ABSTRACT: In this article, Marco Pannella underlines the fact that the Radical Party is a prevalently Italian-speaking Party for the moment, but not an Italian Party. In order to be internationalists, says Pannella, a party must first of all be structurally transnational, and the Radical Party already a number of radical associations in several European countries. The election of Jean Fabre, a French citizen, to secretary of the Radical Party, is once again the occasion to raise legal questions and to challenge the nature of the Italian "nationalized" parties.

(Il Giorno - November 1978 from "Marco Pannella - Works and Speeches - 1959-1980", Gammalibri, January 1982)

If the "mass media" carried out their task of informing instead of censoring and misinforming, it would be a well known fact that the Radical Party is an Italian-speaking party (for the moment and on a central basis), but not a party "internal" to the Italian national State; and that there already are Belgian, French, Catalonian radical structures, organized in the Radical party, as well as militants of many other nationalities.

To be internationalists without being structurally international or transnational strikes me as impossible: evidence of this are the communist and the socialist parties, whose internationalism is limited to the internationalism of the personal relationships of their managers and to the financial and diplomatic interests of their leaders, be they Leninists or Proudhonians, in the context of a policy of party power void of any ideological core and of any ideal and historical perspective.

For his personal and collective record (we have been fighting together for many years now), for his ideas and capacities, for being one of the top European promoters of internationalist anti-militarism, Jean Fabre, our newly elected secretary General, will represent a natural point of organization, expansion and synchronization for the pacifist and anti-militarist struggles against military and civilian nuclear energy, against State and "private" terrorism, against the excessive power of the multinationals, against NATO and the Warsaw Pact, for the resumption of the major socialist and Christian struggles, for the conversion of all structures for constructive and civilian, popular and nonviolent defence. The election of Jean Fabre is the answer that the Radical Party gave yesterday to the announcement of the well deserved defeat of the Social Democrat Kreisky (1) in the field of the nuclearization of energy, and therefore to the whole of Austrian society; it is also an answer to the "major Brandtian (2) oper

ations" of the Socialist International, of the Italian Socialist Party and of its secretary.

In the past years, electing Roberto Cicciomessere (3), barely over twenty years of age, and Giulio Ercolessi, the Radical Party already debunked a sacred model of traditional party "dignity"; with Adelaide Aglietta, it elected its first woman secretary general, as well as placing women candidates only as heads of list in the whole of Italy in 1976, and the consequent establishment of a parliamentary representation that was made of women by 50%. Today, the election of the first "foreigner" elected secretary general of a party that the State claims to have "nationalized" (as with all the others) seems to challenge delicate institutional problems. Of course, with the public funding of structures and newspapers, with the expropriation of the rights of Parliament in favour of the Grand Council of the secretaries of the parties of the regime, the problem no doubts exists. From a constitutional point of view, there are no doubts as to the fact that the national State will have to acknowledge the fullness of the ri

ghts and the duties that our statute acknowledges and assigns to Jean Fabre as to any other militant of the Radical Party, whether it likes it or not, without any discrimination as to nationality, religion, race, sex or age.

It is a fact, of course, that Jean Fabre could be arrested any moment, maybe even by the Interpol. But this is nothing new: Adele Faccio, Emma Bonino, Gianfranco Spadaccia, dozens of other radicals and myself are all prisoners released pending trial, and that the temporary (and soon permanent) member of Parliament Roberto Cicciomessere is also a jailbird, having been detained in the military prisons of the Republic.

As we all know, from the point of view of civil rights it is not easy to ignore the ideas and the goals of the Radical Party. In conclusion: there is a Bishop of Rome, whom the Concordat assigns not only citizenship rights but the privileges granted to an Italian public official, who is a Polish citizen; now there is a secretary general of a Party represented in Parliament who is a French citizen; in such way, a clerical-Catholic transnationality must be acknowledged along with a socialist-libertarian, pacifist and non-violent one. They strike me as being two excellent things.

We also hope that the day will come in which we will have a President of the Republic from South Tirol in Rome, providing he follows the example of Cesare Battisti (4), Gustav Heinemann (5) and Sandro Pertini (6), and not of De Gasperi (7), Magnago (8) and Piccoli (9).

Translator's notes

(1) Bruno Kreisky (1911-1990): Austrian politician. Foreign Affairs Minister (1959-66), Secretary of the Socialist Party (1967), Chancellor (1970).

(2) "Brandtian": related to Willy Brandt (1913), German politician. Exiled during Nazism (1933-45), Mayor of Berlin (1957-64), President of the Social-Democrat Party (1964), Foreign Affairs Minister (1966-69) and Chancellor (1969-74). Started a process of détente with the Soviet Union and with East Germany (Ostpolitik). Nobel Prize for Peace (1971).

(3) Roberto Cicciomessere (1947): Italian politician. Conscientious objector, he was arrested and imprisoned in 1972. Secretary of the Radical Party (1971 and 1984). Member of the Italian Parliament in the 6th, 7th and 8th legislature. Member of the European Parliament from 1984 to 1989.

(4) Cesare Battisti (1875-1916): Militant of the Socialist Movement and fought for the autonomy of the Trentino region from Austria-Hungary. Member of the Austrian Parliament (1911), he then joined the Italian army. Was taken prisoner by the Austrians (12.7.1916).

(5) Gustav Heinemann (1899-1976): Social-Democrat. President of the Federal Republic of Germany (1969-74).

(6) Alessandro Pertini (1896-1990): Italian politician. Socialist, imprisoned several times during fascism (1943-45). Exponent of the Italian Resistance; member of Parliament and Senator (1948); President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (68-76). In 1978 he was elected President of the Italian Republic.

(7) Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954): Deputy of the Popular Union, of which he was Secretary from 1923 to 1925. Antifascist, he was arrested and imprisoned (1927). Organizer of the clandestine Christian Democrat Party, Secretary of the same (1944-1946). Head of Government (1945). Signed the peace treaty with the allies (1947). Excluded the Left from Government.

(8) Silvius Magnago (1914): President of the Südtiroler Volkspartei, the nationalist party that upholds the ethnical traditions of the German-speaking populations.

(9) Flaminio Piccoli (1915): Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1969; 80-82).