I am herewith joining the debate on the Gulf following the request of Giorgio Inzani, and above all to answer Cicciomessere, whose position is clear-cut enough to be taken into serious consideration.

I must confess I consider other "interventionist" statements rather ludicrous, including the statement of vote of the authoritative member of Parliament Emma Bonino, who said: "An international law which must be enforced even with the use of force, as an ultimate possibility, when all the weapons of diplomacy...and of international pressure have failed, and when the weapons of active non-violence...have not even been tried". I believe there is no need to comment on this statement; however, considering the state of intellectual dim-sightedness currently affecting most radicals, I take the liberty of remarking that according to this statement, it follows that each time the weapons of non-violence are not tried (that is, always), international law must be enforced with the use of force. At this stage, to justify the use of force it is enough to proclaim not only the incapacity to use the weapons of non-violence, but even the intention to refrain from doing so.

But let us get to the point, namely, Cicciomessere's statements on Agorà, and especially his statement of 20 January 1991. Mine will be a lengthy statement, and I too will state my point of view by points.

1 - Premise: the responsibility of saying YES.

It is obvious that non-violence is not passive acquiescence, but resistance against injustice and violence. But this is not the point.

I will tackle the problem from another point. Which responsibility have those who, like Roberto, have voted in favour of the participation of Italy in the Gulf, assumed before Italy, humanity and history? The responsibility Italians soldiers too to carry out an action of war (I will examine the question of war or police action further on) against Iraq. As Strik Livers was more or less saying Monday 21 in Milan, every bullet exploded, every bomb dropped, every person killed by an Italian soldier will be the effect of that order; it is as if those who voted fired each bullet and dropped each bomb personally. Also, those who voted YES will also be responsible for the death of each Italian soldier sent to Iraq to die. What is the reason for assuming this responsibility? So as not to be passive, so as not to be cowards faced to Saddam Hussein's arrogance?

If such were the case, Roberto and companions who voted YES, I might even appraise your choice, if you went to the front personally and chose to counter arrogance with violence, risking your own life: but it's too easy not to be a coward when you're risking other people's lives, while you are comfortably seated in Parliament.

You quote Gandhi. He approved of more than one war. But during the first war he approved, in 1899, he took part in it personally as a volunteer, organizing a sanitary Corps at the front: he did not vote to make other people go there.

But, once again, this is not the point. The point is: are you sure there was no other choice except cowardice or violence? Had the solutions of non-violence truly proved unfeasible?

2 - Possible non-violent alternatives. Demagogy?

I will not give the answer to the previous question myself (which I consider negative). I will let the members of Parliament and the senators of the European federalist group answer. Cicciomessere himself, at point 2 of his statement of 20 January 1991, recalls that the Radicals had asked "to use non-military force to its maximum extent, namely to activate a major information offensive addressed to the Iraqi and Arab populations...". Furthermore, Cicciomessere states, the Radicals "had asked Government to summon not a peace conference on the Middle East" (...) but a "Conference on human rights and security in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East".

From this I gather that the Radical members of Parliament believed there was another choice, which was neither cowardice or violence, that could have been tried. The fact is that it has not been tried; non-violent solutions, therefore, cannot be proven unfeasible, for the simple fact that they have not been tried.

But if one believes that there are still non-violent solutions to try to counter the action of a violent person, there is no justification for having assumed the responsibility of resorting to violence before having tried them.

Or else, the truth is another one: not even those who suggested this alternative solution believed in it. They suggested them to remain somehow faithful to the image of non-violence, but not even they believed they were feasible solutions: as a consequence, in the end they voted in favour of military intervention. In this case, the suggestions of the members of Parliament of the European federalist group are purely demagogic, and those who suggested them while voting YES are but demagogues.

Cicciomessere himself stresses the gravity of the situation; on January 15 he writes: "If there are no breaches in the anti-Iraq front, a minute before the expiry of the ultimatum, when he will be forced to realize that there are no alternatives to defeat, Saddam will have to give in". This is the well-known logic of the "si vis pacem para bellum", that is, displaying one's muscles to intimidate the opponent, magnifying the threat to discourage the opponent, a logic which is not compatible with the choice of non-violence, which consists of trying, until possible, to use alternative methods to military conflict; it is a flawed logic, as we have been repeating since 1967, when the Radical Party was founded. And the evidence of this is that it hasn't worked. Cicciomessere himself seems to acknowledge this in his statement of 20th January, when he writes: "But his (Saddam's) values and mental responses are obviously different from mine". Knowing Cicciomessere and Saddam, this was plain as a pikestaff. Can it be

that Cicciomessere needed to face a war to understand this?

