Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.04.2018, Blaðsíða 19

The broken car
People who have radical ideas but use
reformist methods often find them-
selves frustrated. Many who have left
Parliament have the sense that the
deck is stacked against real change for
the better. Birgitta likens Parliament
to a broken car.
“A lot of people say that fundamen-
tal political change is like a marathon,”
she says. “It's not. It might be a mara-
thon if you want to establish yourself
like another party, and then you go into
the system that is already corrupt, and
it doesn't matter what you do to try
and fix it. You can't. Imagine you are
in a car, and the system is like this car.
The car is broken, and the engine won't
start. It doesn't matter who you put
behind the wheel: a Formula 1 driver, a
kid, someone really honest and decent,
a corrupt person—the car still won't
start. It's not just expensive for the
state; it's expensive for society, because
we have less and less trust in the demo-
cratic institutions.”
The biggest disappointment, for
people who want to see systemic
change in Iceland, has been the quiet
death of the new Constitution. Birgitta
is convinced that no one in Parliament,
neither on the right nor the left, really
wanted to see substantial change to the
system—or, to continue with the car
analogy, parliamentarians were more
interested in changing the driver than
getting a new vehicle. There is more
to it than that, though, as Birgitta
explains.
“People get very preoccupied with
their day to day lives,” she said. “They'll
be voting on taxes and stuff like that,
and have much they're hoping to get.
They've forgotten about the financial
crisis; that shock was forgotten for the
majority of Icelanders. So they won't be
voting for parties promising constitu-
tional change. They don't really care.
They just want to make sure they
have enough to run their corporation
family.”
This lesson would prove an impor-
tant one. The creaking, plodding
machine of Parliamentary politics is,
she believes, what has begun attracting
people to authoritarianism.
“And we're seeing this everywhere,”
she explains. “People are now, more
and more, as we saw in the most recent
elections in Hungary, leaning towards
the strong leader who's going to fix
everything. The promises that speak
both to their fears and their desires.
Even if they know that they're not
going to deliver, it's just a good feeling
to know you have a Daddy that's going
to take care of you.”
The machine
can’t be
fixed; it can
be replaced
But what if there were other ways of
managing society; systems that do not
offer a choice between simply parlia-
mentary politics or totalitarian strong-
men? Those other methods are what
intrigue Birgitta the
most.
“That's why I was
so preoccupied with
this Committee for
the Future in Parlia-
ment,” Birgitta says,
referring to an idea
already being used
in Finland that has
yet to take root in
Iceland. “There's no
majority in it, it's
one person from
each party, and we
are acquiring infor-
mation about vari-
ous issues that we need to prepare
for, for the future. And we started to
develop this future vision. Because
whenever you ask people about how
things are going to be in the future,
people have no answers. And we are
very much frozen in this deep-rooted
fear that we're in the end times. Which
means that we lose the ability to be
active and mobile because we feel
'what's the point?' Every day is the
possibility for the apocalypse. Today,
we have all this information, and the
best thing we can do is think 'How can
we move to fucking Mars?' I mean,
come on. We have paradise. We have
this little blue dot and it's amazing."
Birgitta also has direct democracy
very much on her mind, although her
attention has shifted to the more local-
ised level. Sites like Better Iceland and
Better Reykjavík, where people can
submit their own proposals, discuss
them and upvote them in the hopes
that they will be taken up in Parliament
or City Hall respectively, are models
she respects.
Birgitta is convinced that change
is actually very quick to happen in
Iceland, but people are also very quick
to lose the thread, which is another
reason why she believes strongly in a
Future Committee.
“That's why I always come back to
this: if you want real, fundamental
changes, they have
to happen quickly,”
Birgitta tells us.
“You can change
people's opinions
in Iceland like
this. It's so easy.
Suddenly, every-
one in Iceland has a
Costco card. Nobody
had even heard of
Costco before it was
announced they
were coming to
Iceland. Same with
the #MeToo move-
ment, it happened
very quickly. But if you're not careful
with these tipping point moments,
then they will start to have a negative
impact. We should rather pay attention
to how quickly we lose focus in this
country. Because we have real trouble
finding our long-term vision.”
These days, Birgitta is living the way
she always has: as a creator, and one
with a long-term vision, but one who
is no stranger to spontaneity, as her
guest appearance at an Easter perfor-
mance of Icelandic apocalo-goth elec-
tronic duo Hatari attests. That gig was
booked with almost no notice, but it
came to her as a breath of fresh air.
"Only in Iceland would this happen,”
she says. “You go into this synchronic-
ity. It was like a massive dose of D-vita-
min after no sun for a year. I felt totally
invigorated."
Moving forward, Birgitta sees many
possibilities. She is working on form-
ing Democracy Without Borders, a
group that will cull real-life models
for direct democracy around the
world, but is also interested in writ-
ing, podcasts, speaking as a keynote
and more. Birgitta is hoping to inspire
others to take similar paths, away from
the status quo and into a newly imag-
ined future.
“If I can do it, with all my limita-
tions, then anyone can,” she says.
“Dream big - just don't dream only
about material things. They can all go
in a fire tomorrow. It's the relation-
ships you create that are important in
life. Connect with your community."
While what may exactly be around
the corner for Birgitta may not be
set in stone, she knows that she will
remain true to herself.
“There's so many things I would
love to do,” Birgitta tells us. “I've always
been more comfortable being my own
boss, even if it means living below the
poverty line, than having to do stuff
that I disagree with. I have to flow in
it. I have to feel that there's wind in the
sails. I was hoping I could just be hired
and work for somebody else, but I think
I have to recognize that I am a start-up
person. I get crazy ideas, I get totally
preoccupied with it, and I get it done.
And then I just move on."
“I GET CRAZY
IDEAS, I GET
TOTALLY
PREOCCUPIED
WITH IT, AND
I GET IT DONE.
AND THEN I
JUST MOVE
ON.”
19The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2018