Interview with Marco Pannella

edited by Anton Uncu

(Free Rumania 13 November 1990)

Free Rumania: What is the reason for your visit to Rumania? Is it simply due to the meeting between the delegation of the European Parliament and the authorities and Rumanian MPs? Or is there more?

Marco Pannella: The meeting is certainly the occasion, not just the reason. It is an extraordinarily important one, because it will be determining for the evolution of the agreements between Rumania and the European Community, as the President of the Commission Delors and the President of the Council of Ministers De Michelis officially stated. But on this I have no comments: I am but a member of the Delegation, presided and made of authoritative colleagues, and I intend to leave questions and impressions to our Rumanian colleagues, and to the authorities: President Iliescu, Prime Minister Roman, the ministers and the representatives of the major new parties whom we shall meet during this week of intense and demanding work.

However, I intend to spend my (few) spare moments meeting the Rumanian fellow-members of the Transnational and Transpartisan Radical Party, to continue promoting the internationalist, European federalist, environmentalist project of a democratic Reform, of an uncompromising and ultimate defence of human, civil and political rights, intended as the basis of the legal state and of the new international order. All this is tremendously urgent. In the absence of a new, major, strong, highly organized political subject, capable of operating simultaneously and coordinately in dozens of national parliaments, mankind will head toward an irreparable tragedy. And for the moment we are too few, both here and throughout the world.

FR: In your opinion, does a political process toward democracy really exist in Rumania?

MP: Probably so, in the intentions of many, perhaps even of all.

But as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. On the other hand, we first need to agree on what we mean by "democracy". There is a "real democracy" in Europe and in the world, that may well correspond to democracy as "real socialism" corresponded to the humanistic ideals of socialism at the beginning of the century, or the end of the past century. The greatest risk, in Rumania as in all the other national states that remain national after the collapse of communist dictatorship, is passing from dictatorship to partyism, and not to democracy. The only form of democracy not to have given birth to monstrosities and tragedies is Anglo-Saxon democracy; widely unknown in continental Europe, it is basically bipartisan as far as the management of the institutions is concerned, and aims at ensuring a correct rule over society, and not at representing closed, ideological organizations, who divide power and sub-power among themselves, at the same time being incapable of ensuring a strong, democrati

c government and a concrete and clear alternative. Continental Europe's "democracy", in almost all our States, is represented by partyism, if not by dictatorship altogether. And this proportional, ideological, biased partyism, incapable of understanding general interests, has contributed to the creation of the tragedy of fascist, Nazi and communist regimes. Partyism has been the victim, but also the cause for such monstrosities. Moreover, in our contemporary world, with its environmental, economic, social, cultural and scientific problems, the national State is not a vital dimension, cannot be democratic because ultimately it cannot be fully based on the liberties and the rights of people, of nationalities, of cultures, for the same reasons for which a market economy cannot be envisaged for a few dozen million people in small territories ...

These concerns apply to all the countries of Central and East Europe, but also to the countries of other continents, and to the whole Southern part of the world. As far as Rumania is concerned, we must add the fragility of its democratic tradition, the savagery, the medieval barbarity of Ceaucescu's regime; a State which has been shaped and destroyed by decades of violence and ignorance, nationalism and anti-democracy. The Rumanian tragedy cannot be solved but in the context of the United States of Europe, which cannot simply represent a goal, an objective for today and for tomorrow, but also the means, the fundamental instrument to enable the peoples of Rumania, and all its citizens to live in democracy, peace, legality and freedom.

On the other hand, this applies to all populations and individuals, be they Italians, French, Germans, British, etc...And for these countries too, the risk of being reduced to an area and to an "economic" power is steadily increasing. The question is that of firmly struggling for the achievement of the United States of Europe, based on a more uncompromising democracy, and of forcing Brussels and Bucharest to make Rumania a full blown member. The battle is an extremely arduous one. But the radical party intends to conduct it, if people are willing to support it.

FR: You are the President of the Radical Party's Federal Council. According to the Party's Statute, this is practically a honorific office. However everyone continues to refer to you as the party's unquestioned leader, for almost thirty years, even now that the Radical Party is an international and internationalist party. Almost a dictatorship, one might hint. Could you describe the situation and the characteristics of the Radical Party for our readers?

MP: You have already answered the first part of the question. I am a Gandhian, a non-violent, a lay and an advocate of the revolution of tolerance, an anti-authoritarian and anti-partyist, a person undoubtedly used to governs ideas, feelings, problems, needs and hopes, but I am not and have never been a man of power. In forty five years of civil commitment, from my adolescence to now, I have never been in a position of power or (but this thanks to my opponents!) in a position of government. Over a period of thirty years, I have been Secretary of my Party, which is the position of greatest responsibility, only twice. True to Gandhi's example. As all traditional members of the Radical Party, I have experienced hundreds of denunciations, trials, arrests, hunger strikes, fasts. They have accused us of being guilty of the worst provocations and scandals, but everyone agrees in acknowledging an unsurpassable nobility and force in our history: the most important achievements and reforms in terms of freedom and law,

have been won thanks to us. And if millions of people throughout the world who agonize due to hunger and misery are still alive, this is thanks to our love for the right to life and the life of rights. While all the governments of the West, all the parties of the European West in power were negotiating, conducting business, aiming at the stability of communist dictatorships, as our capitalists and businessmen were doing, we were struggling, we were being arrested in these countries to defend the rights of opponents and persecuted.

FR: And what are the characteristics of the Radical party now, in synthesis?

MP: I will make an example: the Federal Council, which I have the honour of presiding, includes members of parliament and senators, political exponents of over fifteen nationalities: members of the Russian or Leningrad Soviet, European, Italian members of Parliament, belonging to the Liberal, Socialist, Social-Democrat, Green and Environmentalist Parties but also Communists, antiprohibitionists, federalist-democrats. Moreover: our party views itself as a public service, reaching out to citizens and communities. We are not asking people to be part of it: as for a public means of transport, the user pays a fee and gets a membership card, which cannot be denied or withdrawn. The member has no obligations: he is free to behave as he wishes, both from a political and human point of view.

The force of the Party therefore lies in the freedom and on the responsibility of each member. Only candidates in positions of responsibility are, it is obvious, compelled to respect and implement the decisions democratically taken in our yearly, sovereign Congresses, with the direct and full participation of each member.

As such, the party cannot take part in the government of the institutions: in this sense, therefore, it cannot compete with national parties and with traditional Internationals. This is why we insist on saying we are basically a transparty. Of course each member may or rather must ensure his vital contribution to the life of the institutions and of the parties of his State, but does not do so as a representative of the Radical party...

To conclude, a list, or rather a rosary of contents, of goals, of choices that are necessary to understand our historical and political peculiarity: democratic federalism, European federalism, Gandhian non-violence, ecology and environmentalism, laicism, classical and Anglo-Saxon democracy, human, political and civil rights policy as the basis of law, legal state, liberaldemocracy, liberalsocialism, for the right to life and the life of rights, defence of the right of ethnic, religious, sexual minorities, defence of the rights of the ill, the imprisoned...This is a brief outline of our principles and ideals.