3 - The absurdity of Cicciomessere's arguments.

In fact, not even war particularly upsets Cicciomessere.

So much that he continues to justify his choice. How? Basically with two motivations.

The first is that when he was called upon to vote, the decision to switch to the use of military force had already been taken (hopefully by others). He also says that if he had been called upon to vote before the beginning of the conflict, at the U.S. Congress or at the Italian Parliament, he would have voted NO.

At this point, what is there to justify his choice? Simply the elapse of time? Or the fact that someone else started the military action? But why is it that the same military action need not be approved before it is started, and must instead be approved once someone else started it, without asking for my opinion? This is an odd logic indeed.

I will thus simplify the situation.

There are four people: A, B, C and D. A hits B with a stick and steals his bag. B, C and D agree that this is an injustice, and try to isolate A. C tells A that if he does not give the bag back within Wednesday, he will beat him up, probably together with B and D. D thinks that before beating A up, other solutions should be tried to force him to give the bag back; he believes this is possible, and states that if he were asked for his opinion, he would not approve the use of force. C however, without asking for his opinion, beats A up, who answers back. At this point D also picks up a stick and, together with C and B, beats A up. What reason may have driven D, who did not approve of this system, to pick up a stick too? The only one I can see is that he is imitating the others, which is neither a rational nor a non-violent motivation. As a matter of fact, on the basis of which rational motivation can an act which was not approvable before someone enacted it become approvable and even compulsory once someone ha

s began to enact it? How can the mere fact that it has been started make it necessarily approvable?

Cicciomessere's second motivation is based on the idea that voting is an act of courage.

I will leave Cicciomessere with his conviction (which I do not share) that voting represented a courageous act. But an act can be extremely courageous, and yet have nothing to do with justice.

To rob a bank one undoubtedly needs courage, but this does not prove that robberies are good; to invade Kuwait and to occupy it against all the International Community surely takes more courage than to vote YES in Parliament, but this does not prove that Saddam Hussein is right.

4 - What is war?

Next, Cicciomessere, in agreement with Andreotti, wants to convince us that this is not a war.

But what is a war? War is an interaction among two or more States, in which each of these uses means aimed at destroying the human lives or the goods of another State, and really accomplishes destructions with such means. I can see no way in which a situation of this kind can be called other than a war simply because it was approved by the United Nations. The U.N.'s approval cannot alter the nature of facts; at the most it can justify them, for those who believe in it.

Nor can Cicciomessere's argument on police be convincing at a close examination.

First of all, it is unacceptable to state that "if a citizen shoots and kills a burglar, he is committing a murder...if the police kill the burglar, this is not a crime, nor will anyone think the policeman...is a murderer". If a policeman shot and killed an unarmed person who is stealing a couple of apples from the greengrocer's stand, he would be a murderer according to the conscience of the majority of people, and as far as I know, because there has been no resistance on the part of the thief, such action would also be a crime. But never mind the word murderer, which is always accompanied by emotional and evaluative factors, and let's imagine a policeman who, as an "ultimate solution", shoots a man who, a gun in his hand, is kidnapping a defenceless child, and kills the kidnapper to rescue the child. There are no doubts that this would not be a crime, and would probably even be justified: but it would be absurd to say that that policeman has not killed a person. The moral or juridical evaluation can legal

ize or justify an act or a fact, but it cannot alter its nature.

To mistake facts with the evaluations on facts is a way to hide facts behind a screen, and removes us from that truth, the quest for which should be the first duty of a non-violent militant.

Similarly to what is occurring in the Gulf, where a certain number of States backing the U.N. on the one side and Iraq on the other side, are mutually using means that destroy human lives and goods generally, there can be no other definition but a war: any other definition would correspond to a mystifying confusion. If ever, it can be considered a justified war, granted there is such thing as a just war. But then, this is the point we must discuss, because this is in any case a war.

Also, are we sure that the analogy between the incidents in the Gulf (I won't call it a war to comply with Cicciomessere and Andreotti) and the police can be maintained?

