ABSTRACT: An essay on the nature and historical roots of the new Radicalism and a debate on the Radical problem with contributions from: Contributions by Gianni Baget-Bozzo, Giorgio Galli; Francesco Ciafaloni; Domenico Tarizzo; Ernesto Galli della Loggia; Brice Lalonde; Ugoberto Alfassio Grimaldi; Giuseppe Are; Alberto Asor Rosa; Silverio Corvisieri; Ruggero Orfei; Sergio Cotta; Federico Stame; Paolo Ungari; Giuliano Amato; Fabio Mussi; Giulio Savelli

(SAVELLI Publishers, October 1978)

Introduction (1375)

PART ONE

I. Politics and Society

II. The Accusations Against the Radicals (1377)

III. The Radicals As A Two-Front Party (1378)

IV. Radicalism And Socialism (1379)

V. Radicalism Or Marxism, Co-existence Or Techno-Fascism (1380)

PART TWO

A Debate On The Radical Problem (1381 - 1397)

The Radicals' Task As Seen By A French Ecologist

By Brice Lalonde

(<>, n.3/4, August-November 1977)

What is the political class hoping for? Every time they hear the hissing of a bullet, they only see wind. To hear them speak, the 10% of the ecological vote has been artificially blown up. And what of this month of August, then? Mere youthful agitation, or vacations organised for putting on a show, or a political plot hatched by foreigners... It seems that the politicians are unable to connect the municipal elections in March with the anti-nuclear demonstrations of August, with the presence of the ecology issue in the elections and in the country. Or, in the opposite case, ecology has been consigned to the realm of profits and losses: <>.

After all, the ecologists are creating a crisis for the left as well as the right, in which the extremists of the state and of production are numerous. For the moment one can imagine a tacit agreement between the two camps to isolate the wet-blankets and suffocate debate on the problems they raise. But evidently it is impossible to maintain this position because the ecologists are not immobile. In fact, nothing indicates that they are intending to stand still. The horror for the Malville accident and the curious rondelet of the political declarations that followed upon it have contributed to the rapid maturing of the ecologists, their independence and their determination.

As united as a family (thus not without disagreements) they have found themselves joined in the Larzac demonstration (1). They know they are going to present candidates and so they are preparing themselves for it. The "ecologists" are only the point of this iceberg which has detached itself from the political continent, the catalysts of new presences on the social scene, the prudent creators of an expanding nebula. The whole of the question for them is to determine what are the frontiers of their movement or, which amounts to the same, their relations with other, similar and allied movements. The ecologists, in fact, are not the only ones who are independent - that is to say, outside the classical political factions and their extremist groups: they are simply, for the moment, the only ones, along with the feminists to declare it.

The first of the independent movements was the one that broke in the most radical way with the earlier forms of political life. The women's' movement invented the "elsewhere", put the categories into crisis and made the consistency of words and acts necessary again, which had too often been sacrificed to tactics. What difference did it make if a militant was living in a scandalous way if she contributed to the good cause? On the contrary, to give lip-service to feminism is insufficient. And it this conformity - is it perhaps possible to see the rebirth of morals in it? - which gives weight to the ecological and non-violent movements which are connecting up more and more. What these three movements have in common is the radical break they are trying to make with the male world, with our industrial society, with recourse to violence. They appear to be complementary - and this complementariness probably has historical roots - but they can decide to remain separate and be content to influence the institutio

nal political factions.

Contrary to those parties that boast of having the key to a new society, whose creation, however, is always postponed, these "radical" movements limit themselves to specific battles whose goals are possible but in which the stakes are immense because they touch on existential questions. For example, the abandoning of the nuclear programme. Paradoxically these fights, despite their restricted goals, decongest society and open it up to transformations in a much more effective manner than global pseudo-strategies do. Generally the result of a refusal to be conditioned and of its consequences for the future, what they have in common is a permanent fight for freedoms and the exercising of them. Since they ask nothing of the state, except perhaps for it to give way and leave society alone, these movements are the intransigent defenders of democratic rights and, above all, of those of the minorities, of the outsiders (all the outsiders, including whales), of the unborn babies (our children's children). The par

ties claim to guarantee civil rights when they administer the state, and while they spend their time comparing their talents administrators, the ecologists, the women, the non-violent majorities of public opinion never tire of demanding "democratic debate, equal rights, the jurisdiction of common law, etc.". All the simple demands that astonish the experts in management and revolution.

This triple alliance of women, ecologists and the non-violent which is taking place spontaneously (and not between apparatuses), constitutes the political direction of the nebula. A direction without either directives or directors. The relative absence of "lines", of theorists, of apparatuses, is a guarantee. These movements degenerate as soon as they become institutionalised. Around them a crystallising process progresses with groups that fight for liberty and for individuality, for self-determination and for territory. In fact, it is a constant of those ecological struggles to oppose "territories" to the state, beginning with the neighbourhoods of the cities and ending with the drowned, nuclearised, militarised, asphalted or ravaged countrysides.

The regional movements are manifestly allies of the ecologists, just as are the self-determination and experimentalist groups. And to the degree that their decentralising and libertarian will may prevail, the neo-liberals close to the ecologists will come to be a part of the nebula. So then what ought we to call this nebula of autonomist and radical battles? Ecological? That would be taking the part for the whole.

And nothing in the field of politics can help us except perhaps those phenomena of freshness and invention which are the Dutch and Italian Radical parties.

Theses small parties which are represented in their respective parliaments are the voices of non-violent, feminist and ecological ideas in their countries. Since they do not have to compromise themselves by participation in the government in countries where the distinction between the majority and the opposition is not very clear, they are stubborn defenders of freedom. And, finally, they are not "leftists". Having ascertained the failure of political theories but the urgency of certain battles, the Italian Radical Party is all the more radical in its refusal to be, in fact, a party. The only binding commitments its members have are to the congressional resolutions. The ideology of the party, its commitments, its line, are thus limited to specific campaigns. All the rest is literature. In these conditions it is enough if you are in agreement with the campaign being conducted by the Radical Party during a particular year; for the rest you may be a member of another party, be it the Communists or the Chri

stian Democrats.

In practice the Radical Party has become a kind of confederation of new "autonomous" movements pursuing single objectives and who preserve their freedom of action while co-ordinating in the conduct of campaigns considered to have priority, or more simply, to "live" together on the political scene (elections, press, private radio, etc.). As to their campaigns, they have been crowned with successes (divorce, abortion, civil rights and today nuclear power). An organisation of this kind would, without doubt, be welcome in France. There is, in effect, a lacuna to be filled, the Radical lacuna. A pity that the name is already lost.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

* Qualunquisti/qualunquismo - a much-used term in Italian political parlance referring to an attitude of mistrust towards political parties and the party system in general.

(1) Larzac - A French community, site of a demonstration against nuclear power.