by Marco Pannella

The following are a number of premises and considerations concerning nonviolence and the Radical Party, inspired by the direct nonviolent action undertaken by Radicals Marco Pannella, Roberto Cicciomessere, Lucio Berté, Lorenzo Strik Lievers, Alessandro Tessari, Renato Fiorelli, Sandro Ottoni and Olivier Dupuis during the last days of 1991, in Croatia.

1

For the first time, the Radical Party is proposing to commit itself imstitutionally to nonviolence as a party, both on a political and social level, that is, by taking an active part in conflicts which we will either win or lose. The Party will no longer constitute, as it has done up until now, a force that merely bears witness, reacts, and refuses to support the "violence of the oppressed", or that which is "closest to the law and justice".

2

To this end, the internationalist, transnational, cross-party qualities of the RP are essential. On the other hand, these characteristics are also essential for fighting any other vital battle which is fundamental to our society and times. There is no political Reform, or politics of Reform, that can honestly be attempted without a political and social instrument, as it is necessary - even though insufficient - to the pursuit of the ideals of democracy, freedom, justice and peace.

3

The RP is convinced that such a political force will be equal to the general task, both on an idealistic and political level, when the Party has at least 50,000 activists throughout the world - it is not important where - organized according to the rules and criteria of the RP. As far as numbers are concerned, we are still a long way off from achieving this.

For this reason, we are giving top priority to building a transnational cross-party, and nothing must stand in the way.

4

Another characteristic of the RP is that of not being, and not desiring to be, an exclusive political force, the sole party to which our members can belong, and their only representative. We are a political instrument, a means for realizing precise aims, however ambitious these may be - or may appear to be. Therefore, those people who are (also) members of the RP cannot, and must not, limit their responsibilities, and their activism, to those projects they are personally working on at the RP. It is also in our interests to eventually support undertakings embarked upon by members individually (or within other organizations), which are directly related to the goals the Radical Party is pursuing.

5

The choice of a new symbol, which expresses our transnationality and our nonviolent political attitude, continues to reveal itself as increasingly more appropriate to our society and times. It was not merely "intuition": there have been many of instances these, which were all very productive on a philosophical and cultural level, and which have always been acknowledged. It is rather a question of going beyond this, into the realm of continuance (the "form of things" according to Bergson), and of the non-individualistic personality (Gramsci's "collective mind" (1), in order to remedy the divorce between science and human consciousness, on the one hand, and politics and power on the other, so characteristic of these times, and every other era that found itself beset by terrible crises.

6

The "former Yugoslavian front" risks being used to reintroduce and strengthen, in an explosive and implosive manner which will be entropic in many of its aspects, the political culture of the ruling classes and peoples that has characterized the history of this century and the tragic moments of opposition that have divided, or united, them.

The politics (not the ideology, ideals or culture, but "subculture" in the true sense of the word) of the "free world" are, in fact, deeply linked, its weapons being Nazi, Communist and Cambodian-style exterminations, and those effected by "pattern bombing" and "terrorist bombings" of defenceless and civilized peoples, and its also resorting to atomic bombs to terminate a war "quickly".

7

The "free world" (which is effectively what it is, from an historical and political point of view) has adopted its own "totalitarian" strategy towards other worlds - and indeed the world - throughout history. The strategy adopted has hinged on the "obligation of non-interference". The "free world" has always sought to create a form of coexistence with the totalitarian world that was advantageous to the principle economic and state interests of its ruling class, often maintaining that a regime such as this was necessary to, and suitable for, "other" peoples.

The "free world" always intervened when aggression had already started, or when it was about to begin. It has also generally offered to guarantee the internal stability of a totalitarian power, according to the presupposition that it would guarantee an "international order", which quite a few times corresponded to a systemization of the economic functions and pseudo-Taylorian operations of the regions and regimes. In this way, it has constantly been the rule (with very few exceptions) to sacrifice entire populations and democratic oppositions to the golden calf of the "sovereign state" (symbolically permitting a number of "dissidents" to survive). In this sense, only the RP in Italy has taken, for at least two decades - from 1965 onwards - nonviolent, democratic, and alternative, action, principally on a symbolic level, with its "direct nonviolent actions" in totalitarian countries. This, above all, in the Communist empire because it is in these regimes, far more than in national expressions of "fascism", th

at a power-oriented strategy and violation of the fundamental rights of the oppressed people, has been unrelentingly enforced. A unique precedent was the behaviour adopted towards the "resistible" rise to power of Nazism and Facism in the Thirties.

8

On the "former Yugoslavian front", then, the demons of this century are systematically asserting themselves with all their strength once more, which proves that the old politics of the "free world" are again being employed to create neo-totalitarian, militarist and antidemocratic solutions to the problems in the former Soviet Union, the vast totalitarian empire of China, and in strategic areas of the south of the world. They could acquire greater force from a repetition of the socioeconomic crises that were rife in the years immediately after World War I up until 1940, and their worsening on a global level due to the population explosion and also the emergency situation in the environment, to which the fundamentalist solution soon risks becoming the only viable one for a world and culture that is "a-democratic" and whose super efficiency is merely an illusion.

