ABSTRACT: The writer Leonardo Sciascia, interviewed by the managing editor of the »Giornale di Sicilia explains his reasons for running on the Radical Party ticket: "I thought it was necessary to speak of life and death in this country and that I ought to speak of it as a writer whose work is as close to action as is imaginable".

(An interview published by the GIORNALE DI SICILIA, reprinted in NOTIZIE RADICALI in the issue of May 7, 1979)

QUESTION: The question that he was mostly assailed with was: "Why?" It is a question which we repeat even if we know that he has already answered it to some degree. That is to say, how come this bolt from the blue after the declarations you made earlier to the effect that you were not going to run in this election?

ANSWER: It was a sudden and surprising decision for me too. I had firmly decided not to run in any electoral competition with any party, none of the parties which could interest me, which are a highly restricted number furthermore. Then I had a meeting with Pannella and this unforeseen acceptance of mine occurred. Now then, I don't know if it is an explanation, but anyway I can say what was in my mind: while Pannella was talking to me, I was thinking, for example, of that conversation Pasternak had with Stalin on the telephone. Pasternak once asked to speak with Stalin to plead the cause of Mandelstam, the poet who had been arrested. And one evening the telephone rings. Pasternak goes to answer it and it is Stalin. While speaking of Mandelstam, in a very hard way on the part of Stalin, at a certain point Pasternak says: "I want to meet you". "For what?" Stalin asks. "Why", Pasternak replies, "to speak about life and death", and at this point he hears the telephone hang up. Stalin did not want to speak of lif

e and death, obviously. So too, I thought it was necessary to speak of life and death in this country and that I ought to speak of it as a writer whose work is as close to action as is imaginable. I know that is the kind of writer I am, whose work brushes the borders of action. And so the temptation to go into direct action is strong in me.

Q: You have used a phrase taken from Seneca which I think is very beautiful. You spoke of the politics of the slaves who count. Do you think there really is a situation in our country today whereby the slaves, assuming that there are any slaves, are obliged to count themselves?

A: Yes, I think so. I greatly esteem the Italian people, contrary to the opinion that almost all politicians have of them. I esteemed the Italian people in confronting the campaign for divorce, when all those who were supposed to be in favour of divorce, except for the PR, believed that the referendum would lose. I believe that beneath this indifference, this cynicism, there is something alive, something true, something felt in the Italian people. It is not true that they are so cynical, so much like Alberto Sordi (1) characters, as some would like us to think.

Q: But it is true, at least in the current evaluations, which are probably also feeling the influence of the election campaign under way, that the PR, which you have returned to, has accepted being the party of divorce, civil rights, the battles for liberty, and is now going through an ambiguous period. Under the pressure of this election it is looking for consenses in the most diverse sectors of the country. Not only is it opening dialogues in directions which are in themselves contradictory - with Plebe and with De Carolis until quite recently - but today with you. It is even taking up the defence of the militants of "autonomia" (2) while on the other hand attacking those responsible for the Via Rasella (3) slaughter. This reproof is being made not only by the Communists but also the Socialists. It is receiving a lot of attention in recent days, even in the pages of »Avanti! (4). At bottom, it is being said, this party, which together with the Socialists has conducted so many clear, fine battles which s

eized the imagination of the people, has now started out on a rather ambiguous and contradictory course which practically, according to them, could even become embarrassing to a man like you.

A: I don't think there are contradictions in the PR. I think that the Radicals want to talk to everyone. It is right to speak with everyone. [Not] a Chamber which gets up and leaves as one man when Pinto (5) speaks on the Moro case. Pinto spoke to empty benches, and it was the most interesting speech that anyone made on the Moro case. This, then, is not a democratic Chamber. I think Pannella wants democracy in the broadest, fullest sense of the word. To speak with everyone.

Q: They say that the Radicals are a party that promises the role of protagonist to everyone. There has never been anything to compare with that. This is a way of conducting politics certainly unconnected with any schemes, that is outside all the classical canons and habits of conducting politics in this country. Do you think that this could be bait, an incentive for someone to join the PR ...?

A: I don't know. All I know is that the only ones in this country moving in the direction of life against death are the PR. And then I have to deny that Pannella attacked the Resistance and the episode of Via Rasella. Pannella simply said that this too was violence, and it is undeniable that it was.

