Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.02.2016, Blaðsíða 38

Being an anarchist can be a thor-
oughly depressing exercise. On the
one hand, your principles yearn for
a perfect world—a “system” where
violence isn’t necessary, where people
have the means to work together and
live with dignity, and where individual
people are given freedom and treated
with respect.
On the other hand, nothing in the
world matches up to your idea of how
things should be. Rather than being
merely an imperfect democratic sys-
tem, the whole of society is a total fuck-
ing mess, with all wealth and power
centralised in the hands of a few peo-
ple.
Being an anarchist means simulta-
neously existing as one of the world’s
biggest pessimists, and one of its big-
gest optimists. It can mean constant
disappointment. It is emotionally ex-
hausting.
“The perfect system that has an an-
swer to every problem and will put the
world to rights just doesn’t exist,” for-
mer Reykjavík mayor Jón Gnarr argues
in his new book, ‘Gnarr: How I Became
the Mayor of a Large City in Iceland…’.
His book is, ironically, a sort of attempt
to answer this problem we anarchists
have faced since time immemorial: how
to start giving more of a shit by giving
less of a shit; by meeting “insults with
courtesy,” “ill will with indulgence,”
and “stubbornness with tolerance.”
How, in other words, to ensure “the
good is always getting stronger.”
A punk comedian, an anarchist
mayor, Jón has always been a man of
contradictions. Nowhere is this more
obvious than in the haphazard struc-
ture of the book itself. One minute,
we’re treated to a rare interview with
Jón’s wife, Jóga,
one of the major
forces behind the
scenes of the Best
Party—the next
minute, Jón is talk-
ing about what he
likes about Face-
book. It feels as if
we’re almost given
a glimpse into Jón’s
own way of think-
ing. The structure is messy, the ideas
frequently silly, much of it seemingly ir-
relevant, but all of it combines to paint
a picture of a man, this outcast, this
misfit, who believes in nothing more
than the power of human kindness.
It is this common thread—kind-
ness—that ties the chaos of the book
together. This is an honest book, one
whose words you feel you can trust.
You know that Jón is not lying when he
says he has always identified with the
rejects—such as the garbagemen, the
disabled, or the immigrants—because
he’s always been one. We know this be-
cause the book is not just a collection
of his ideas, but a memoir in the truest
sense. It is, in parts, a deeply personal
account of his own struggles with ac-
ceptance. He is dismissed as a “re-
tard” by his family and his school. He
is dubbed “the Clown” by his political
opposition in the Independence Party.
Throughout his life, he is ostracised
by those living
and thinking
within systems
in which there
is never a place
for him.
Yet, he
never fights
back. At no
point does he
treat anyone
with contempt,
but as people who believe in the idea
of a perfect system—systems which
can never fit everything into them,
systems which have never fit him in.
Instead, he lets it “wash over” him. He
expresses this most concretely in his
interpretation of the Taoist principle
of wu wei, an action of “non-doing,”
or non-intervention, which demands
you never stoop to the level of an oppo-
nent, instead allowing them to exhaust
themselves and to knock themselves
off-balance through their own negative
momentum.
To return to anarchism, then: from
the very first page of the book, Jón is
firmly against the dream of a perfect
system, of the perfect box that will fit
everything within just right. People
are angry and unhappy, not because
the world is chaotic and imperfect, but
because they strive to impose a perfect
order onto the chaotic, imperfect world
around them. It’s not just the teach-
ers, the parents,
and The Man
who are guilty of
this, but also the
punks, commies,
and the anar-
chists too. Jón is
not an anarchist
because he be-
lieves anarchism
to be the perfect
system, he says,
“but because the
perfect system
does not exist.”
Jón’s anarchism is thus not utopian,
because it holds that utopia can never
exist. His anarchism revolves around
finding one’s centre in the river of
bullshit rather than swimming against
the current—and about helping those
drowning within it to find their own
balance. His anarchism is an anti-ism,
a worldview opposed to big, clever
theories and boxes of ideas, something
that is not just about shouting “fuck the
system,” but quietly detaching from the
idea of systems themselves through re-
spect, love, and kindness.
Herein lies the answer to the entire
contradiction that was The Best Party.
How can an anarchist possibly become
a mayor and remain an anarchist?
Tens of thousands of years ago,
it was the politically sceptical Taoist
sages who proved the greatest advis-
ers to the kings and
lords of ancient
China. Today, little
has changed. Op-
position to getting
involved in poli-
tics is a byproduct
of the systematic
mindset—and so is
the belief that poli-
tics holds all the
answers. Moving
past binary, rigid
thinking allows
us to realise that, through embracing
contradiction, the biggest sceptics of
the system are also the most capable at
ensuring things work for the better of
everyone in it.
This book is a love letter to the
misfits, the losers, the pirates, and the
clowns—and the powerful, dangerous
idea that those we think have the least
to say might just have the most to offer.
You know that Jón
is not lying when he
says he has always
identified with the
rejects—such as the
garbagemen, the
disabled, or the immi-
grants—because he’s
always been one.
It is this common
thread—kindness—
that ties the chaos of
the book together. This
is an honest book, one
whose words you feel
you can trust.
How I Learned To Stop Worry-
ing And Love The Garbageman
BOOK:
‘Gnarr! How I Became the Mayor
of a Large City in Iceland and
Changed the World’
By Jón Gnarr
Translated by Andrew Brown
Melville House, 2014
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02 — 201618
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