Gnarr by Jon Gnarr Read Free Book Online

politician, even when he’s just getting out of his car, is besieged by a horde ofjournalists and bombarded with questions—which he breathlessly answers. It’s also a popular ploy, obviously, to trap the politician after a long and tiring session and to force him to give an interview.
    What halfway sensible young man is so fascinated by the TV news that he thinks to himself, “Hey, great, I’d like to do something like that! I’ll go into politics”? Surely very few. After all, most politicians don’t cut a particularly sympathetic figure. Those who advocate a better society and want only the best for its citizens are just wimps. But should the slightest suspicion arise that they might have skeletons in their closet, people start pointing a finger of accusation. And not everyone is made to survive in such a world. This in turn has the consequence that when we hear the phrase “professional politician” these days, we usually imagine a skilled, well-trained expert.
    Although this “profession” requires no special training, it does require special qualities. The professional politician is, as I said, a lightning-fast thinker with robust self-confidence and an answer to everything. Glimmers of humor can’t hurt him so long as he uses them to pull one over on his opponents. In politics, a sharp wind blows, and only a few can stick it out. Here it’s the typical male characteristics and values that are needed, which is why it’s not surprising that female politicians often adopt a somewhat masculine persona.
    If we want to change politics, we need to changethis entire frame of mind, to rethink what is really required to be a politician. To save democracy, politics must attract a wider range of people. We need scientists. We need artists. We need quite ordinary people who think slowly instead of quickly. People who admit it when they don’t know something, instead of pretending they know everything so they won’t be ousted from their jobs. We need shy people. We need the overweight, the stutterers, and the disabled. Punks, bakers, and manual workers. And above all, we need young people. We must make our politics more interesting, exciting, and cool, so that everyone will feel like getting involved.
    After all, politicians are no different from the rest of the population. Strictly speaking, a politician is nothing more than a baker. There are good and less good bakers. Some are quite excellent bakers, others get nothing baked. The vast majority lie somewhere in between. Middling bakers, as it were.
    In interviews I always arouse irritation when I openly admit that I don’t know something. Or when I turn my interviewers’ words against them. Sometimes I turn up at official occasions in drag or some such outfit. This too sometimes creates a bad impression, as it stirs up the suspicion that I lack seriousness. But it’s just the opposite: I take my job very seriously, and am just trying to turn it into something a bit more entertaining. This is my way of standing up for the changes that I think necessary.
    It’s sometimes happened that a journalist interviewing me has been left helpless with laughter at my answers. In the TV news, that kind of thing obviously gets cut. News is a deadly serious affair—a phenomenon, by the way, that’s not limited to politics. News programs are usually nothing more than a succession of horrors. It often reminds me of a church service, a deadly serious ceremony, which always follows the same pattern.

OUR GOALS: A NEW KIND OF POLITICAL PROGRAM
    Jón Gnarr wrote the party program to inaugurate the Best Party website in January 2010
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    Our party program combines the highlights of all the other parties’ programs. We rely primarily on concepts that have proven themselves in the welfare states of northern Europe. That sounds pretty good when you first hear it. Both the state-controlled planned economy with its paternalism, and the laissez-faire and market ethos of neoliberalism have