Synopsis
We meet Icelandic Member of Parliament and leader of Iceland’s Pirate Party, Birgitta Jónsdóttir campaigning in Reykjavik. Elections have been called over revelations in the "Panama Papers" leak. Icelanders are mad and not going to take it anymore, so this is no ordinary election campaign.
Birgitta: “The Pirate Party wants to be the Robin Hood of Power. We want to give power back to you: the people!” Iceland’s crowd sourced Constitution is one of many ideas for empowering the people, but the conservatives have not yet allowed it into law. Turning Iceland into an international digital haven for free speech is another radical idea attracting international focus on Birgitta and Iceland, this Island of volcanoes, Sagas, Elves and innovation.
After the U.S. Presidential elections, neither the Democrats nor the GOP seem to have any answers to America’s depleted democracy and stumbling economy. Innovation, the necessary ingredient for change, has been disabled in the past American election.
Birgitta: “In this vacuum of ideas we are facing a world that is very polarized, people are disappointed; instead of the promises of the Arab Spring, we have Isis; instead of the Occupy Movement, we have Trump, Brexit, The National Front. All these Xenophobic, fearful futures! But instead of feeding into anger, fear and disempowerment, we created a vehicle so people feel empowered.”
In the NATO Parliament where Birgitta holds a seat, some call her the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; in the Hollywood film “The Fifth Estate” she and Julian Assange prepare Wikileaks’ most notorious leak, the “Collateral Murder”. The video went viral and Birgitta remains on the FBI’s most wanted list. She uses her status as a Member of Parliament to visit the US and openly support whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond. Jeremy is still in prison, but Chelsea walked out to freedom.
Her mother – Iceland’s most famous folk singer, her father committed suicide in a freezing river. Years later her second husband suicided by walking into the same river. As she grew Birgitta cloaked herself in the world of the emerging internet, online poetry slams, art and then collaborating with ‘Hacktivists’ where she encountered Julian Assange and the utopian ideals that promised a better world by exposing lies and treachery wherever it occurred. From this contact came the vision for Iceland that Birgitta champions today.
After founding “The Movement” and “The Pirate Party” and serving three terms, she has fulfilled her promise to step down. Birgitta and the Pirates have provided a beacon of transparency, digital democracy and innovative participatory “netizen” activism. She came close to ruling her country, but what lies ahead, perhaps a more significant role in international redefinition of rejuvenated democracy in a time of its death throes. We need models like Birgitta and we continue to follow her as she finds a place in the global redefinition of democratic process in the 21st century.
Birgitta: “The Pirate Party wants to be the Robin Hood of Power. We want to give power back to you: the people!” Iceland’s crowd sourced Constitution is one of many ideas for empowering the people, but the conservatives have not yet allowed it into law. Turning Iceland into an international digital haven for free speech is another radical idea attracting international focus on Birgitta and Iceland, this Island of volcanoes, Sagas, Elves and innovation.
After the U.S. Presidential elections, neither the Democrats nor the GOP seem to have any answers to America’s depleted democracy and stumbling economy. Innovation, the necessary ingredient for change, has been disabled in the past American election.
Birgitta: “In this vacuum of ideas we are facing a world that is very polarized, people are disappointed; instead of the promises of the Arab Spring, we have Isis; instead of the Occupy Movement, we have Trump, Brexit, The National Front. All these Xenophobic, fearful futures! But instead of feeding into anger, fear and disempowerment, we created a vehicle so people feel empowered.”
In the NATO Parliament where Birgitta holds a seat, some call her the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; in the Hollywood film “The Fifth Estate” she and Julian Assange prepare Wikileaks’ most notorious leak, the “Collateral Murder”. The video went viral and Birgitta remains on the FBI’s most wanted list. She uses her status as a Member of Parliament to visit the US and openly support whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond. Jeremy is still in prison, but Chelsea walked out to freedom.
Her mother – Iceland’s most famous folk singer, her father committed suicide in a freezing river. Years later her second husband suicided by walking into the same river. As she grew Birgitta cloaked herself in the world of the emerging internet, online poetry slams, art and then collaborating with ‘Hacktivists’ where she encountered Julian Assange and the utopian ideals that promised a better world by exposing lies and treachery wherever it occurred. From this contact came the vision for Iceland that Birgitta champions today.
After founding “The Movement” and “The Pirate Party” and serving three terms, she has fulfilled her promise to step down. Birgitta and the Pirates have provided a beacon of transparency, digital democracy and innovative participatory “netizen” activism. She came close to ruling her country, but what lies ahead, perhaps a more significant role in international redefinition of rejuvenated democracy in a time of its death throes. We need models like Birgitta and we continue to follow her as she finds a place in the global redefinition of democratic process in the 21st century.