ABSTRACT: The only person to write an in-depth article on the fast which Marco Pannella has been conducting for over 70 days (its goals: right to access on television for the LID (1) in the debate concerning the referendum on divorce; the hearing of the President of the Republic, Leone; the discussion in Parliament of the bill for the depenalization of abortion; guarantees on the lay line of "Il Messaggero" (2)), Pier Paolo Pasolini states that the basis of all radical initiatives is the sacramental respect for the human being and the rejection of any form of power. Here lies the scandalous aspect of the radical political praxis, the most coherent expression of which is non-violence. But apart from an apparent verbal fancifulness, there is a praxis of absolute realism. Evidence of this is the challenge of the eight referendums called by the radical party.

("Corriere della Sera" 16/7/1974)

Marco Pannella has been fasting for seventy days: he is at the limit; the doctors are starting to be really concerned and, even more, frightened. On the other hand, there is no objective sign of a breakthrough that could enable Pannella to interrupt this fast, which could well become lethal (it must also be said that forty more companions joined Pannella in the fast). None of the representatives of the parliamentary power (therefore both of the government and of the opposition) seems to be in the least willing to "commit themselves" with Pannella and his companions. The coarseness of political realism seems to find no point of contact with Pannella's candour, and therefore the possibility of exorcizing and incorporating his scandal. He is surrounded by theological contempt. On the one side, Berlinguer and the Communist Party's Central Committee; on the other side the usual powerful Christian Democrats. As for the Vatican, Catholics have long since forgotten they are Christians.

This is no surprise, and we will see why. But even the "minors" (that is, those who have "minor power", for example the so-called "Catholics of dissent" or the freer progressivists, who intervene in Pannella's defence only as "individuals", never as representatives of parties or groups) are reluctant, skeptical and basely evasive in accepting Pannella's message.

The reader will be amazed in learning the initial reasons for which Pannella and dozens of other people have been forced to adopt this extreme weapon, fast, in such a state of indifference, neglect and contempt. No one "informed" the reader from the beginning, with a minimum of clarity and in good time, of these reasons: and naturally, given the situation I depicted, you will imagine God knows what scandalous enormities. Instead, the reasons are: "1) the absolute guarantee on the part of the state-tv to grant the LID a quarter of an hour and a quarter of an hour to Don Franzoni; 2) the guarantee that the President of the Republic would grant a public hearing to the representatives of the LID and of the Radical Party, who had asked for it and urged it in vain over a month ago; 3) the guarantee that the Health Committee of the Parliament would consider the Socialist bill on the legalization of abortion; 4) the guarantee that the ownership of "Il Messaggero" would ensure not a generic faithfulness to the newsp

aper's lay principles, but a lay information and especially the right to information for lay minorities".

As you can see, these are requests of guarantee absolutely normal in democratic life. This time their "purity" of principle does not exclude their perfect feasibility. I repeat, considering the complete state of ignorance in which the "entire" Italian press left the reader on the subject of Pannella and of his movement, I would not be surprised if the reader thought this Mr. Pannella were a monster. A sort of Fumagalli, whose requests should "in no case" and "a priori" not be taken into consideration.

For a start, I will tell the reader that, according to the democratic principle which Pannella is always faithful to, the same Fumagalli, whom I mentioned "pour cause", would have a right to be taken into account in case he advanced requests of the "formal" kind of those advanced by the radicals. The respect for the human being - for his deep configuration which a feeling of freedom, the formality of which is considered substantial, allows to express itself at a level "consecrated" by a lay reason, even compared to the most degraded concrete political ideas - is for Pannella the "primum" of any theory and of any political praxis. This is what his scandal consists of.

