Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.12.2011, Blaðsíða 12

12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2011 Shiver me timbers! Yo ho ho! Other assorted pirate slang jokes! Etc! But seriously, do you feel their stancy on copyrights
and stuff is a valid one? Why/why not? Also: those Pirate Party guys sure do like to party. We saw them at, like, five par-
ties the weekend they were here. Does this mean we like to party, too?
Pirates | Yarrr
SHIVER ME TORRENTS!
despite their silly name and a plat-
form originally focused on Inter-
net issues, The Pirate Party won
an unexpected 8,9% in the berlin
elections this September. Shaking
things up much like The best Party
did in Reykjavík, The Pirate Party
ousted the Free democrats and be-
came the first new party to come
to power in berlin since the 1980s.
While some of these newly elected
Pirates were in Iceland to meet with
representatives from The best Par-
ty and the Icelandic Modern Media
Initiative, we met up with them to
learn more…
First, briefly what is The Pirate
Party?
Christopher Lauer: So it’s too simplis-
tic to say we’re just an Internet party. It
started that way, but then the platform
broadened with the party’s member-
ship explosion in 2009.
The Pirate Party is a left liberal, so-
cial party. The neoliberal policymaking
of economy that we’ve seen in the last
ten to twenty years is just inhumane.
Of course we are for free economy, but
within borders of law. So we are social,
but not socialist. We are for society, not
society for economy.
The liberal part of our agenda is
about people’s rights—all the rights that
protect you against the State, which
has the monopoly on using force. Es-
pecially since 9/11, policy has been
driven by fear—by the idea that society
is a danger to the State. But if you think
about it, we are the State. So we believe
in a free and open culture. I think what
the Prime Minister of Norway said after
Utoya was the only right thing to say:
“We have to be a more friendly society.”
So basically we have a silly name
and we are not typical politicians, but
we have a very pragmatic view on pol-
itics—a sane view about what is right
and wrong.
Silly? It must be pretty cool to be
called a pirate…
Alexander Morlanger: Yeah, if we
lower the voting age, we would do very
well because all the six year olds would
vote for pirates.

yeah, and I’ve read that you want
to lower the voting age. What’s that
about?
CL: Basically our idea is that anybody
should be able to go into the city of-
fice and ask to vote. My 84-year-old
grandmother is completely demented
and she can vote. I met some children
during the campaign that knew more
about the party platforms than the av-
erage Berlin voter.
It’s the same thing with drugs. If you
treat people like normal, sane, edu-
cated people, they behave that way. If
you encourage young people to get in-
volved with politics by giving them the
opportunity to vote, you get a less indif-
ferent political culture.
PEOPLE WANT FRESH POLITICS
Why do you think you were so suc-
cessful in this latest election? Have
Internet issues become so impor-
tant? Are people just fed up with
the traditional party politics?
CL: There were different factors. First
of all, people want fresh wind in the po-
litical system. They are fed up, but not
so fed up that they are ready to start
a revolution—to march on parliament.
Germans are not that kind of people.
We ask, ‘where do we have to an-
nounce the revolution. Who can give us
the form to make everything proper to
make the revolution? Can I make it on
a Sunday or do I have to come back on
a Monday.’
yeah, that is so stereotypical Ger-
man…
CL: But it is that way. The reason that
The Pirate Party has done well in Ber-
lin and not in France is because if we
start something, like a club and party,
we take it very seriously. So The Party is
very progressive and liberal and breaks
rules, but in other respects is very for-
mal.
AM: Some guy blogged that The Pirate
Party is like a massive multiplayer of-
fline role-playing game...
CL: …World of Warcraft in real life…
We organise ourselves with liquid de-
mocracy, which was developed by Ber-
lin chapter of The Pirate Party two years
ago. It mixes direct and representative
democracy. It’s like a social network;
everyone in the party has an account,
and they can make suggestions and
provide constructive feedback.
We are showing it to the Better
Reykjavík people and also to The Best
Party. In our view, Iceland could be a
showcase for a country using a pro-
gramme like that.
AM: …the first country that upgrades
its democracy to the next generation.
A SERENdIPITOUS bEST PARTy
CONNECTION
So people wanted fresh wind in the
political system. What was it spe-
cifically about The Pirate Party that
appealed?
Actually, there are a lot of chance par-
allel developments between The Best
Party and The Pirate Party. It’s funny,
the day I called Heiða, Jón was talking
about our good result and he said, yeah,
we have to get in contact with them... I
think both The Best Party and The Pi-
rate Party see the need for change in
politics—not only in policies, but also in
the way politics are done.
