S5E24: Lifeboats: Katrín Oddsdóttir

This is Larry Lessig. Okay, so we've had many weeks of

theories and reflection and hope and doomsplaining. In these last three episodes, we're going to consider examples of democracy, innovation that have actually happened and actually worked, or

almost worked in the first case.

We'll begin with the extraordinary story from Iceland. That's today's episode. In the next episode we'll move east to Ireland. And in the final episode, we'll hear about an extraordinary experiment to build a citizens assembly for the world in the middle of a pandemic. But the first episode of these final three is a conversation with one of my very few favorite people in the world. Kata Oldsdatter is a lawyer and troublemaker in Iceland. She's recently led actions to block whaling in Iceland and amazingly has survived, at least so far. And that success has been to the amazement of the world. A dozen years ago, she was among 25 people elected in Iceland to draft a new constitution. That election happened after an extraordinary assembly, not called a Citizens assembly, but a National Assembly. In 2009, after the financial crisis, Prime Minister private citizens and civil society groups organized a national assembly of 1500 people. 1200 chosen at random from the national registry and 300 chosen as representatives of companies, institutions and other groups gathered together to discuss the core values which the Icelandic government should proceed to embed in a constitution. That 2009 assembly was then followed the next year by a government organized assembly of 950 randomly selected citizens. Those citizens chosen randomly were representative of Iceland's gender, geographic and age makeup. A constitutional committee appointed by the Parliament compiled a two volume report on the opinions generated by that 2010 National assembly and presented the main conclusions at a press conference after the assembly. It was stated that 97% of the participants thought that the format of the meeting was good, 95% thought the meeting went well, 75% considered the execution of the meeting to be exemplary. 93% believed the results of the meeting would benefit the Constituent assembly in its work on a new constitution. And in addition, they reported that the values that the participants considered the most important to base the constitution on were number one, equality, number two, human rights, number three, democracy, number four, honesty, justice, and number five, respect, freedom and responsibility. The assembly also concluded that the new constitution ought to contain certain key provisions concerning electoral reform and the ownership of natural resources for a long time, two of the most contentious political issues in Iceland. The government then set up a process to elect 25 citizens to draft the constitution. More than 500 people ran in a population of 300,000. An extraordinary expression of democratic commitment. And by the way, the election was decided by rank choice voting with campaigns consisting of free radio time for all candidates over the weeks leading up to the election. Astonishingly then, the Supreme Court of Iceland declared the election void for the most absurd technical reasons. And that absurdity triggered the parliament to override the decision by simply appointing the presumptive winners to a committee to draft a new constitution. Anyway, you're going to hear all about this and how the process worked from the founding mother of what should be the Icelandic constitution, or at least the basis of the Icelandic constitution, Katrin Odsdatter. Katrin, or Kata, as her friends would call her, has a BA in journalism from Dublin City University, a BA in law from Reykjavik University, and a master's in Human Rights from London University. She balances her life between fomenting constitutional revolution in Iceland and practicing the most incredibly interesting human rights law anywhere. I've seen how she inspires many across Iceland, all sorts of people across Iceland. I've tried to persuade her that that power could be power for good in government. So far, she's not convinced.

Stay tuned for our conversation. Kata, thank you so much for talking to us. I want you to tell us a story, a story that actually very few people, especially here in the United States, at least know anything about, but a story which is extraordinarily inspirational, however tragic the ending might be. So let's go before you began to be in the center or part of the story, critically, let's start with a crisis. The financial crisis in 2008, and what that did to the people of Iceland and what that led them to organize through the national assembly,

if you want to picture it, let's talk about Iceland as being people who are sort of not like the French. We're not going to the streets protesting like mad, you know, we're more like in front of our television, you know, shouting at the politicians. Not a very effective way, but that's sort of our style, you know, And. And then in 2008 and 9, when everything collapsed here, and I mean everything, like all our banks collapsed, and we were like the canary in the mine because, like, we were the first state to go down in the big economic downfall. And people took to the streets, and it was amazing. And it was something that you could actually describe as a constitutional moment, for sure, those amazing moments where you can get, like, big changes through. So all of a sudden, people started talking about our very outdated constitution. And that had not been something we were discussing before, because we got our independence from denmark back in 1944. And we just took their constitution and just translated it and put the word president, king and ran. Because we were basically slyly getting out of this colonial relationship while they were being occupied by the Nazis. Then afterwards we were always supposed to get our own constitution, but it never happened. It's really interesting that in all those years, the politicians somehow never managed to finish this task. So when the economic downfall happened, even though the links between that and our constitution were not quite obvious, people started demanding this, that we got our own constitution. And we were like burning big fires outside their parliament and you know, lighting the Oslo Christmas tree and stuff like that. You know, it was insane. And it was called by many like the pots and pan revolution because people took to the streets with their kitchenware and, and we're banging the same tune all the time, telling the government to please go itself. I'm so sorry if I can't use language like this in your podcast. You just have to go like you're

allowed to go ahead.