9

There is, in fact, no doubt that the conflagration of war and oppression fired by Belgrade, and by a regime which is strongly racist, chauvinist and populist, violent and oppressive, whose principal weapon is an army with deeply-rooted Bolshevic tendencies and fascist ideologies that advocates coups was in 1991, was strongly supported in its undertakings, sometimes even legally, by the EC as a body, and also by the individual countries (with the partial, and tardy, exception of Germany), as well as by the dominant spheres of the speculatory complex, inspired by financial-military-industrial, Kissingerian and traditionalist values, and by the Socialist International. Belgrade's using "otherwise, it's total war" as blackmail, is also a practice that has been taken up politically by the "West" and the former Soviet Union itself, as it was by Hitler and Stalin, Mussolini, Franco in the Thirties, and afterwards by the dictatorships in the south of the world.

10

The strategy to be adopted seems simple, obvious, and self-evident, to those of us who do not want to deliberately close our eyes. If the "winter" of Russia and the former Soviet Union with their terrifying socioeconomic crises, the one that besets their institutions, and those that derive from their manifestations of nationalism, inspired by their hatred of jacobinic and totalitarian expressions of "federalism", which are anti-federalist by nature in that they are anti-democratic and anti-liberal, will also threaten the position, and diminish the power, of Eltsin and his allies of the moment, the only possibility will be to let the Soviet Army play its "Yugoslavian" card, which, even though it has tokenly been dismantled is still united by the universal "mission" of all armies, and also its involvement in the socioeconomic crisis.

The total refusal to defend the rights of all individuals, everywhere; to accept democracy as the basis for law and order on an international and world level, as well as on a regional level; to create a "lawful society" and the federalist vision of "subsidiarity", and to smash the idol of the sovereign state, is once again dominating the internal politics of our countries, and our countries' politics.

11

We should have already begun to resolve the problem at the level of sociopolitical institutions, political parties, political forces, accidental and incidental wars, and conjunctures. The RP with its 3,000 Italian, and 1,000 foreign, members cannot, and must not, undertake to do this alone because, in doing so, we would risk the only idealistic, strategic, organized and alternative political force capable of fighting these tendencies and politics, being destroyed.

12

If we had not encountered in Italy an almost total refusual on the part of all "leftist" organizations, or any movements tending in that direction - who in fact display the same "rightist" attitude dear to the "Old World" - to even consider and discuss, let alone support, our undertaking, we could have already organized direct nonviolent (and institutional) action in the Middle East last year, and avoided the military conflict that was necessary to defeat the dictator of Baghdad, that cruel exterminator of the Iraqi people. We would have employed "nonviolent brigades" similar to, but perhaps more effective than, the "republican brigades" of the Spanish Civil War that was lost thanks to the stand taken by the "Socialist Paris" of Lčon Blum and Herriot, and the People's Front with its "lendemains qui chantent".

13

We came to a very simple conclusion. In the days that followed, the "Serbians", or rather the Serbian tyrants and oppressors, excited and strengthened by crass Italian, and"European", politics, would most probably have launched a "final assault", after having laid waste not only to Slavonia, but also to Istria, Dalmatia and every single region of Croatia. And perhaps even to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

If this had come to pass, which seemed likely, we would have had no alternative but to make our traditional, orthodox, nonviolent, Gandhian choice, with dramatic and, perhaps, tragic consequences. We would have chosen to defend truth and justice in those countries, and beside those people, who use violence to try to end the wars waged against them. Just like the Resistance movements in all parts of the world.

14

One of the explicit aims of the strategy and action taken by the "Serbians", is to weaken all democratic resources and resistance in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Kosovo, plunging the different peoples into a state of desperation while at the same time inciting them to anger and revolution against "moderation", "submissivness" and "tolerance", which, even though they are in conflict (we would like to see how Italy, France and the UK would react under similar conditions!), are the dominant feelings in Zagreb, Pristina and the Serbian opposition itself. We urgently need to show the martyred peoples of this "Europe", this "free world", this Belgrade, that it is not only the Ustashi, the men of war (perhaps "just"), the "right wing" movements, the nationalistic movements of every colour, the desperate and the romantics who still believe in individual nations, who actually fight wars, and risk dying. Compassion and solidarity still humbly, and rightly, exist, - they may not always be greatly in evidence, but th

ey do exist!

For this reason, and after having first assured ourselves that the RP project would not be compromised, we went to Croatia, to engage in non-armed service, with the necessary humility and maximum autonomy and responsibility that our positions within the Croatian defence force permitted us, participating in this infamous war by taking our stand on the opposite front to that occupied by the De Michelises, the Mitterrands, the Daladiers, the Lavals, the Chamberlains and the Lord Halifaxes of the present, as in the times of the anti-fascist, anti-Communist, anti-totalitarian, democratic Resistance movements.

As for the mass media, they only know how to produce corrupt images which damage our personal identity, and the true expressions of the soul, of ideas, people and Parties who haven't sold out to a system or a regime. What may be about to happen in Yugoslavia was made possible, to begin with, by the ostracism vehemently indulged in daily in all vital areas, which is the kind of treatment reserved for us by our country, the condition of which makes us truly ashamed.

15

As always, people will not understand what the Radical Party has done, if the reasons, the motives, the ideals, the ideas and the means that made it possible and were, indeed, instrumental, are censured, remain hidden, and are not openly communicated.

(1) The party as an object for collective thought