Subject: from TRANSNATIONAL - Satyagraha - No 10
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Newsletter of the Radical Party
XXXVII CONGRESS OF THE RADICAL PARTY, ROME, APRIL 6-9
Approaching the 50th anniversary of the next year, the General Assembly of
the United Nations has once again engaged in a long and sharp debate over
the subject of the death penalty - that is, the right of a State, of any
State, to decide whether its citizens shall live or die. While everywhere
in the world the lives of men, women and children have become increasingly
precarious just like in the darkest moments of our history; and individual
rights, like the right to live, are threatened by wars, massacres,
genocide, destruction, hunger and epidemics - the Community of Nations,
which still represents the community of the peoples of the world, has
finally reached the point for debating these problems, which are no longer
"humanitarian" problems, but have dramatically become "political" ones.
But if this did happen, it was due to the Radical Party, a transparty, a
transnational organization, which has led the UN. to pose itself the
problem and seek answers. No other party or organization has ever been able
to achieve this much. No other party or organization has ever been able so
effectively to promote the birth of new organizations above and between
nations, as the Radical Party was able to do pushing the UN. and suggesting
new roles, tasks and authority for it, which led to setting up an ad hoc
Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, and the Permanent Penal Court on crimes
against humanity.
We will take these achievements to our Congress scheduled in Rome from
April 6 to 9, as well as our other significant contributions on issues such
as anti-prohibitionism on drugs, an international language, the fight
against AIDS, for all of which new favorable prospective are opening up,
probably victorious ones.
But the Congress cannot rest on its laurels. It must answer other
questions, and specifically this one: "Is the Radical Party still
adequate in its structure and tools, as well as its form, to reach its
objectives? Are its human and financial resources adequate to the ever
growing and pressing needs? We can no longer evade these questions. We are
getting to this Congress with our treasury empty and with necessary debts
that risk to become unsustainable.
But beyond all this, it is the whole world picture, which has become more
complex and mobile, that poses questions and problems. The European
construction, the European Union, is falling apart; it is increasingly more
difficult for countries of former Soviet Empire to achieve democracy,
mainly on account of the shortsightedness of West European political
machines.
Every day we feel that the battle against prohibitionism is being lost or
won in the United States, a country where we practically have no members.
And while the Radical Party should become increasingly more "transnational"
and at least "European, if not "worldwide", and in this way enriching its
leaders, identifying new financial sources, new structures and tools to
further its work -- starting from electronic telecommunications which is
changing our way we engage in politics (besides its impact at the economic
level) -- we have to fear that our Party, due to a lack of tools, is
becoming fossilized into an "Italy-centered" practice, which is both
reductionist and dangerous. It is very urgent that we meet, see, discuss
and decide on all this issue. It is urgent that everybody be present at the
Radical Party Congress in Rome, making the best use of all resources
available and making whatever sacrifice necessary to be there.