A scandal that cannot be integrated, precisely because its principle, both in schematic and popular terms, is sanctioned by the Constitution. This absolutely democratic political principle is made topical by Pannella through the ideology of non-violence. But it is not so much physical non-violence that matters (which could be questioned): what matters is moral non-violence: that is, the absolute, imperative lack of any form of moralism. ("We consider moral that which strikes each person as being moral"). It is such form of non-violence (which goes so far as to reject itself as moralistic) that leads Pannella and the radicals to the other scandal: the absolute repudiation of any form of power and the consequent condemnation ("I don't believe in power, and I reject even imagination, if it threatens to occupy it"). The fruit of the absolute, quasi-ascetic purity of these principles, which one might call "metapolitical", is an extraordinary clarity in viewing things and facts: it meets neither the involuntary ob

scurity of prejudice nor the deliberate obscurity of compromise.

All is light and reason around this glance, which, being focused on things and historical and concrete facts - and the consequent evaluation of the same - therefore ends up by creating the premises for the scandalous unacceptability, on the part of the conventional thinkers, of the radical policy ("the litany of the well-minded people of our politics has been running along the anti-fascism of the Parri-Sofri line for twenty years"; "...where are these fascists if not in position of power, in the government? They are the various Moro (3), Fanfani (4), Rumor (5), Pastore (6), Gronchi (7), Segni (8) and - why not? - Tanassi (9), Cariglia (10), maybe even Saragat (11), La Malfa (12). Against the politics of these people, it is understandable, one can and must be an anti-fascist..."). At this point, I presume that the Pannella "scandal" is clear to the reader; but I also presume that the reader has attempted considering such scandal as quixotic and purely verbal. That the position of these radical militants (non

-violence, the refusal of any form of power, and so on) is obsolete, just as pacifism, dissent are, and that, in conclusion, theirs is pure wishful thinking, which could even be sacred and sanctifiable, were their proposals and condemnations not so precise and directed "ad personam". But things are quite different. Their so to say "metapolitical" principles have lead the radicals to a political praxis of absolute realism. And it is not because of such "scandalous" principles that the world of power - government and opposition - ignores, represses, excludes Pannella, to the point of turning his love for life into murder: it is his realistic political praxis. The Radical Party and the LID are the true winners of the 12 May referendum. And it is precisely this which "no one" is willing to forgive.

They have been the only ones to accept the challenge of the referendum and to want it, confident in an overwhelming victory: a forecast which was the fatally concomitant result of an inalienable democratic "principle" (even at the risk of being defeated) and of a "realistic analysis" of the true desires of the new Italian masses. I repeat, it is not an abstract democratic principle (the right of decision for the basis, the rejection of any patronizing attitude), but a realistic analysis that represents the unforgivable guilt of the radical party and of the LID. Instead of being received and congratulated by the first citizen of the Republic, as a homage to the will of the people, a will which the radicals had correctly foreseen, Pannella and his companions are treated as untouchables. Instead of appearing on tv as protagonists, they are denied even a quarter of an hour of "free political debate". Of course, the Vatican and Fanfani, the ones who were really defeated in this referendum, will never admit a simi

lar existence. Pannella is therefore "abrogated" from the conscience and the Italian political life. At this point the problem is left open. Pannella's possibility of fasting has a dramatic organic limit. And there are no signs of his wanting to stop. What are the men or the groups of power capable of deciding of his destiny doing? What is the limit to their cynicism, their impotence or their self-interest? Another disadvantage for Pannella is that at this stage they have very little to lose, their sole problem being that of saving what remains to be saved, and above all, save themselves. Reality has turned against them; the Vatican ship, in which they hoped to complete their existence safely, seriously threatens to sink; the Italian masses are disgusted of them, and have become detainees of values with which these people believed they could to play around, and which have resulted to be the true values, such as to nullify the great values of the past and to ruin fascists and (today's) anti-fascists. Even the