Okay. So finally in January 2009, they said, okay, we will have elections. They sort of folded the newly elected government and the elections led to the first left wing government ever since the democracy to be formed. And they had to do of course, enormous tasks, like they had to try to rebuild the financial situation where like tens of thousands of home were bankrupt essentially and tried to fix all this bloody mess that we were in in regards to other nations and so on. But then they still decided also to make a new constitution. And we had a prime minister at the time called Johanna Segratott. I think she's actually the first openly gay prime minister of the world. But she, she had been been an enthusiast of constitutional changes for a long time, so it was also a hint of luck. And she said, okay, let's do this. We will try to make this new constitution, but we will have to do it with people involved. Because like I told you, the atmosphere in society was quite unique. People were demanding to participate, to be part of the solution, and somehow together to fix our society. So one of the beautiful things that arose from that was a thing like a little NGO called the Anthill. And they were sort of trying to explain the wisdom of the crowd by doing a big national assembly where people were randomly selected to discuss policies. And so, and the government sort of ripped that idea and, and, and said, okay, we will do a national assembly just like they did. And they decided to have 1,000 people. Now bear in mind that at the time ICELAND was about 320,000 or something. We are very few, very special to have an Icelandic guest on your podcast. And we basically decided to have this National assembly where 1,000 people would be randomly selected from all over the country, from different sexes, from different age groups and so on. And they would just discuss sort of the values of the new constitution for a whole day in a big sports complex moderated by like, of course, like people who were helping them to discuss it and so on. But the, the outcome of that was really beautiful. In one way you could say the outcome is just the. The amazing lived experience of those citizens. To have been allowed to participate in such a discussion is one thing. And I think sometimes we forget the sort of the intrinsic value of conversation and we tend to focus on the outcome of stuff like something that you can measure. But I think the other thing is even more important, you know, because conversation changes you, especially conversations like these where you're actually allowed to have those big questions with people who are not your friends. Not the usual, you know, the echo tunnel and all that, you know. So they, they came out with beautiful suggestions, which of course are not all something that you can just use as a hard fact, decisions for new constitution. But nevertheless, it painted a broad picture. After that, there were elections where 25 people got elected, including myself, to be on a thing called the Constitution Council, which became assembly, when the parliament then appointed us and we had four.

Okay, but you're going over some things pretty quickly. Let's take. So the first thing is the national assembly is a process for basically identifying the values that the people of Iceland think a constitution should embody. And then there's a second stage where the parliament passes a law that says there's going to be an election for this constitutional assembly. There is an election. You're one of the 25 who are elected. And footnote, it's an extraordinary ranked choice voting election. So people get to rank their preferences and that produces the 25. Then the Supreme Court steps in and declares the election void.

Yes. I didn't know how much detail you wanted, how much gory detail, but I'm happy that you want to talk.

I love gory.

Let's bring it on. Okay, so basically, yes, what happens? Like, there are so many complications in this because this has never been done before anywhere in the world, you know, and it was all being done sort of on the run, very Icelandic style. It's like, oh, let's just start and see where we end, you know, so one of the thing that they didn't anticipate was that 470 people would actually go forth for the Constitutional Council. And how do you as a citizen pick 25 good candidates out of 470 names? It's insane. And what happened then was the media sort of just gave up on the task and they just, instead of trying to help people to figure out what they wanted to vote, they just sort of looked the other way until all the people, or a lot of the people came together as a group and said, please, you know, we. We don't care who wins. Could you just please try to cover this? And then there was a really beautiful effort made by our public service broadcaster where we all got 10 minutes to tell what we wanted to do. And it was played like day and night. You know, she could hear all those amazing voices of all those different people, like, hello, my name is Olav and I'm a truck driver in the north of Iceland. And I think we should get the more profits from our natural resources. Resources. That's why I run, you know, Old lady with a German accent was the next one. You know, it's beautiful and I really hope they preserve it because it shows like the same thing I was talking about before, how people seriously wanted to participate in building this place up again and making society whole again, you know. Yes. And then people somehow managed to choose the 25 individuals that they wanted to have. And immediately after that, two of the guys who didn't get in, they. They sued the election. I don't know what the right word is. And we thought, okay, I mean, no problem. This is basically just a stunt. But law and behold, our Supreme Court said, yes, the elections are invalid. And in my humble opinion, I'm a lawyer, this is a fucking scandal. Because there was no indication of the outcome being wrong. Nobody even even implied that what they were doing was saying, oh, the booths were not yay high. Technically. Somebody could have. And you know, like such a complicated election where you had to write down like four digits. Like to be able to cheat or see what somebody was doing is like out of the question. And. And then, you know, maybe the ballots were. Had numbers you could have. You could have possibly know, known what somebody voted. You know, it was something like this. We're all like little technical things, things that they sort of added up together and said, oh, together, they're actually big enough to make it invalid. And in my opinion, this is a really clear example of when the system really tries to reject changes to itself. Of course, a constitution is two things. It's a sort of maybe the Music to the future that you dance to as a society, but it's also IKEA brochure of how you actually construct the society. And that entails of course, the courts and so on.

Can I just be clear? You just said IKEA brochure, Is that what you just said? So it's like IKEA brochure.

Yeah. How do you assimilate? How do you build it?

I've been in constitutional law for 40 years. That's a perfectly clear conception of what a constitution is. It's beautiful. Okay, so you have an IKEA brochure for what the society should be and then you have a dance for the future. Those are the two aspects of a constitution.

