Jón Gnarr - The Pirate

I really felt for my friends at Hlemmur. Some were poor or had parents who treated them badly. Others were mentally handicapped or disabled in some way that affects people: dyslexia, autism, neurosis, crippling anxiety. Everywhere they were treated harshly. Everyone was ready to give up on them without ever having given them a chance. They’d been judged. The children of their parents. Future winos, junkies, and criminals. The community was like a military force that didn’t want the wretched in its ranks. It had washed its hands and looked away, but these kids were still sitting there, wounded. Many of them were utterly disconsolate.

I remember one boy who hung out with me at Hlemmur around that time. His father was mentally ill, his mother was an invalid, and his sister was mentally handicapped. His home situation was so bad that he didn’t want to stay there, he was treated so badly. He did poorly in school and was treated horribly there, too. He had difficulty concentrating and was teased because he stuttered. So he came to Hlemmur. No one ever came looking for him, no one was concerned about him or wondered how he felt. It seemed no one loved him, that everyone didn’t care. But he found refuge among us. He wasn’t teased at Hlemmur. There, it was cool to stutter. At Hlemmur he had a unique standing and was treated with a respect he had never experienced before. He came to Hlemmur to take a rest from the world. He never did anything to anyone. He was an amusing kid with friendly brown eyes, a sparkling glance, and great curiosity. He was looking for love, friendship, and acceptance.

During the winter, his sister died. He came to Hlemmur. It was the only place where he could grieve. He cried in front of us. One girl went over to him and hugged him. They sat on the bus bench outside Hlemmur, and he wept in her arms, and tears fell down her black leather jacket. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, so I just stood at a distance and watched them. No one was interested in them; in general, people just walked past without paying attention to punks, even when they were crying. One day he stopped coming to Hlemmur. I didn’t know why. I saw him sometimes on the bus and we talked. Then the social welfare agencies sent him out to the country somewhere, and I lost contact with him. I heard nothing more until a year later, when I heard he was dead. I don’t know how he died. Maybe it was an accident. There was nothing about it in the papers. None of us went to the funeral. We didn’t imagine we’d be welcome.

The punks at Hlemmur have now mostly become grown adults. Some have done all right and even found happiness in life, like myself. But many of these kids are dead. One good friend of mine died from drug abuse in a foreign city. Another leapt into the sea and drowned in a drug-fueled haze. Another was killed. In my memory, they are still only thirteen years old, small and confused, baby-faced and in leather jackets.

That love exists at all in this world is a miracle because if everything had gone according to plan, the brutal world would have long since killed it off.

I would like to live in a country where no one has permission to rule over anyone else.

The Icelandic word for anarchism, stjórnleysi , really means leaderlessness. It’s a poor translation. Leaderlessness is basically chaos. Leaderlessness is freedom without responsibility. Anarchism is freedom with responsibility. Anarchism is not leaderlessness. It’s not chaos. Anarchism is perfection. There are schools in Anarchist Land. Not just a single school based on a system everyone must undergo. No, in Anarchist Land there are many different schools. And no one needs to attend more often than he wants to. People can learn what they want and can do what they want. If people want to learn at night and sleep during the day, that’s okay.

In Anarchist Land everyone is equal and considerate and understands that not everyone is alike. But people are not utterly selfish. There are some selfish people who think anarchism is selfish. For example, it does not formally appoint people to help others. But there are people who think that’s fun. People who understand that when you help others you are mostly helping yourself — not everyone understands that.

Anarchism is as varied as people are. In Anarchist Land, people can be the way they are without someone always telling them they’re wrong. In Anarchist Land you can be gay or punk or a lawyer. Male lawyers can wear nail varnish if they want. You might have three wives or four. You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others. You can dress how you like. You can show up naked for work, and there’s no one who can forbid that. The only thing that’s prohibited is being evil towards others. Everyone has something to give. Everyone needs to find out what they have to give and give it as much as they can.

In Anarchist Land I’m allowed to build my own house and make it the way I want. I can have lizards in my room and go to school on a horse. I can light a campfire in the garden. I can speak the language I want and say what I want but always without being annoying to others.

In Anarchist Land there’s no money and no bank. All time is equally important. People exchange time. The doctor’s time is just as important as the cleaning lady’s. Women and men are equal.

I hate the system. The system discriminates against its citizens. Those who diligently learn the system do well, but those who aren’t so good at that are cast out to the cold. There’s only one education that’s considered right, and it is the system’s education. Pushy people control things. And pushy people are not especially good. They aren’t even especially brilliant. For instance, understanding emotions is also an important talent. Imagination matters more than knowledge. But the system doesn’t understand that. A psychologist in school can be tremendously intelligent and very educated but still cannot do anything for anyone. Someone who knows feelings well and cares about people can do more good and can help others. But the system doesn’t think in those ways. It instead wants everyone to know math. Other people seem to only want to accept those who are already like themselves. They underestimate the imagination. But the imagination is equally as important as math. Neanderthal man was strong. He might also have been smart at math. But he died out because he had no imagination. The pushy and the strong oppress everyone else. Educated people stand together and set rules that hinder uneducated but good people from doing what they want. They don’t want uneducated people to be equal but to be slaves. Pushy people get more opportunities than good people. Pushy people get good jobs even though they’re not especially worthy or interesting. They get the job just because they have a particular education.

That’s wrong and unfair. I’m nervous and scared. But I’m not stupid. I went for an intelligence test at Dalbraut. I’m quite intelligent. But imagination was not tested. They don’t know how to do that. Maybe you can’t measure it. Sometimes I imagine so much that I feel bad. I imagine horrible things sometimes. I think so much that I get a headache. There is no one to guide me and teach me. It’s like no one understands me. People think I’m either being funny or awkward.

I could just learn in school. I just think it’s so pointless. Either things are so simple that I cannot be bothered to learn them or so complex that I don’t know how to learn them. I find it wrong that I have to do things I don’t want to do, things that are contrary to my convictions. I don’t do what the system wants. The system doesn’t want me to be the way I am — but somehow different. I don’t want the system to dictate what I want. I feel fine about how things are, but I just want to be left alone by the system and be the way I am. Yet there’s no place for me. I’m imprisoned by rules. I’ll never be a professor of anything. I’ll never get any important work. The teachers have told me so. I’m going to be a trash collector. I know for sure I don’t want to do that. I want to be an actor and act in movies. I want to invent something new and fun. If there was ever a school I could be a part of, it would be an Enjoyment school where the enjoyable parts are the feelings. But no such school exists. The system does not see the purpose of an Enjoyment school. The system finds all enjoyment inferior. And then it creates rules. I cannot go to drama school because I have to have a college degree. I know that’s something I’ll never be able to get. I have to know Danish and mathematics, although I will never use them anywhere. And though I am entertaining and imaginative, it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about that if I don’t know my multiplication tables. The system believes it important to know your seven times table but not to know how to make jokes. The system’s method is to get rid of people like me. Anything I do will be treated with great caution. I’ve become an outsider. No one is going to take me seriously. My teachers have often told me so. It amounts to an attempt to belittle me and to make things difficult for me. The system wants me to do nothing. If I learned Danish and long division, something inside me would simply die. I’d be letting the system break me down; I’d be giving up. I’d be betraying what I believe in. What I’ll do in future is fail the exam. Later, I’ll fail the standardized tests. Then I won’t be able to go college. I wouldn’t find anything there. I don’t think there’s anything taught there that I’m interested in learning. There’s just the system with its crap and bother. I’m a dunce. All the others get seven-point-something, but I always get three-point-something. In future, I’ll work as a laborer or in a factory.