What do you mean by ‘the way poli-
tics are done’?
The style—not the clothing; the way
you do it. The question is, do you want
to play their game or define your own
rules, and I think the answer is some-
where in-between. I thought when we
talked to Jón and the other guys that
there seemed to be similar develop-
ments both here and in Germany and
in other countries, like Poland, where a
very progressive party also gained 10%
in an election.
Voters knew we weren’t pros; they
knew we were amateurs. If we made
one thing clear during our campaign it
was that we have big gaps in a lot of
political issues. Our number one can-
didate, Andreas Baum was asked how
large the city debt was, and first he said
he didn’t know, and then he said many,
many millions. Everyone laughed be-
cause in fact, Berlin’s debt is 65 billion
Euros and rises by 87 Euros every sec-
ond. See we have now done our num-
bers. We made an iPhone app, and you
can see very dynamically that the city of
Berlin will never ever pay back its debt
[shows app with debt growing by the
second].
If we don’t know something we just
Google it. In our culture, not knowing
something is not bad if you know where
to find it. We say, yeah, if you elect us,
we’ll try to learn, and if we don’t figure
it out after five years, don’t vote for us
again.
AM: If there’s one thing we have in
common with your mayor it’s the ability
to say ‘we don’t know.’
So did you come primarily to meet
The best Party?
CL: Yeah, and we also came for IMMI.
When we met with Birgitta Jónsdót-
tir today we were surprised that IMMI
wasn’t further along because in Germa-
ny you get that impression. We actually
came to discuss the terms of placing
our servers in their data centres, and
we found out that we can’t do it. We
have to find a way to support her...
dOWNLOAdING .MP3 TORRENTS
There’s one topic we haven’t talked
about. I’m sure you get a lot of flack
for your stance on copyright. How
do you explain your view to musi-
cians who want to make a living
from what they create?
CL: Well, I’m not very satisfied with our
agenda on copyright issues as it is right
now. We say, for instance, that after ten
years you lose your rights, and it goes
to the public domain. That makes sense
if you are talking about Lady Gaga, for
example, but a playwright needs ten
years to make gains. He publishes the
play, sells it and sells it and sells it, and
then after ten years, the play makes it
and has to live off of that.
AM: Right now the guy who buys it gets
ripped off, the guy who creates it gets
ripped off, and the guy in the middle
makes a fortune. This can’t be right. We
need to change this so that consumers
and creators get more.
So you are not suggesting that peo-
ple steal?
CL: No, no, no. Everybody should have
a share, but it has to be fair. The music
industry was based on monopoly. The
Internet destroys gatekeepers and mo-
nopolies. What we have are old elites
who are scared, and use their money to
uphold the system for as long as they
can. Lawyers are sending notices to
people who download stuff telling them
that they will be prosecuted unless they
pay 1000 Euros; it’s like modern black-
mailing. We agree as a party that the
consumer should not be criminalized.
Too much money is being spent on up-
holding the system.
do you have an idea of how to solve
this problem? …The million-dollar
question.
CL: Yeah if I knew I wouldn’t be sitting
here, a politician. I would be rich…
AM: There was a lot of money involved
when ships were built to transport ice
from the north to Europe so that people
could cool things in the summer. It was
a big business, employing many people.
Then some idiot invented the refrigera-
tor, and in five years the whole business
went bankrupt. Should they have forbid
refrigerators to protect these workers?
Maybe they’ll concentrate on some-
thing else, like organising concerts.
jón Gnarr recently said in an inter-
view with The Grapevine that he
doesn’t have very much power to
change things, and that he is more
responsible for making sure that
bad things don’t happen. do you
think you will be able to change
things up?
Well, no. People don’t understand poli-
tics…we are trying to make this more
transparent like Jón has done with
his Diary of a Mayor. But basically we
just want people to take responsibility
for their lives. If people don’t want to,
then okay, I’ve learned something, but
for now I have faith in the people and a
positive view of society.
The Berlin Pirate Party visits Reykjavík
Words
Anna Andersen
Photos
Hvalreki and Alísa Kalyanova
“The Pirate Party is a left liberal, social party. The
neoliberal policymaking of economy that we’ve seen in
the last ten to twenty years is just inhumane. Of course
we are for free economy, but within borders of law. So
we are social, but not socialist. We are for society, not
society for economy.”