Those are the two aspects I think a constitution should have at least. And ours doesn't really. Ours is the ikea, not the, not the other thing. And that's why it's lacking a soul and that's why people don't love it. Yours, however, has the soul. We, the people. It's beautiful and that's why people love it, even though it's really fucked. Okay, so anyway, we're back in the Supreme Court and the decision. Now let's be clear, this is not a judgment, it's decision. So for some weird reason, our Supreme Court has the power to make an administrational decision on elections. Therefore you can't appeal it and nothing can be done. So people were totally shocked when this happened, but it was a dead end sort of street to try to fix it. So what the parliament decided to do is to actually appoint the same people based on the fact that nobody suspected any wrong outcome haven't happened. It was more like just an. But this hurt the legitimacy of our whole process and really gave power to those who were against the whole process to always say, oh my God, this is just like a bogus thing. It's based on a, you know, it's not, it's not real enough. And, and, and people always talk about this as a really negative thing, but I have come to the conclusion that this was a blessing in disguise. Because what happened when we had to meet those 25 people who had no mandate all of a sudden and were supposed to figure out what to do when we were like having this emotional meetings saying, okay, let's just do it anyway, let's do it for free, let's do it for our nation, you know, and even though we can't like have any salaries or nothing, we just, let's just try to do it. But then the decision came from parliament to do it this way. And we. Because we had been hurt and our legitimacy and our sort of credibility had been hurt, we became a group instead of 25 egos, which we were. Of course, I have a huge ego. And a lot of the people that were voted were the same. You know, you, you. We were picked because we are standing out, you know, and we would probably all have been like, oh, according to my statement, I want this, and, you know, more like fighting. But we were like, oh, my God, we just have to make it work. No, and I think that's why it was a blessing. And I think that that's due to the fact that there is a constitution spirit. You know, I know it sounds very hippiest, but I think a nation has a spirit. It's really hard to explain it. And sometimes when this group mind somehow wakes up, destiny also helps, you know, and it helps in really sly ways and. Okay. And really weird spiritual rat. Okay,

okay, but. Okay, but let's. Let's just be clear to people, understand the kind of diversity of this. These 25. I mean, I mean, there's academics. Torador was professor of economics. And you have media people. There's doctors, there's a farmer, a couple lawyers, journalists, a pastor, an architect. It's quite an extraordinary mix of people. A theater director that sit down to form the Constitution. I mean, our Constitution is basically a bunch of lawyers sat down and wrote our Constitution. I mean, some want to be lawyers, some actual lawyers, but this is really a mix of the society as a whole, which, when you imagine them working as a group, I imagine it's the first time you had a group like

that that you worked with.

Yeah, totally. And, you know, because of the way they were put together, they were really, you know, diverse. And the most interesting thing I took from all of this experience. Now, we had four months to write the new constitution, which in retrospect is a little bit too short. And we backed the politicians. Oh, can we do it, please? In two rounds? Can we do first for two months, then talk to the people, go around the country, introduce it, get feedback, come back maybe a year later and finish it? No, we have rented the building, so you cannot.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But you have to remember, this is almost a bankrupt nation that is doing all this. And I mean, this is a costly affair to have thousand people flown from all over the country to talk together, then have a massive election and then rent the building and all that. You know, it sounds a little bit hilarious, but it's actually, you Know, at the same time people were being carried out of their houses, you know, and, and we were owing, you know, other nations like ridiculous money. They were, you know, Brits were putting terrorist act on Icelandic people and Icelandic banks. It was really serious economic situation. So maybe I can have a little bit of sympathy for, for this. But anyway, we. We were together, all those different people like you mentioned in this building for like four months, almost like day and night, I would say. And what we decided to do, because we were like so different. Like one of the people was a computer programmer and he said, okay, we have to use methods that we use so we can do it in time. Because we decided really early on to try to be the change that we wanted to see in our society. And one of the big things we wanted to see was more transparency. So we said, okay, what happens if we just like put it online as soon as we are making it, like simultaneously? And we got really scared and then they were like, okay, let's do it. And we are. Our IT department was like one guy and we were like, okay, Pinder, now you have to make blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, you know, I have this picture of him looking so worried. But he managed to do it all. So basically what we ended up doing was using something that is from programming called Agile programming, where you actually, instead of like my dad was a professor of, of computers, he was obsessed with this where you try to build small usable units and test them immediately. Instead of trying to build something enormous and then test it and find out that it actually failed and you don't know why, you know. So what we were doing was we were using this sort of scrum method where you do short runs, almost like sprints, and then you test and then you test. And so we put our draft 11 times online, I think, or 13 times. First it was only like the names of the chapters, you know. And then people could comment through like a Facebook plug, which in retrospect was a really bad idea because Facebook is a really evil shit. And it ended up actually getting lost, you know. So if any nation is listening that is planning to do the same, please build your own open source thing. And okay, but anyway, so people were commenting first just on the chapters, then there was little bit more after goals and then people started commenting. Oh, I liked it better last week. And we tried to actually, we built three committees with different topics and we tried to read all the comments and some of them actually resulted in changes. And people could also send us proposals of something that they wanted to emphasize. And we used that a lot. And then we also used experts, of course. We really reached out to all the people we could in Iceland that could help us through their expertise, a lot of lawyers and so on. So this was sort of the rough idea. And then we had a meeting each week where we all together sat and discussed the changes. And that was streamed so people could see how we made our decisions and why life. And also that could come. That's why we have a little documentary that's beautiful called Blueberry Soup. Because an American girl called Eileen, that is our mutual friend, she actually, she was there for some weird reason. She was going to do a documentary on Icelandic music scene. And she found out about this and she started like she was often the only guest in her really big room, you know. And yeah, people can see the film if they want. They can learn more about it. But anyway, yes, so this was what we did. And this was a novelty in so many ways. You know, I don't think like you explained, not so diverse crowd has before written the constitution and not in such an open way. And it has been called the world's first crowdsourced constitution because of this. In the end, what we also did was I think is enormously important and is a part of the legacy of our feminist movement. Because the woman you mentioned, the one who was the theater director, she had also been one of the sort of foundational members of a Women alliance party that was here in the 80s and totally change their landscape. And the Women alliance used consensus methodology, which is really beautiful. And it's really sort of, I think where democracy should be trying to develop. Because basically it says, you have an idea. Let's call it idea A and I have another idea, Idea B. And normally we would vote on it and just whoever has a little bit more power behind them wins. It's so stupid. It's like warfare mentality. Instead of saying, hey, why don't we try to find idea C that we both can live with? Yeah. And we. We solved a lot of the issues this way. A lot of this that I thought we would not be able to solve. You know, like he did issues like the national church, you know, and so on. We. We knew we could take it out. We were more people inside this council that wanted it out. You know, having a national church as a constitutional thing than having it in. But instead of voting down the two priests we had, or like we had a priest and a really religious nurse, instead of voting them down, we were like, okay, let's Find another way. And we did. We found a way to just make it the decision of the nation when and if it should be changed. So that was also part of our methodology that I think really matters. And also.