The act of violence (which can even be murder) committed by a policeman is justified when it is committed to safeguard legality, striking the person who violates it with the purpose of preventing him from committing a crime, but it would not be considered justifiable if the same act were directed against a person who has committed no crime at all.

In the Gulf, entire cities are being bombed, killing and injuring people - children, for example, who have nothing to do with the violence to be countered or the "crime" to be prevented: the invasion of Kuwait. For this reason, because people are being killed and injured who have nothing to do with the sanctioned act, the analogy with the police cannot be considered valid.

5 - Legality and Non-violence

In both of Cicciomessere's statements, as in the statements of others, one senses an identification between law and non-violence. This is unacceptable, unless we are referring to natural or rational or other type of law. It leads to absurd consequences and to the negation of the very idea and possibilities of non-violence.

Let's imagine an Italian committing discriminatory acts against a Jew in 1939. If we identify law and non-violence, there would follow as a consequence that given that the law in force at the time provided for discriminations against Jews, our hypothetical Italian not only would have committed justifiable acts, but even non-violent acts, which is patently unacceptable.

Non-violence, the very ideal possibility of non-violence, is based on a distinction, on a separation, between positive law and justice. It is precisely the non-violent individual's capacity to pursue justice against the law that represents the main instrument of non-violence, which also represents a fundamental aspect of its identity: civil disobedience. The cult of the law, its correspondence with non-violence, leads to the negation of any possibility of disobedience, and leads to the worst type of conservatism.

It is the duty of a non-violent militant, before respecting the law, to ask himself what law he is dealing with; if it is in harmony with justice or not; if it represents the aspirations of mankind, or if it covers the interests of a privileged part of it.

For all these reasons we cannot identify non-violence with international law. It seems obvious to me that international law is always better than Saddam Hussein: but non-violent militants cannot idealize it without wondering if it truly corresponds to justice, if it can be improved, or if they can act to improve it themselves.

6 - Non-violence and the Radical Party

I perceive another, far more harmless correspondence in Cicciomessere's and in other's statements: the correspondence between non-violence and the Radical Party. It is not infrequent to come up with arguments that seem to be point to an axiom: all that is Radical is non-violent, and all that is non-violent is Radical. The identification is harmless, simply because it is ridiculous. There follows from this axiom that if the Radical leaders one day suggested to stab old ladies to death, this would be a non-violent act.

7 - Cicciomessere's position: a snob or a high priest?

In Cicciomessere's statements I sense a sort of haughtiness, a feeling of superiority. For example: "I believe history begins precisely when we have the courage to take unpopular positions. Only then...are we forced to use intelligence over commonplaces.."etc...

With their courage and rare intelligence, only Cicciomessere and the few like him rise above the commonplaces of the (Radical or non-Radical) vulgar herd that would not have voted YES, and which is increasingly identified with the anonymous and execrable mass of pacifists (who are, among other things, increasingly identified as supporters of Saddam Hussein, though not by Roberto himself). This strikes me as being snobbish, and makes me think of a person who must always feel different and superior to the others to feel good.

But I also discovered something else: Cicciomessere is a high priest: "patient religion of dialogue", he says. So much that he feels he has the authority to decide who is part of this religion and who isn't: "those who claim an alleged coherence with their alleged non-violent dogmas give show of a catechistic furore which has nothing to do with the patient religion of dialogue..." Like a Supreme Pontiff or rather like an entire ecumenical council, Cicciomessere feels he alone can decide which are the orthodox attitudes of true religion, and which do not belong to it and as such are heretical; and of course he feels he can also decide that other people's coherence is just an "alleged" coherence.

8 - The Radical Party's challenge

"These questions are the very core of the Radical party's challenge: to organize a culture of non-violence...", says Cicciomessere.

Fine. But which culture of non-violence? The one of Roberto Cicciomessere and Emma Bonino? A culture in which the same fact changes nature according to the judgment given on it? A culture in which, with the excuse that life is full of contradictions, it is legitimate to maintain that to vote for war is a non-violent act? A culture in which to have relinquished any ideology corresponds to tolerating all contradiction, changing each concept into its negation, and taking a path that may one day lead to say: "War is peace, freedom is slavery", as the motto on facade of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's "1984"?

I that fear the world needs no such culture, and even that it would be wise to get rid of it.

I still have a faint hope that someone will prove to me that these last considerations of mine are wrong, but this hope is becoming fainter and fainter as days go by and as I ponder these arguments.

Aligi Taschera, 26/1/91