SUMMARY: The following was part of the debate on non-violence and hunger strike opened with the document by Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri and Luigi Del Gatto (RL Nos. 8-9).
Angelo Panebianco--journalist with Corriere della Sera and member of the Radical Party Federal Council--points out, beginning with the example of the massacre of Tien An Men, the uselessness of non -violence against compact and ferociously determined ranks;
Alexander Langer--Green Deputy to the European Parliament--states that the individual practicing non-violence must be willing to risk not only his health so much as his positions and his own rigidity;
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CAUSE-OBJECTIVE
by Angelo Panebianco, political commentator for Corriere della Sera and member of the Radical Party, he was part, as an elected member, of the Federal Council.
I will respond to the request for an evaluation of the role which those practicing non-violence can take in political campaigns with two observations. The first of these is of a general character (on non-violence itself), and the second more specific (on the effect of non-violent actions by the Radical Party on Italian politics).
In the first case, I shall say that laics must make a myth of nothing--even non-violence. Otherwise the result is a laicality--even by Gandhi, who was aware that non-violence could be useful to the Indian people against British democracy (the costs, political and cultural, of shooting into a defenseless crowd can be dangerously high for any British government). But it would have been useless against Hitler and his SS. What I mean to say is that the evaluation of using or not using the method of non-violent civil disobedience does not imply a question of principle but of convenience; and thus, from time to time, a profit/loss analysis and an examination of the existing situation is required.
I will give an example. Tien An Men Square can be interpreted as an exemplary case of the application of non-violent action which is successful as long as the configuration of the forces in the field is of a certain type, but which leads to catastrophe when the configuration of the forces changes. As long as the struggle within the Chinese Communist Party remains open, Tien An Men plays a very important role, contributing both to the weakening and the paralyzing of totalitarian power. However, when the political circumstances change, when the play of factions within the party are resolved at the expense of the Secretary disposed to aperture and to the advantage of the hardliners, then non-violent action loses all value. The result is then a foregone conclusion; the only uncertainty at that point being how many will die when the order is given to shoot on sight. The tragic example of Tien An Men, or even the relations between Gandhi and the British government, will help us to understand what the rules a
re which, even in much less dramatic situations, will decide the success or failure of non-violent actions. (It should be clear that the term "non-violence" applies to the systematic use of the methods of civil disobedience and not simply the use of the usual non-violent methods of democratic political struggle.)
The rule can be defined thus: the main condition for success is the capacity of the practitioner of non-violence to create or increase divisions within the ranks of the adversary. If those ranks are divided, the practitioner of non-violence can exploit that division, play--according to the old expression--on the others' "contradictions". If the adversary's ranks are closed, then non-violence (in the strictest sense of that term) is useless and will (in the cases of hunger strikes, for example) end in failure. However, if the ranks of the adversary are to be divided, it is necessary in the first place that non-violent action be utilized for campaigns which are clear and well defined, that a specific issue be chosen for which, at least theoretically, victory is possible. If non-violent action is to succeed, it is necessary that at least a part of the official ranks of the adversary be in sympathy with the cause (objective) motivating actions. In fact, the practitioner of non-violent action is not held in
sympathy (there is no reason why he should be), his cause-objective is.
It is a fact that the Radical Party achieved its greatest successes during those periods when its causes enjoyed wide-spread support in Italy, thus dividing the adversaries' "ranks". It is also a fact that the Radical Party saw the results of those methods deteriorate when it dedicated itself to other causes-objectives (starvation in the world, transnational politics), which by their very nature do not have wide support (real support and not mere facade) which would create those divisions. I am quite aware that many Radicals will not agree with this. They think that everything depends, not on the nature of the cause-objective chosen from time to time, but on the fact that the conditions of the support of an authentic democracy in Italy do not exist. It is not my intention here to enter into a discussion--which would by necessity be long--on this point (what is a "democracy"? Where on this planet is it possible, in strictest sense of the phrase, to "be informed to decide"?). I will simply say that the e
xistence of a different evaluation is, in its turn, the result of a different judgement on the state of democracy in Italy. And I will stop there, convinced however, that in this country--which I consider as being very "democratic" and not very liberal--if the Radicals do not assume the task of defending individual freedom and rights, no one will.
FIND WORDS AND FORMS
Alexander Langer, Environmentalist, European Parliament Deputy, and member of the Radical Party.
If non-violent actions are to be "strong", risks have to be taken--real risks. Not only and not so much as regards eventual damage to health due to hunger strikes or the effects of possible police aggression during sit-ins, but more importantly as regards our own possibly rigid positions. For, when non-violent action is conceived as a simple "megaphone" for pre-established positions, or worse, an instrument for damaging someone else without actually exposing oneself also to the possibility of change (for example, being concerned exclusively with the number of lines in the newspapers or seconds of television time with which the action "was covered"), the non-violent impact is in danger of being diminished, falling into the obvious, the deja vu, the suspicion of exploitation. Taking extreme measures--when they are, because not all non-violent actions necessarily imply extreme measures--are justified only in cases threats or injustice which are equally extreme: the actions of a head of a family, desperate an
d homeless, who threatens to jump off the ledge of a building, or the prisoner who resorts to hunger strike, have a different sort of credibility than our electoral fasting.
I say "our" because I have also participated in more than one of the hunger strikes aimed at bringing attention to the unfair policy of exclusion practiced by the major networks (television, for the most part) during electoral campaigns or referendums, and I recently proposed (and carried out, together with 70 others) a week-long "propitiatory fast", which was also in the interests of a strongly electoral objective: the opening of dialogue and the creating the possibility of Green unitary action during the last European elections. Even if there was no intention whatsoever--and this was repeatedly specified--of its being directing at anyone, or was it aimed at damaging others, and intended simply to focus attention on and confer credibility to a serious intention (the convocation of a "Green Council"), it was still a case of an action contingent electoral interests. This to me seemed disproportionate a few weeks later, when compared with the events of Tien An Men Square, during which the discovery of fastin
g and non-violent resistance occurred in completely different conditions and with a completely different level of dramatic content.
Apropos of "dramatic" content : it is natural that non-violent action stresses drama: it is the weapon (pacific!) of the poor, who attempt to compensate for, at least minimally, the mammoth imbalance created and maintained by the chief/thieves of communications and show business, who with supreme arrogance transform non-events into events, cancelling or disfiguring news items and events at will.
However, I feel it is just for this reason that new words and forms, actions and methods must be found to give new vitality and effectiveness to non-violent action in Italy and in Europe, and in particular the following: the transformation and in a certain sense transfiguring of those practicing and those participating in non -violent action (by creating strong bonds of solidarity and interaction); and aggregating and extending communications, thus increasing, the possibilities for participation, assuming and sharing responsibility in those "great causes" (those which justify and perhaps necessitate self-destructive actions).
Despite the fact that the existing political system and the mass media promise maximum news coverage and communications, the receiver is in effect inundated with a mixture of irrelevant and fraudulent propaganda, supporting the powers that be. Fasting, non-violent demonstrations, silence (so difficult to make heard) are perhaps no longer sufficient to offer any effective antithesis, which would also make a claim to impact and simplification, but not necessarily having lost the capacity to transform its practitioners or present another level of truth and democracy. These will not be adequate antidotes for removing the poison from the mixture, but like the Chinese students, we must succeed in persevering beyond the temporary setback.
And perhaps we will succeed in doing something to render our "unilateral" and slightly predicatory actions truly communicative: why not, for example, combine fasting with an invitation to some of the interlocutors called to join us in the long march, during which we might listen to one another, quarrel and perhaps in the end find the solutions necessary?