Okay, so let's see. The things you think matter most. Okay, first of all, it's a diverse group. Secondly, it's done in public, meaning you're both posting your drafts, you're getting feedback, you're adjusting on the basis of the feedback. You're letting people see how you're talking to each other. And third, you've decided not to be a traditional voting machine, which is just basically deciding who wins each of these little corner solutions and then adding them together because you're a group, you're trying

to figure out how to produce a

document that everybody gets as much as they each want inside of that. So you're compromising to these ideas.

Yes, Very, very well summed up. And also to add, I mean, I think the magical sort of recipe of this is. Is the way that you actually before commit to doing compromises because people have egos, like I mentioned. And. And the one emotion that people can't stand and really is 90% of all disputes that go on for a long time are based on this emotion. The Homo sapiens hates being. Being humiliated. It hates it. And if you lose in an election, it is a sort of a humiliating moment, you know. So instead of piling up loads of humiliations onto all those 25 people, which in the end would have made us very sort of maybe grudgy against each other, we left the voting, which we certainly did in the end, need to result to. To the end. And then it was only like to decide tweaks that we couldn't land, you know, and then there was then. We have had this like, sort of group spirit the whole time, which made us like. I remember I put something in and I was really proud. That was limiting ownership law, like, because in the eyes of the Constitution, it talks about the right of property like a holy thing, you know, and it's way beyond above all other human rights the way it's written. So I was just a little bit sort of like, you know, decreasing this. And one of the members said to me, like, listen, I just. I'm not in anymore because I got it through. I was very convincing. And we decided to have it. And then I decided to say, no, I want to withdraw this change, even though I had made it, because I feel that he's. It's just not on for him anymore. And I'd rather have him with me in the last part of this job than. Than get my own way, even though I think it's really important, you know, so then there was just one example of how the group dynamic was. At least we tried a lot. And, you know, I'm a mediator in my heart and I. And I think in the end, what the big miracle of this thing is that all 25 people signed all 114 articles of this constitution. Now that, my friend, is a miracle because I think the people are really argumentative. You know, you can't find like three people to agree about what to have dinner, you know, and if you have 25 people with such diverse political opinions like we did, certainly have, you know, and they all sign the same document, what is that? Seriously? I don't know what it is, but it is, in my opinion, part of this a little bit spiritual moment that we were experiencing as a nation that, that, you know, and anyway, we, we finished it. We. In the four months we handed it over to parliament, and then I personally thought, fine, okay, I can just go work to work now, be a lawyer and forget about this. I've done my job. And then I was like, hang on. When like two or three years had passed and nothing was actually happening except for like a lot of angry experts coming before the parliament explaining how this was a very bad idea, you know. So in the end, what happened was the parliament decided to take this document, which was made in 2011, and put it to a national referendum, which I thought was sort of a clever thing to do because it was gridlocked in a sort of a political argument. And the election was held in November 2012 and October. Oh, sorry, October. Yes. And I always confuse Octopronova. I think one of them should be eliminated, you know, like an iter.

We'll do that next podcast.

Thank you. Okay, anyway, so we had the referendum 50 turnout, which people thought was low, but in sort of global context, it's not high.

Very high.

Yeah. And two thirds of the voters said, yes, we want this to be the basis for the constitution of Iceland. So Cartu freaking 11 years later, Larry Lasik, and we still don't have it. What is that all about?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's 11 years, but there's been a lot that's happened in the 11 years you yourself have been involved in movements to try to get the parliament to take it up and to pass it.

Yeah, yeah, I had to sort of leave my job as an attorney and become like a full time activist. For absolutely no salaries, tried to influence the situation because it was just heartbreaking and we couldn't find the ending. You know, I don't know what it's called in English, this thing that measures the time, you know, like where the sun falls.

What's called a sundial. I mean,

it's not a sundial.

It's not a sundial. Yeah, we know what you're talking about. We'll put a picture here.

