October 30, 1989

Attention has, and rightly so, in recent years and months, been concentrated on the collapse of the system and the regimes of the Real Socialist countries.

Democratic liberty, justice and peace has therefore become the hopeful expectation of a large part of our planet's population. Political democracy and non-violence everywhere--in Tien an Men Square, for example--constitutes the hope and the commitment of today's generation, which will have to save the world from self-destruction and society from the law of the jungle.

However, prompt action is also essential if real democracy, with its many regimes and system, is to be the starting point--and not its degradation and corruption--of political democracy, human and political rights, legal guarantees, tolerance and the founding principles of the social contract, the Institutions, the law and civil co-existence.

In the Real Democracies, democracy itself is becoming progressively exiguous and weak. In a good many countries, instead of a democratic situation, there are party-systems, oligarchies and essentially unjust regimes, which exclude the large part of their citizens from the lawmaking processes, the actual governing of the institutions; in other words, the entire democratic process.

In the age of the so-called "media society" and "global village", the characteristic power of which is central and which conditions any other, is becoming progressively less disciplined, responsible, or democratically regulated. In the Real Democracies, the concept of the dialectics of State power--as a foundation of its democratic essence, free will and the universal suffrage of the sovereign people--is on its way to dissolution.

It is thus essential that, wherever there is the struggle for the State of Rights, for political democracy and tolerance, common objectives and precise claims be adopted, without falling into the trap of negative opposition or the proposition of a democracy progressively only theoretical and in crisis for Europe and the Western world.

The transnational and trans-party Radical Party cannot fail to denounce the degradation of the principle of the State of Right, political democracy and its traditional--and still valid--foundations, in Italy and (in many ways) in Spain--a good example of this was the manner in which recent elections were held, denying the people any real or effective possibility to "be informed to choose".

In Italy, we are deprived of any guarantee of Right, by a utilization of the public media and the private press which has ceased to adhere to any principles of legality--a situation which has been recognized by the Constitutional Court itself.

On October 20, in order to denounce this state of affairs and attempt to open the way for information, truth, and real democratic debate, Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto began a hunger strike. After ten days of necessary and right non-violent action, it became clear that the immense difficulties involved are not to be under-estimated and require more thorough preparation, and in future must involve all the relevant intellectual and activist forces.

In particular, the Radical Party--which in the mid 1960s, was the first in Italy or in Europe to use non-violent protest as a political means--realized the degree of urgency in totally rethinking of this last stand use of hunger strike, and the rules and methods involved. It is essential that the rules and objectives of non-violent action in favour of restoring democratic legality to the media be the fruit of more far-reaching reflection and dialogue. For this reason, Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto today suspended the hunger strike which they began on October 20, committing themselves to prepare and reinforce their non-violent action, appealing to as many Radicals as possible to share that reflection on the definition of objectives, and the means and methods to achieve them.