by Eugenio Scalfari

"What do I want to obtain? I want people to be moved. Not just for the victims of starvation, but also for polluted world that has deformed its economic development. Are there solutions and remedies? Obviously, I'll explain how..."

ABSTRACT: The reasons of the objectives of the hunger strike which Marco Pannella has been carrying out for 19 days. "First of all, we need to find the primary cause that has deformed the economic development of the world. The primary cause is the capitalist system in its current military-industrial version". "The huge military expenses and the huge expenses in advertisement, with the ensuing consequences in terms of patterns of living and consumption on the habits of the industrial countries, condemn a huge mass of people to malnutrition and hunger, and sentence 30 million people every year to death". What can we do? "Government measures and decisions of the Parliaments. We need to change the financial budget, to cut other expenses, starting from the military ones, and give the United Nations the requested sums".

(La Repubblica, 25-26 March 1979)

ROME - For world hunger and in order to avert the death (which has statistically already occurred) of 17 million children under 4 and of 13 million more young people by 1979. On 6 March, Marco Pannella resumed his hunger strike. Today is the 19th day he has been living on two cappuccinos a day. In the beginning he weighed 97 kilos, yesterday at the medical check-up he weighed 82. But why? What does our national pest want to obtain? What is the meaning of fasting so that millions of malnourished and hungry people can eat? In other words: what does Marco Pannella want to obtain in practical facts? And from whom?

"The problem of the children dying of malnutrition is obviously not a new problem. I didn't discover it, we have always know about it. The problem is contained in the U.N.'s statistics, in those of the Caritas International, of the Red Cross. It is a universally acknowledged fact. 1979 has been declared international year of the children. But the children continue to die, no one does anything in practice on a global scale. Do you know that while we talk now, 3,000 children are dying? It's something that shocks you".

What can I answer, what I oppose to this maniac of nonviolence, with hollow cheeks and blue eyes, slightly mad? Clearly, the fact that while we talk 3 thousand children somewhere in the world are dying shocks me, it is an alarming piece of news, but I have to confess it won't prevent me from sleeping at night or eating or wanting to deal with other subjects, as soon as Pannella leaves this room. But Pannella doesn't leave, and insists.

"The piece of news isn't a shock for you, I know. It's normal. You shouldn't feel bad because of this, you shouldn't feel guilty. You are simply alienated, manipulated, psychologically deformed. Is your moral conscience stirred by the recollection of the massacre of six million Jews in the Nazi crematoriums? One thinks of it as a fatality, as a law of nature".

I don't need to ask myself the question, I answer abruptly, 'yes'.

"Right. And what do you feel if you think of the purges under Stalin in the U.S.S.R., of the four-five million farmers who died of starvation between the Don and the Volga in the terrible years of the forced savings and of the 'construction of socialism'?

Once again, indignation and the desire to do whatever I can to avert horrors of that kind in the future.

"Very good. But you are not as touched by this other form of genocide".

That's not the point...

"No, that's precisely the point, you aren't touched. Unconsciously you think, 'there has always been hunger in the world; there has always been some corner of the world where there is a famine, misery, infective diseases. It is a fatality, it is a law of nature. They caused you to feel this way, you see? They manipulated you. Your feelings are induced".

And you're fasting to make me come out of my alienation.

"Precisely".

Fine, but I have already come out of it. Having ascertained this point, I continue to miss the point of your hunger strike. Do you want to convince and "disalienate" people one by one, as you did with me? Let's say that all the readers of "La Repubblica" convince themselves. What then? What should we do after that? A collection of money to send powdered milk and medicine or contraceptives to Tanzania or Bangladesh?

"Obviously not. That is not the goal. I am not asking to make a collection of money. And I oppose welfarism".

So what do you want in order to stop your hunger strike?

"The question is rather: what do WE want. This is what I want. First of all, we need to find the chief reason that has deformed the economic development of the world. The primary cause is the capitalist system in its current military-industrial version. Mind you, when I talk about military-industrial version, I include by that the U.S.S.R. and the countries of the so-called real socialism. The controversy, about whether they are socialist countries or not, is slightly ridiculous: in terms of development, they are capitalist, imperialist countries, and are are no less dominated - and perhaps even more than the U.S. - by the military-industrial complex".

What you mean to say is clear, but what has this to do with the malnourished children?

"A lot to do! Do you know how much the industrial countries spend for their military apparatus? U.N. figures: every year 400 thousand billion lire. Or $400 billion. You realize that? That is the first and most aberrant deformation of the development. The second number, barely less sensational that the first, is the expenses for advertisement and to control and boost the patterns of consumption in the rich countries: $100 billion yearly. With the consequence - this too abnormal - that 30% of the population of the industrialized countries is medically threatened by excess weight. And here is my first conclusion: the huge military expenses and the huge advertisement expenses, with the ensuing consequences in terms of patterns of living and consumption in the industrialized countries, condemn a huge mass of people to malnutrition and hunger, and sentence to death 30 million people a year, 17 million of whom are under 4. I suggest this reflexion: in the coming ten years, if the situation is not radically inverted

, more people will have died than in the 3 thousand years of the entire history of the world".

If I have correctly understood, therefore, you aim to use the emotional impact of the children "sentenced to death" to mobilize the public opinion against this mechanism of development.