Yeah. But I think if you. If you would try to graphically explain or process it, this little bit like that, it starts off really white with the assembly. It's condensed, and then it goes white again with the referendum. And I think that's a really beautiful shape to have for a constitutional process. But at the same time, I think what we. Where we went wrong is you have this beautiful saying in Icelandic that you have to, in the beginning, think about the end. You can't begin stuff unless you have thought about the end. And I think the parliament, having all those million tasks in the middle of an economic black hole, just didn't figure out the ending. And ever since, after the next elections, the Conservatives got back in. They have controlled this country for so many years, and now they're slowly, slowly becoming like less than 20% of the electorate, but still they sort of are running this videocracy up here where they just decide what gets through and what does not, you know, and that is part of the problem. And if you ask most people, I think we have come to the knowledge of understanding that there are political reasons for this not going through. I mean, we have clauses in the new constitutions saying that the natural resources belong to the people. We're actually giving nature her own rights and so on. And this for the people who control this country, which basically are 20 families that own all the fish around this country, is not a very happy change. And if you talk about it from a global perspective, I think this is basically what happens. Most of the time. The 1% is blocking democracy from functioning, and people actually think democracy is failing, but it's not. It's being blocked. And that's why people become real haters, because they're not being listened to. And that's a really humiliating experience.

So it's being blocked in Iceland. What's the mechanism of blocking it? And what we're talking about before that we needed the picture for was an hourglass.

An hourglass. I love it.

Yeah, yeah. So what's blocking it? You use the word vitocracy, which is a great description of America, too. So what's the vitacracy in Iceland?

Well, it's where one party, which still has less than 25% of the vote behind it, can actually stop democratic will from realizing, you know, that's widocracy, in my opinion. They used filibustering, for example, to prevent the discussion in parliament about the new constitution. They also. They used filibustering to prevent the national referendum to go hand in hand with a presidential election, which would have made it much easier to get people to the. They didn't want to see the will of the people. And when the will of the people appeared anyway, they just looked the other way and they managed to get away with it, which is quite amazing because we have had surveys ever since this happened showing that still two thirds of the isolated population wants this to be the basis for the new constitution. And we fight and we fight and we fight and we fight through, like, political means. But we also use civil disobedience. We join forces with our best artists, we have endless meetings, and we never give up. We're like a totally annoying bee or something, because it's like a genie and a bottle thing. You can't actually put it back in the bottle, you know. And it has been. It has been freedom and it will in the end.

So if you go to Iceland, you can see posters or graffiti saying, where is the new constitution?

Yeah, there was a really amazing moment. We managed to make such a huge fuss about this back in 2020 through association called the Women for a New Constitution. It's a Facebook group, Basically, that has 17,000 women in it. And they were very naughty and we were loving it, you know, and we made the petition, like, where you had to actually sign in through your electrical ID to sign. And we wanted to get 10% of the nation to prove the point that according to the new constitution, that would be the amount of voters you would need to be able to put forth a bill and so on, because. And so we were trying to get it and everybody was saying, it's impossible, you can't do it. But we ended up with like 45,000 signatures, which is like. I think it's like. It's like a huge part of our whole electorate. The momentum was so huge. We were doing things like Kvar, which means where. And people were like putting photos of themselves, like, with their hats in the fridge, trying to figure out where is the constitution. But the funny part is that our Icelandic word for where Kvar is also an island in Croatia. So that people in Croatia were like, why are those Icelandic women looking for stuff under our hashtag. And then also, like, we did, like those big murals where we asked this really bad question, where's the new constitution? Next to the Ministry of Fisheries. Because it's a connected thing. And in the middle of COVID it's connected.

Let's make sure that people understand it's connected. Because natural resources represents the most important political interest group or most powerful interest group, Right? Because a very small number of people have experience extraordinary control over natural resources. And one of the fights in the constitution was whether the sovereign, the people would once again get control of that resource. Right?

Like the law actually states, you know, we have law in Iceland saying that the nation is the owner of the fisheries, for example. But it doesn't play out that way. It plays out that the few selected ones are getting ridiculously rich because those are really, really big natural resources we have. And they are buying up everything and they are exploiting people in Namibia. It's just horrible. But what the system we have here is the quota system in regards to the fisheries is sort of nice in regards to sustaining the species, but it's horrible in regards to how you actually distribute the wealth. Okay, so what we did was we painted this master wall in a really beautiful way. It was full of graffiti before. It was in the middle of the car park. It was really like, dirty graffiti, you know, and nobody had ever even thought of cleaning it, of course. And then it was, like, by a visual artist. It was designed, and this massive question was written on it close to a really big traffic lane. Where's the new constitution? And for some amazing reason, the next Monday, there were people there, like, washing it off with, like, this, like. Yeah, and they were sent by the government, you know, and it's so cool. It really reminds me of, like, Foucault or something. It's like how you can actually show wherever the power is through the resistance, you know? And when they washed the wall, it was in front of all the newspapers, like, the wall being washed, you know, it was just so freakishly wrong that people got so insulted that we got so many signatures. So it backfired massively. And it was even like on our. Like, we have this, like, in the entrance the year we have a program, like a parody that everybody watches. And there was a huge sketch just on this, a guy phoning up to the city saying, listen, there's, you know, it says God is gay on the wall here. It's like, can you send somebody? No, but it. That's also, like, a horrible thing. So they were like, oh, and also there's a tiny little thing here saying, where's the new constitutions? Oh my God, we'll send people immediately. And we've done more things like this, you know, and I think that the key to our success, because we've had success despite not having the constitution, it has never left the sort of heart of the people, you know.