least that could have been asked of them, that is, a certain capacity to manage, turns out to be a terrible deception: a deception which Italians will have to become aware of, because - as the values of consumption and wealth - they will have to experiment it "on their own skin". It is the Left that must intervene. But the question is not that of saving Pannella's life. Even less that of trying to save it seeing to it that the 4 little "guarantees" he asked for are taken into consideration. The problem is taking Pannella's life, the Radical Party's and the LID's life into consideration. And the circumstances are such that Pannella's existence, the existence of the radical Party and of the LID correspond to a thought and propensity to action that are of a historical and decisive extent. That is, they correspond to the perception of a new reality in our country and of a new quality of life for the masses, which has been neglected until now both by the authority and by the opposition. Pannella, the Radical Par

ty and the LID have acknowledged this with complete optimism, with vitality, with an ascetic resolve to get to the bottom of the thing: a perhaps relative or dramatic optimism as far as the people are concerned, but an unshakable optimism as far as principles are concerned (considered neither abstract nor moralistic).

The radicals are proposing eight new referendums, practically concentrated in a single one: and they have been proposing them for years now, in a conscious challenge to the one proposed by the clerical Right (and concluded with the greatest democratic victory of Italy's recent history). These eight referendums (abrogation of the Concordat between State and Church, of the ecclesiastic annulments, of military codes, of the norms against freedom of press and against freedom of televised information, of the fascist and para-fascist norms of the code, among which that against abortion, and finally the abrogation of the allotment of public finds to the political parties), these eight referendums are the proof, being a concrete formulation and project of political battle, of the realistic vision of Pannella, of the radical party and of the LID (...)

Translator's notes

(1) LID: Stands for Italian Divorce League

(2) Il Messaggero: daily newspaper founded in Rome (1878).

(3) Aldo Moro (1916-1978): Politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1959-65), minister on several occasions, Premier (63-68). Author of the Centre-Left policy. Foreign minister (69-74), Premier (74-76), President of the Christian Democrat Party as from '76, he favoured an inclusion of the Communist Party in the government: Kidnapped by the Red Brigades on 16.3.78, he was found dead on 9.5.78.

(4) Amintore Fanfani (1908): Politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat party (54-59; 73-75), Prime Minister (58-59; 60-62; 62-63; 82-83), Foreign Minister (64-65; 65-68), President of the Senate (68-73; 76-82).

(5) Mariano Rumor (1915): Politician. Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (64-69), Prime Minister (68-69; 69-70; '70; 73-74; '74).

(6) Giulio Pastore (1902-1969): labour leader, Christian Democrat, General Secretary of the CISL (labour union founded in 1950 by the Christian Democrats).

(7) Giovanni Gronchi (1887-1978): Politician. One of the founders of the Popular Party (1919) and of the Christian Democrat Party ('43), President of the Parliament (48-55) and of the Republic (55-62).

(8) Antonio Segni (1891-1972): Politician and jurist. Member of the Christian Democrat Party, Minister of Agriculture (46-51), he elaborated the first agrarian reform (a law in '49). Prime Minister (55-57 and 59-60), President of the Republic in '62, he resigned in '64 suffering from a severe illness.

(9) Mario Tanassi (1916): Secretary of the Social Democrat Party (1963) and co-secretary of the Unified Socialist Party (PSIU) from '66 to '69, Defence Minister (68-69; '70; 70-72; 73-74), convicted by the Constitutional Court for corruption in the Lockheed scandal in '79.

(10) Antonio Cariglia (1924): Politician. Secretary of the Social Democrat Party. Senator, member of the Italian and European Parliament.

(11) Giuseppe Saragat (1898-1988): Politician. Socialist, Minister in the first Bonomi government (1944), President of the constituent assembly ('46). In January '47 he was the leader of the split of the Socialist Party's right wing, founding the PSLI and later the Social Democrat Party. Vice Prime Minister (47-50; 54-57), Foreign minister (63-64), President of the Republic (64-71), President of the Social Democrat Party.

(12) Ugo La Malfa (1903-1979): Politician. Among the founders of the Party of Action (1942), he then joined the Republican Party (1948), of which hw was Secretary (65-75) and President. Minister of Transport (1945), of Foreign Trade ('46; 51-53), of Balance (62-63), of Treasury (73-74), Vice Prime Minister (74-76).