The Pira­te Party has been grow­ing in pop­ula­rity recently and is now the lar­gest political party in Ice­land accord­ing to a recent poll, with 29.1% of the vote. A whopp­ing 38 percent of Icelandic voters aged 18-49 year old would cast their vote for the Pira­te Party if the electi­ons were held today.

Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, says the growing support in Iceland is encouraging for Pirates worldwide.

"Seeing these numbers, the Pirate Party being the largest party in the country, shows that there is essentially no limit.

The net generation does not need to take abuse anymore, and that goes for the rest of the world as well."

Since its foundation in the year 2006, the Pirate Party has spread around the world with an admirable pace, and it's hard to find a western country that doesn't harbor the Pirates by now. In fact, the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel has the total count at more than 70 countries.

"It all depends on how you count, when does a party become a party? Is it when a couple of guys meet and just decide to form a party? Is it when you have a website?  Or is it when you have the first general assembly?" Folkvinge asks.

Hard to explain the rapid growth

"We currently have elected representatives in six or seven countries, either on the municipal level, the national level or in the European Parliament. As of now though, Iceland is the only country where we have representatives on the national level."

That fact doesn't dissappoint at all, he says. "I mean, the average time for a new party to get elected anywhere is 28 years. So I'd say we're doing fine." The rapid growth in Iceland still comes as a surprise to many, and Falkvinge has no ready explanation.

"It's kind of hard to predict where the winds will be favourable. I think it was Rockefeller, the oil magnet in the United States, who said that you needed three things to succeed. First of all, you had to get up early, that is to show discipline.

Second, you had to work hard and attain the right method. And last but not least, you needed to find oil. Method and discipline is not enough, you also need a little bit of favourable winds."

Worst possible time to succeed

"That said, the leadership in Iceland has been extraordinary. We do find that wherever we stand up against an establishment that has started to take support for granted, things can accelerate really quickly. That's what happened in Sweden and Germany, and I think that's what we are now seeing in Iceland."

Although the support is record-breaking, it doesn't guarantee any results in the elections which aren't exactly on the horizon, given that they are scheduled to be held in two years' time.

"It's kind of the worst possible time to have this kind of success, seeing as it's far too early to give any kind of hint about the actual results. The German Piratenpartei was polling at thirteen percent nationwide two years ahead of the election, and they did not make it."

Still, Falkvinge says the party now finds itself in a strange position. "We haven't actually had a prime ministry within reach before, which is a very strange feeling.

At the same time it is absolutely awesome that the movement is growing like this."

A different ballgame

"The internet brings openness and transparency that the people who were born "offline" cannot learn if they don't experience them. But bringing the values to fruition, making them concrete policies, that's a different ballgame altogether. That's much harder than just being online. So that's the game we're learning I guess.

Do you think being in government would change the Pirate Party?

"Absolutely! It takes one generation for any party to become corrupt. Once you have money, power and influence, you start attracting people who want money, power and influence. So it takes about thirty years for the initial activists to get replaced by career politicians.

But that doesn't preclude the possibility for you to contribute something important in the here and now. So I think it's important to be aware of that mechanism. At the end of the day, people are people, and every generation needs to reconquer democracy."

Turboswitch on humanity

"The old guard is trying to wage some sort of conflict against the net generation.

Trying to wage a conflict against the entire future generation isn't very clever seeing as time is not on your side."

Falkvinge compares the situation to the relationship a married couple.

"When you observe a married couple you can see how they start to share their brainpower essentially, they start completing each other's sentences and divide the thinking labour between them. The internet has flicked a turboswitch on humanity that we didn't even know we had.

We are starting to think together and we are starting to feel together. We are starting to build communities in a way that we didn't even know was possible, before we did it."

Society is at a crossroads

"The nightmare here is that, while working together online is the closest thing we've ever come to sharing minds, you also have a government that's discovered the closest thing it's ever come to mind reading. We are at a crossroads here, who takes control of this technology? If the citizens take control of it, which I am fighting for, then we will have the most transparent and inclusive society that society has ever seen.

On the other hand, if an oppressive government, or an oppressive self-selected elite, takes control of this technology, we will have a dystopic society that goes far beyond the nightmares of the novels of the 1950s. And we are at this crossroads right here and right now."

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