Yeah. This resistance. I mean, let's talk briefly about one of your most important recent successes. You succeeded in campaign. You were helping to lead stopping whaling in Iceland or temporarily. Um, let's hope this gets out before it starts again. But, but, but that was the same movement, wasn't it? It was the same sense of the people rising up and saying this has got to stop.

Going through this sort of prisma of diversity, basically getting all different voices to harmonize together, like almost forming a choir that somehow tends to make waves that break the glass somehow. And we did that. Yeah, we, we, we worked hard. I was working as a lawyer, so my strategy was called that by a thousand cuts. So I was like coming at this whaling company from every possible position, you know, and there were many things that were faulted and that's their own problem, you know, and I could make it into a picture. But we were also joining forces with artists. We've learned a lot. Like the campaigning for the new constitution has taught us a lot, those of us who tried to change our society to the better. So we are much faster now in organizing and making things happen. And the whaling is, I guess it's a really good example because it provides hope. Nobody thought it was possible to stop the whaling. You know, this is one really rich guy that wants to wail and he has a lot of political associations and people just think it's impossible to stop him. But now we have proven it's not impossible. And when you open up this window of hope, there can be so much light, you know, and, and the same applies for constitutions and democracy. I think what we need to do, those of us who are trying to fight, is sort of identify the low hanging fruits and gain some wins to bring back the belief in the fact that we can't fix it or meant it and that we still love it and we still, it's our communal, precious little treasure, you know. Yeah. So I think the whaling, it was same ingredients like we have in the Constitution, where we have fun and we openly have fun. So it's a lot about humor, you know, because the power hates it when we're having fun and taking it down at the same time, you know, I was doing, like. I was doing stencils one night with few other girls. So we were stenciling on the pavement. Where's the new Constitution? All over town. And we did one just outside the government building. And the police guy came out. He's like, what are you doing? And I said, well, we're just asking a question, and in time it will disappear, which is legally right. It's very hard to get it off, though. And he was like, or something. And then we just ran away. And we were spraying outside the court and outside the. And then we went to celebrate our excellent spraying session and have a beer in the Queer association ngo, because, like, they are somehow helping also. And. And I got a phone call, and it was like, hello, this Katherine Otter. Is this you? Yes, well, my name is blah, blah, blah, and I'm a policeman. I was like, oh, hi. He was like, you have to come and remove this that you wrote on the steps of our government building. Because this is the. Like, it's like you're destroying property or something. I was like, hell, no, I will not remove it, and I'm not destroying any property of yours. This is actually my property as much as yours, and I didn't destroy it. You know, I would never, ever destroy private property of another being, but this I can do. And he was like. He was like, no, you have to come, otherwise we will press charges. And I was like, fine, do it. I love it. Can't wait. And he was like, okay, listen, you can't just go around destroying stuff and laughing about it. And I was like, oh, so it's the laughing part that got to you? Oh, my. Oh, my God, that's so cute.

This is really. This is really it. I mean, the last time I was in Iceland, you were just about to win on the wailing, and there was an extraordinary rally. Bjork was DJing, and people were singing and dancing and doing art in this extraordinary square. And it was an energy and love, an ordinary, extraordinary diversity of people. I mean, old people, young people, people on their cell phones, people. I mean, it was. It was what democracy should look like. And there it was. And that was an important victory. But you continue to try to struggle to get back to the victory around the Constitution. And, you know, so first, before we get to, like, what that strategy looks like, I mean, are there things that maybe would have been better to do in the process? For example, we've spoken to people about, for example, Ireland, and the Irish example differs in one really important way. That they kept the insiders inside. So like the, the Citizen assembly always had a certain number of members of parliament. So they felt appreciated. They felt like they could laugh along with, with you and, and, and that in the end made it so the parliament felt like it was partly theirs too and that when it resolved in one way then they could ratify it and everybody would be happy. Was it, would, would it, would it have been better to have the, the enemy on the inside or would that have changed the dynamic in a way that would have made it not successful?

I think because when it was written, the love for politicians was at an all time low. I mean, everybody felt they'd failed and they needed a vacation from how we were going to reconstruct it, you know, So I think it would have been very hard to include them at the time when we were writing this. But I also think in comparison to the Irish example, they never attempted to write the new constitution. They were just doing little amendments to theirs. So it's so much easier to get success there. So I don't know if you can simply say it's because they kept the, the politicians in or it's because they tried to eat the elephant in smaller bites, which I think is more likely actually. And also what the Irish people have been doing is that they have been catching up on their own social knowledge. So basically people in Ireland, I used to live there for four years long ago, had accepted the fact that people of the same sex should be able to marry, but the gridlock was constitution. So it's just actually taking away a hindrance that the people have long ago accepted should be taken away. So it's so incomparable in my opinion to what we're trying to do, which is basically write the new constitution with the participation of the whole nation. Yeah. So it's like comparing like the Eiffel Tower to my home or something.

You like your home better?