"Let's say they are the two sides of a same coin. The children die because of this type of deformed development. If this type of development changes, the children will no longer die of that incredible fatality and - at the same time - if they do not die, this means that the type of development has changed. The question is a single one, and cannot be separated. It is the most horrible aspect of the class struggle."

Is this why you refuse the allegation, advanced also by Don Franzoni, of being a pietist and a welfarist?

Yes, there is nothing more fake than that criticism. I know perfectly well that the death of children of hunger is an episode, the most horrible one, of the class struggle. Similarly, sex, the female condition, beauty, are also episodes of class struggle..."

Beauty?

"Yes, beauty. A rich woman can still be attractive at 50. A poor woman is a wreck already at 25. Isn't beauty also a fact of class discrimination?"

What about the possible solutions?

The possible solutions: this is the international year of the children, and the U.N. has pointed out a first solution. It has suggested that all countries allot 1% of their GNP to rescue the dying ones..."

Q. In other words, to rescue the children sentenced to death by the statistics of hunger.

A. Precisely. And another 1% to start a new type of development in the poor countries, interrupting the circle of misery. However, to this moment, the suggestions of the United Nations have remained on paper. The heads of State have all sent lofty messages: lip service."

Q. What can de done in practice?

A. Governmental measures, and decisions from the Parliaments. It is necessary to change the financial budget, cut other expenses, starting from the military ones, and give the United Nations the requested sums".

Q. You want to start from Italy.

A. "Where else should I start from? If it want to follow the indications of the United Nations, Italy needs to allot 400 billion lire. We have already explained in detail how these funds can be raised without upsetting the far but rosy conditions of our national finance. We are not irresponsible and bizarre people as they often depict us. On the contrary: we are extremely practical people. But 400 billion can be found easily, while keeping our finance in equilibrium. Clearly, we need to radically change the guidelines of our military-industrial system".

Q. Are you suggesting to dismantle the conventional defences?

A. Peace in the world is kept thanks to the equilibrium of the nuclear threat. The conventional defences are far but useless. Their only purpose is making the arms merchants and the entire bureaucratic-industrial clientele behind them, richer."

Q. What you're saying is true, up to a certain point. Over the last thirty years, there have been a quantity of local conflicts, fought with conventional weapons. Therefore, abolishing or even reducing the conventional defences can occur only if this is a balanced process in all countries, and a process controlled internationally. Starting first, and alone, means remaining defenceless in a world armed to the teeth.

Q. You ought to notice that this is nonsense in most cases. And this argument of yours is a useless form of realism. Let's imagine that Italy reduces its conventional defences. Whom should we fear an aggression by?"

A. I don't know, anyone...

Q. "By whom? Mention a country. Switzerland?"

A. No, not Switzerland.

Q. "France?"

A. Obviously not.

Q. "Therefore, by Yugoslavia, if it were once again under the control of the Russians. Is that what you're thinking of?"

A. You should pose these questions to the Chief of Staff...

A. Precisely. I would like to pose them to the Chief of Staff. If the Italian TV, in the year of the children, offered us a space corresponding to ten times the space occupied by a popular program, an entire program should focus on the debate with the Chief of Staff. Because, ultimately, the sole hypothesis of conflict, in Europe, is only the world war, and in that case the conventional defences are useless, that's the plain truth."

A. Your concrete proposal?

Q. "To start with, I suggest to exempt 80% of the young people who must serve the army from the military service, drawing by lot the 20% who must serve the army. It would be a huge saving, it would mean energy to be used on the productive economy, and the possibility of mobilizing funds for the U.N. project. That is one proposal. But there are many others. A world war to be won or lost."

A. Let's imagine your hunger strike shocks people, that the papers write about it, that the TV offers the space you ask, that Parliament decides to change the budget law, and to allot 400 billion lire and give them to the U.N. for the major project against world hunger. Let's imagine all this. What then? What next? What if the other countries don't follow the example of Italy? What if the U.N. lacks an operative project to spend that money in a useful way? What then?

A. "What then? A lot of things. The President of the Italian Republic sends a message to the United Nations, informing it that it has fulfilled it duties, and asking the other countries to do the same. The head of the Italian government flies to New York and gives the funds to Waldheim, bringing a default action against the governments of the other countries. A worldwide campaign for peace, for life, for nonviolence, against armaments, is launched. People's enthusiasm is stirred. everywhere, in Italy, in Europe, in the world. This is imagination in power. This is the real struggle against terrorism and blood. I really want to see if the Red Brigades (2) or Prima Linea (3) will go on shooting, or Autonomia (4) beating up people, faced to a project of this kind and of this vastness. It is necessary to raise the level of the objectives, if we want to come out of the stagnation. Don't 17 million people who are dying deserve the attention of the world? Isn't this a world war, to be won or lost?"

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

(2) RED BRIGADES. (Known as BR). Clandestine terrorist organization of the extreme Left, born and operating in Italy as of 1969. By proclaiming the revolution of the working classes, the organization tried to open several fronts of armed revolt against the State and the political establishment, carrying out a series of attempts, wounding, kidnapping and assassinationg politicians, journalists, magistrates and industrial executives. Its leader was Renato Curcio. In 1978 the organization kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro.

(3) PRIMA LINEA. Left-wing terrorist organization.

(4) AUTONOMIA OPERAIA. Left-wing terrorist organization.