By Marianne Hoynes

An unusual crowd was gathered tonight in solidarity, people from all over the world in the most unprecedented way, in one place to watch with great hope the Icelandic election of 2013 . That place was the Internet. We were gathered as one community to watch a small yet powerful new political party make history - the Pirate Party of Iceland.

Never has an international community been so interested, so vested for so many reasons in an Icelandic election. In true Pirate Party style, this group of Americans, Germans, Spaniards, British, Icelanders, Danes and others, were all gathered on various sites, glued to Twitter and Facebook, listening to RUV, the Icelandic Public Broadcast of the live election results, with Icelanders bonding with these foreigners in a communal excitement, translating for those who could not understand Icelandic, making new friends. Early on, the election began with controversy, either fact or rumor. It has been alleged that one group already complained that one of the ballot boxes was locked but not sealed, and were calling to sue the election.

Birgitta Jonsdottir has been the best ambassador that Iceland has ever had. Birgitta came into Parliament when Iceland was deeply wounded and her people suffering from the third largest economic crash in modern history. She was instrumental in not only helping to empower a new crowd sourced constitution, using the internet as it has never been used before to include the voices of ordinary citizens, the “you and me” of Iceland, who wanted to be heard in the reforming of their failed government; but was also instrumental in trailblazing a new set of laws via the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative to guarantee true transparency of government and online laws for safe freedom of expression, among many other forward thinking solutions.

by: Marianne Hoynes

Iceland has been front and center in world news for the last five years. The country with the oldest seated Parliament in Europe has survived, albeit battered and bruised, the third largest banking and economic collapse in recorded history. They used the power of the internet in the most innovative and creative way the world has ever seen; by creating a crowd sourced constitution, written online by the people and for the people.

This is what free, open source internet mixed with democracy now provides in the 21st century. Left unfettered, its possibilities are endless. Iceland's use of the internet has not only given its citizens (whose population is spread out across a volcanic island roughly the size of Kansas) a way to send in their ideas of good governance into Parliament; it has given its government, keen to hear the will of the people, a means to include the whole population in real democracy, in real time, and create a crowd sourced constitution.

This week, Iceland is holding the newest and most cutting edged election that the world has ever seen. As a result of Banksters and corrupt corporations, deregulation and the kinds of speculation and insider trading that has destroyed many of the world's economies, Icelanders have become completely fed up with their own corrupt and incompetent government. Some citizens are no longer paying attention (sounds familiar), but most of the citizens of Iceland are more involved than they have ever been before.

Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson is one of those citizens. Not only is he running for a seat in Parliament, this is his first time running for elected office. He is also running as a member of one of the newest of ten political parties in Iceland - the Pirate Party.
Many people around the world from Norway to Italy, from Russia to the US, have heard of the member if Icelandic Parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir, who raised global awareness for the need of open and transparent governance as a member of Wikileaks and supporter of Bradley Manning. Birgitta is running in the South District for the Pirate Party. Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson is running in the North, the first person to run in his district for the Pirate Party. Helgi is a 32 year old computer programmer with a true global awareness. He loves the internet and how it has transformed our lives.

In 2008, Iceland had the third largest banking and economic crash in recorded history. They responded by using the internet to create a new constitution, written by the people and for the people, reinventing the definition of self governance. All of this happened under a cloak of media secrecy in this part of the world. We would not want to give Americans any ideas, after all, about fighting for freedom from tyranny and taxation without representation.

Now Iceland is in a real fight for freedom. Although they are considered a European recovery success story, all is not well. This story is like a socio political fairy tale, with villains and true heroes, with the biggest heroes being the Icelandic general population. But first, a bit of history.

Iceland is a small European country that used to be part of Denmark; an island in the north Atlantic, somewhere between Europe and the Americas. It has a population of about 320,000 people, most of them living around the capital city of Reykjavik. They speak Icelandic, but also English, German and other Nordic languages.

Like the rest of the world, financial deregulation and bad banking practices led to the collapse of the stock market and the largest banks in Iceland. People's savings and pensions were completely wiped out, and worst of all, they had no idea it was coming.

by: Marianne Hoynes for Repeace International and OpedNews

As a journalist I do not usually write in first person, especially when going to interview Birgitta Jonsdottir; a member of Icelandic Parliament, an Artist, a member of the Pirate Party, and an integral member of Wikileaks. But interviewing Birgitta even though we had not met before, was like sitting down with a close girlfriend and fellow activist for a chat. The most remarkable thing about Birgitta next to the intelligence and passion behind her very blue eyes is how incredibly warm and personable she is. Though we were talking about the very real and weighty issues of the world, US politics, Bradley Manning, freedom of information and the upcoming election in Iceland, we also took a moment to chat about how cute and fearless the squirrels were in Washington Square Park, and that we might be the only two people in the world who like the smell of skunk. I was completely drawn into the moment.

The other reason I was so drawn into my own interview was that to my surprise, the interview was filmed by the renowned filmmaker, Judith Ehrlich (The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers), for an upcoming documentary film called, Open: Outlaws and Pioneers of the Electronic Frontier.

Filmmaker Ehrlich has been following Birgitta for the last two years for this documentary. It is narrated by Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, who was one of the pioneers of the internet. He coined the term "cyberspace", as he watched Grateful Dead fans, the "Dead Heads", create a virtual community of groupies, who followed the band around the country nearly 30 years ago.