Yeah, it's much nicer, but it gets less visible. Yeah. So I think maybe yes, we should have somehow tried to involve the politics, but more as a sort of making them obliged to actually respond. Finding a way where they would commit beforehand to the outcome. That would have been beautiful. You know, even saying, okay, we will somehow rewrite it a little bit or whatever, but we are obliged to listen to what you make and somehow realize it. That sort of promise would have been great in the beginning because when we

first met and we first, first spoke, I had written something that was just kind of a reflection of how startling the story was. Because if you came to this story with the presumption that the people of Iceland were sovereign, like the people were sovereign, like they were the bosses, and in the most inclusive and representative way ever in the history of constitution writing. The people had written a constitution and, and endorsed it. Like two thirds of even just half the public is an extraordinarily high number of people who've endorsed it. There would be no question what the answer is. This has got to at least be the basis, as the referendum said, of a new constitution. But if you thought the people were not the sovereign, if you thought the parliament, the politicians were in some sense the sovereign, then the sovereign, just like parents, sort of listens to, to the child, tell the parent what the child wants to do, and the parent says, that's very interesting, thanks very much, but no, you're going to eat your broccoli and then go to bed. That would make perfect sense for them to say, thank you for this input, but no, we've got other things we'd rather do. And so it was a really profound way to crystallize the question, who's sovereign in Iceland? Is it the people or is it the politicians? And it's. It seemed they manifested their belief that

they were sovereign, they were the boss,

and you were just pesky interlopers.

Totally. And I remember your article got such a good distribution because it just asked, like, obvious. It was like, oh, the emperor's a little bit naked, you know, and people are like, oh my God, there's a foreigner here explaining what we know. But it's actually true because he's saying it. Thank you, thank you, dear man. But, but also, I think what we have to look at is like, Iceland as a democracy is a little bit like a teenager. It is, it's slamming doors. It's like we got independent in 44, we were one. We, like, it's one generation since we were like a third world country. Like, people were like, so poor here and all of a sudden they're not the rich and it's a tourist bomb and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, we don't know how to somehow understand our democracy because we just haven't developed it. So we are actually trying to teach this, the essence of your article. We're trying to say enough times to the people, the nation is the constituent power. And it first sounded like we were talking in Danish. And then so slowly, slowly, we've actually managed to make this, like, stamp it into people. And it was in 2019 that our current Prime Minister went on the TV news and said, while the parliament is the constituent power, we will not. You know, And I was like, oh, my God, she actually thinks this, you know, so you have to understand that we are trying to teach something that is so elementary, but it's just missing from our perception of how democracy works as a, as a, as a being, because democracy is a little bit like a living being, you know, and we can see many of them are in, like, those breathing machines all over the know, and you see more and more like, falling into that coma state, but it's only because it's not allowed to update itself, you know, and it's like. I think it's like, it's so tragic to see, even though I sort of like the told you so moment, but to see, like, for example, Icelandic nation run into all those walls that we would not run into if we had the new constitution. It's a little bit like saying, oh, I want to play the newest version of FIFA on my Windows 95 computer. You know, you just can't have both. You cannot. You know, and if you don't want to update your. Your system, you know, you're gonna lose a little bit more of your potential every minute, you know, and that's what's happening here. And we're losing things like, you know, and our new constitution is freaking 12 years old, you know, so we would start by having to update it, I believe, you know, if we would ever manage to get them to do what they're supposed to be doing.

Okay, can we just be clear? It's not 20 years old?

No, 12.

Oh, okay. I thought you said 20. Right. It's 12 years old.

Yeah, I'm excellent at maths. I believe that the year 2011 was 20 or so. I'm going to get the job offer from some mathematician, I think, after this podcast. Beer.

Okay, so, so is there. What. Is there a plan?

Is there a strategy?

Yeah, we, we have been a little bit tired, to be honest, as activists after the last elections, because again, the freaking conservatives are running the show and they are just having none of it. They don't want this. They're putting it back to the experts, and the experts are supposed to write particular articles and then they will implement it slowly, slowly. They don't understand the level of compromise that's inside the other document. It's like, is like saying, you know, okay, we'll, we'll, we'll. Let's get a pet, you and me, Larry. Let's get one third of a dog. And then in four years, let's have another conversation. Maybe we'll get half a cat then and we can put them together, you know, isn't it great? You know, it's so stupid. It's like totally missing the point that this is a interwoven. It's like a mosaic of so many things that had to be done in a, in a specific way for it to harmonize. And as soon as you start looking at it like a buffet, just taking parts of it and using them a little bit, you lose this magic of the whole. And one of our best lawyers has explained it really well. He says if the parliament wants to make amendments to the new constitution, it has to be able to actually argue how the changes are better for the public. That's the only changes they may make. And we call this the Ragnar example. And we always apply it when they're trying to make their own changes and we're like, hello, why have you done a water out version of the one that we have in the new constitution? How can you possibly argue that this is better for the public what you've done here? And they always fail as test, you know, which means that slowly I have reached at least the decision that parliament has by this point. I think it happened after 10 years, proven to be unable to finish the task. So instead of banging the hat against the wall for the next 10 years also, which I do love my hat, I will rather try to focus on trying to change the way we change the constitution, therefore getting the car off on the road again, you know, And I do believe that we will end up having the new constitution as the basis for a constitution, because that's what has to happen. But first we have to take the power permanently out of the hands of the parliament.

And so this means changing the amendment article to allow referenda to amend the constitution.

