A Letter from Iceland: #CanYouHearUs.IS

["David Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

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From: Hendricks Dewayne <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A Letter from Iceland: #CanYouHearUs.IS
Date: October 13, 2016 at 9:12:45 AM EDT
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com

A Letter from Iceland: #CanYouHearUs.IS
By Larry Lessig
Oct 13 2016
<https://medium.com/@lessig/a-letter-from-iceland-canyouhearus-is-789910d293c0>

I’m in Iceland for the term—on sabbatical, with my family, giving my kids a sense of ~America, writing tons of law-geek 
stuff—and watching an amazing political battle brew in the upcoming parliamentary elections (October 29). Turns out, 
democracy has problems everywhere—except that here, an extraordinary citizens movement is doing something about it.

Some background: You’ll remember the financial crisis of 2008. That crisis hit Iceland hard. So hard that tens of 
thousands marched on the Parliament banging pots and pans (aka “The Pots & Pans Revolution”), and demanding change.

Some linked that crisis to a failure of Iceland’s constitution. And they responded to that failure by launching a 
process to crowdsource a new one. At first, the process was not connected to the government. But then the Parliament 
embraced the movement, and gave it form. A thousand people (randomly selected) would identify the values of the new 
constitution. Then a constitutional council would be elected to draft a constitution based on those values. More than 
500 ran. Twenty-five were elected. And for four months, they worked to draft a new constitution—in public, posting 
there version on Facebook, and taking comments from around the world. The Parliament then put the draft up for a vote 
(non-binding, asking whether there should be a new constitution “based on” the Council’s draft). Four years ago, more 
than 2/3ds of those voting approved the draft. (Blueberry Soup is a wonderful documentary about the process.)

And then, amazingly, Parliament did nothing. The bill to adopt a constitution “based on” the draft stalled. Everyone 
(in Parliament at least) seemed to forget it.

But when the Panama Papers scandal broke, and the Prime Minister resigned, the people of Iceland were reminded that 
there was still a government to fix. And so an amazing citizens movement in Iceland started to develop, to press the 
issue to the center of these elections.

I’ve been able to watch this movement unfold. And as a “fix democracy first” sort of democrat, I’ve been watching with 
great admiration (and a bit of jealousy). The leaders of this movement are all non-politicians (there are politician 
heroes, too, like the Birgitta of the Pirate Party, and Katrin Jakobsdóttir of the Left Greens) but the real activists 
here are not people running for anything. They are just citizens trying to get a government that knows for whom it 
works—because after four years of ignoring a referendum, that’s apparently an open question.

Today they launch a social media campaign to frame this election around this issue. The message of the campaign is a 
clever remake of a familiar meme: “Can you [as in the Parliament] hear us [as in the people] now?” Four videos (two in 
English, two in Icelandic) will launch setting the terms of the debate, plus the first 2 of 10 (in Icelandic) 
discussing the top 10 problems the new constitution will solve. The English versions are below.

[snip]

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