All Aboard Pirates!

All Aboard Pirates!

By: Erreh Svaia

“It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.”

Nikola Tesla

Yesterday I was watching Into the Inferno, a new great documentary by the legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog, one of my favorite visual artists of all the time, Herzeg is a fearless creator and during the movie he constantly defies danger, along volcanologists, this time he goes really near active volcanoes in order to capture impressive and powerful images, some of them taking place on the volcano hyper active Iceland, but these days, volcanos are not the only things making powerful eruptions, also politics are being shaken by the arrival of the so called Iceland Pirate Party, a political party, not taken too seriously a couple of years ago, but now, impulse by the current global wave of social anger seems to be getting really close to be part of a coalition government that looks potentially close to achieve power on this small but significant island. 

Iceland was struck heavily by the 2008 world crisis, a "financial meltdown" analysts said, but the small country was able to reinvent themselves and to put corrupt bankers in jail in order to set an example to the world, later, the Panama Papers scandal also hit this Northern lands, as their prime minister, a former media celebrity got involved on the leaked lists, and he was forced to leave his position, it seems that the Iceland version of democracy is not exempt from corruption, but itbhas developed ways to quickly mend such mistakes, that's why they are a important player for the world in order to understand how we can fight corruption. 

With a 20% of vote intention, the Iceland Pirate Party looks now as a formidable contender within Iceland's politic system, formed by supposed progressive liberals, ex collaborators of the Internet controversial site WikiLeaks, the IPP are looking to form a big coalition along the Green Party, the Socialist Party and the Centrist Party, obviously left leaned, and with intention to defeat right wing parties and change Iceland's political direction to once again, an advantage of being such a small and homogenous country is the easiness for Iceland to quickly mend it's direction and correct the course without much stress. 

An ex WikiLeaks collaborator, Brigitta Jonsdottir is the leader of the Iceland Pirate Party, riding the current wave of antiestablishment feelings, Iceland seems to be on the verge of pushing again big chance in politics, a party that is still a big enigma as to what would happen if it arrives to power, progressive and liberal is how Jonasdottir describes herself, with a party pushing a big transformation of the current Icelandic government, with bigger emphasis on transparency, Internet privacy, attacking corruption and implement direct democracy, the IPP looks like something coming out of a populist dream, but consider that they are neither leftish not rightist and they are not willing to destroy the government, but to reform it and supposedly shield it from the advances of xenophobic nationalism led by people like Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump, a radical but possible ray of light coming in the middle of dark democratic, considering Brexit, and the increasing possibility of Trump becoming president of the USA. 

I'm still not to convinced that the Pirate Party id exactly the answer in order to tire apart the system, to reinvent it and to reform democracy, but we shall wait to see the outcome, Iceland could become an interesting laboratory for the future if the world democracy, and iceberg in the middle of an ocean of totalitarianism starting to affect democracy, this could be just the tip of it, is still a confusing solution, but it's a start, as it doesn't look as extreme as a revolution, is not about to destroy, is about reforming, is about evolving.