Yes, because currently the system is like Parliament has to approve it and then immediately call for elections and then the next parliament has to approve it also. And it makes it really hard because then you have to actually be in a really short time when discussing the constitution and you have to be already starting to plan how you're going to vote, fight against the others in an election. It's just such a stupid way to try to figure something out from love, you know. And also in the new constitution, I think we didn't take this that far enough. We said parliament and then a referendum and I now think that's wrong. I think it should be constitutional assembly and then parliament can have some sort of a move on it and then a Referendum on which one. But I don't think the power should lie firsthand with the parliament unless it's just small important changes. I think we have to give the people back this power and put it where it belongs, you know, even though it might be more complicated, even though it might end up like in Chile where you have to like go again and so on, but still this is the right thing to do. This is where we should be aiming. And I'm not going to. I'm not going to allow for my kids to have to have the exactly same fight as myself when they are thirsty and 40, you know, but that's going to happen if we, if we don't mend this.

So the aim then is to change the amending clause and once the amending clause is changed, then trigger a constituent assembly to. Would it just simply write a constitution on the basis of the 20 years,

take it from where it is now and finish the job.

Wow, that would be even more extraordinary than stopping whaling in Iceland. So I look forward to celebrating. And when we celebrate, we can erect the new statue. There's a wonderful statue in Iceland where the Danish king is handing the constitution to the Icelandic people, which happened in the 19th century and then was amended slightly in 1944. So we're going to create an alternative where the people are rising up to hand to the Danish king their constitution back. And so we can do that when you build your constituent assembly.

Yeah, you have to put the picture of this also with your podcast.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's a beautiful picture.

Do you know what we did to this doctor the other day, by the way? We painted his hand blue because there's this saying, he's holding the constitution like this, like very sort of like, oh, here you go then. And there's this saying. In Iceland, the blue hand is basically the conservatives when they go and they put things to sleep, it's the blue hand. And we were sort of. Yeah, and we got one of our best author to come and do a poem that he recited again and again and again while my friend was being arrested for painting the statue blue. But it was only a kid's paint. They just washed it off. It was no problem. But it was beautiful. You know, it's like very sort of telling of what's happening. You know, one day if I don't get my way, I will saw this bloody hand of the statue. That too.

You didn't say that. We're going to cut that out for the podcast. Okay, so you, you, when I this end with this you. When I was there, first time we met, I insulted the elves. And you got very upset about the fact that I insulted the elves. Nobody should ever insult elves in Iceland. But there is a kind of mystically magical story about the crisis, the financial crisis in Iceland. And I just want you to. So, you know, Iceland, like Ireland, faced an enormous financial burden because of the collapse of the Irish, the Icelandic banks, like the Irish banks, Ireland, the people of Ireland actually bore that burden. I mean, they had to pay through taxes because they absorbed the banks and had to absorb the losses. But magically Iceland escaped. So how did that happen? What happened that allowed Iceland to in the end just walk away from the debts that they thought they were going to bankrupt the country for a generation?

Yeah. Basically what the Dutch and the Brits had done is sort of put a gun against our hat and we're tiny, you know, what's Iceland going to do when the whole European Union is all of a sudden like staring you down saying pay up, you know. And we got this guy called Lee Bucket, who was some man who was supposed to make a good contract for Iceland to say, okay, this is the best we can do. You have to pay. And there was like ridiculous amount of money for each because we're so few, you know, and the deaths were so high. And when this went through parliament, people were like, oh my God. And this is horrible. And then our president at the time used one of the things that we do have in our old constitution, which is different, different from the Danish one, that if the president decides not to sign legislation, it goes to a referendum. And the people of isolated were like, fuck no, we're not going to pay this. And then they were like another contract was made which was much better just to show exactly how we were being just like pulled down by the, by the neck, you know. And then again he didn't sign it. And again it went to a referendum and people were like, nopes, not this one either. And then the people were really pissed off in parliament, you know, and a lot of people from different political spectrums were going like, what is wrong with this nation? But then, okay, so the, the, the, the bad guys, if you want, they said, okay, let's take them to court. And they took us to a court called the after court because we're not part of the European Union. We're part of a little sort of a sister of a European Union. And there we won. So the people were right the whole time. We were not supposed to play, pay all those debts, you know, of Course, we were also a little bit lucky. The way the case played out was totally Elvis. You know, it was like, what? But it's still the right decision, you

know, but you needed elves to get you there. There was no way you're going to get there with elves.

Well, the elves are everywhere, Larry. They're not only in Iceland. You know, people just have to believe a little bit more in them.

So this court, this weird court rules and I and the people of Iceland don't have to pay the debts.

Yeah. And they so would have paid it if our parliament was the only sovereign part of the decision making. It just shows you so. Well, I think how the wisdom of the crowd is something that should be tapped into way more often. And people had different reasons for voting against it. Some thought we could get a better deal. I was just saying fuck you to global capitalism. People had different reasons for why they voted, but it doesn't make the decision any worse.

So what was the debt going to be? Per person? How much were you going to owe?

Many, many millions of Icelandic Cronos. I can't remember, like the exact number. Of course, it was much higher in first round, but it was still something that you just, you thought, okay, this could be a down payment, payment for an apartment for my child. And instead it's going to be his

debt, you know, for the English banks.

Yeah.

Okay. Kata, I'm so grateful. You are the most inspirational person I know in the world that I live in, of constitutional constituent democracy. And I. I hum your tune every single time I think about what's possible not just in Iceland, but even in old places like the United States. Thank you so much for what you teach and what you do and. And what you will do. Can't wait to see the next chapter.

Thank you, Lottie.

Okay, this has been the 23rd episode

of season five of the podcast Another way. These podcasts are produced by Equal Citizens in the abstract sense that we put them together, but they are literally physically

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