They didn’t care too much for me... the joke was
wearing thin for them. And I sensed that pretty
well.
How about after the elections?
That was more... everyone seemed to be in a state
of denial and shock. They didn’t fully comprehend
what had just happened. At many times, I sincere-
ly felt sorry for them, for having to be stuck with
me in this situation.
Immediately after the elections, you launched the
‘Better Reykjavík’ web (www.betrireykjavik.is),
which is a forum for citizens to suggest what is-
sues the new majority should focus on. It is a very
cool initiative. Will it be translated into English
and other languages so Reykjavík’s community of
immigrants and new Icelanders may contribute?
Yes, we do plan on translating the site as soon as
we’re in power and we have the means to do so.
We also want do many more things to service this
community. Every good thing in Iceland has come
from abroad. It’s always been like that—it’s what
Icelandic culture is made up of, and it’s created a
diversity within our society. Ever since the island
was settled. Our forefathers most likely came from
abroad, you know.
Foreign inf luence enriches our culture and
contributes greatly to creating a harmonious, di-
verse and multi-layered community. Enriching
our culture is a personal ambition of mine, I am a
fan of diversity and I abhor uniformity. A diverse
community makes for a mature society, which is
what we should strive for.
---
Speaking of diversity...Reykjavík Muslims have
been waiting to build a mosque for almost a de-
cade now....
I don’t see the Muslims of Reykjavík building
a mosque as being any sort of problems. They
should have their mosque—we should enjoy total
freedom of religion, and everyone should be free
to worship according to their beliefs. I am not fa-
miliar with why they’ve had to wait for so long, but
they hopefully won’t have to wait any longer. At
least not if I have any authority on the matter.
Do you think the people of Reykjavík will start ex-
periencing any change as soon as this summer?
Well, yes. They are already experiencing change,
with the rising atmosphere of hope. And our plans
are that people will start noticing tangible change
very soon.

A lot of people are interpreting the election results
so that you’ve struck a deathblow to Iceland “four
party system”. Was killing “the four party system”
an ambition of yours?
I have always thought a lot about politics, and
read a lot of political theory. I wanted to try creat-
ing something new that could be a viable option
for people to get behind. An ideology will never
be sounder than the person that’s enforcing it; I
therefore think that our political ideologies have
been drowned in our politicians’ self-interest. I
feel they have been guarding their self interest,
and cloaking it with ideology.
If The Best Party was an attack on anything, it
was an attack on the two-faced duplicity and dis-
honesty that has been allowed to fester in our cul-
ture, and which always inevitably leads to disaster.
Because the lie is the root of all evil, and always
leads to disaster.
Is this Reykjavík's next mayor? We shall find out in the next few days...
Interview | The Next Mayor?
HE REALLY DID IT!
Anger isn’t creative or nourishing.
It is like sustaining oneself on junk
food or candy. You feel energized
and full for a while, but it contains
no nutrition or sustenance. And
then there is the inevitable sugar-
crash.
My discovery through this
campaign was this: the line
between ideals and personal
interests is, with many people,
often very thin when examined
closely. When pushed, people
will protect their self interest, but
refer to their ideals in justifying
themselves
Jón Gnarr just won himself an election – we called him up to talk about it
HAUKUR S. MAGNúSSON
HöRðUR SvEINSSON