Q: I understand. You know that there was a certain degree of perplexity on the left caused by a kind of endorsement that came from Montanelli (6) who said that Pannella and the Radicals were not the degenerate children, but only the somewhat reckless children of a liberal democratic line, in short, an accentuation, an extreme position, but which can be traced back to that kind of school, of doctrine, of ideology.

A: It is an analysis of Montanelli's and quite a convincing one I would say. Montanelli's consensus does not put me in awe, it makes no problems for me...

Q: I am happy to hear you say it, because it strikes me as being in the true spirit of freedom, outside the usual schemes and taboos.

A: I have quite good relations with Montanelli. I have had experience of his personal honesty, I mean. He attacked my book on Moro before having read it. After reading it he changed his mind. His opinion was still that there should be no negotiations, but he did retract many other things like an honest man towards his readers, and there was even someone who reproved him for this. Therefore the consensus of Montanelli presents no problems at all for me.

Q: I wanted to say this to you. An accusation which today is quite commonly made against the PR, you know it better than I do, is that of reviving "qualunquismo" (7), even if of the leftist kind. Now this, as you know, is not a defamatory accusation, but it is a recurring one in the history of this country made against anyone who takes a position outside the system, an unconventional position. Now then, I would like to know if this embarrasses you, this label, this stamp of "qualunquismo".

A: Absolutely not. For years some have accused me of "qualunquismo". I couldn't care less. And then, its about time this blessed "qualunquismo" was defined once and for all. It would seem to be moralism. Well then, that's okay, I am a moralist, I accept the definition.

Q: Listen, let's talk about the programme. It seems to me I have read in some paper in recent days that the Secretary of the PR, when questioned about the programme, said: Our programme is the Eight Referendums. It is certainly quite an ambitious position, also because of the complications the referendum norms involve. Do you consider this sufficient for Parliamentary action, for a Radical participation in the country's political life?

A. Look here, the great thing about the PR is that it is not a party in the traditional sense, not bureaucratic, not organised. It is a party of independents. My programme is that of truth: the truth about terrorism, the truth about the Moro case, and I believe that if these knots are not untied this country cannot advance.

Q: It seems to me that your position is thus also the refusal of the "great mob" - as it is called in the somewhat questionable but expressive term - for this way of conducting politics by broad accords, broad lines, and almost making the opposition disappear in this country. It also seems to me one of the reasons why the Radicals are encountering - at least according to the first opinion polls - understanding...

A: Since the area of opposition is becoming so restricted, it is up to the Radicals to take on the role of opposition if we want to keep a spark of democratic life in this country.

Q: In the face of these programmes, which are certainly ambitious, and above all with the justification and the perspective from which you look at it, that is to say this search for the truth, this rediscovery of the people, and in your particular position as a Southerner, is all of this not reductive in comparison to what you feel to be the problems, the real problems of this land?

A: It may be reductive, but one has to do one thing at a time. I don't know if I will end up in our national Parliament or in the European one. If I went to the national Parliament, my problems would be the ones I mentioned: to act in the sense of searching for the truth, of insisting on the truth. If I went to the European Parliament the problem of the South would present itself to me. We are treating the European Parliament lightly. I think the parties have adopted the attitude of getting rid of someone by sending him to the European Parliament. On the contrary, the European Parliament is important and it is there that one must defend the interests of the South, because up to now these European agencies, up to now economic agencies, have acted as if the South did not exist. Our representatives have gone to Brussels or Strasbourg absolutely without taking into account the existence of the South.

Q: I am not going to ask you to choose an option right here and now, and besides, I have absolutely no authority to ask you these questions. However I will ask you if you believe in your function in the European Parliament. Can the deputy of a minority, an extremely small minority like the representative of the PR have a worthwhile role and influence?

A: The way in which the United Europe is taking shape, the union of European states in this Parliament, I fear that it will be the South to pay the costs of a united Europe, just as the Italian South has paid for the united Italy. But one must try to keep this from happening, that's how I feel.

Q: Look here, let's talk now about the particular condition of a candidate of a minority party, highly singular as it itself admits. You were a candidate, even if only for a minor representative organism such as the Palermo Municipal Council. But with your election guaranteed, because you tell me that the PCI [Italian Communist Party, ed.] can elect anyone it wants to with its electoral machine. This time in a certain sense the battle is risky. What difference do you feel in your position, psychologically too?

A: Exactly that, in a position of risk. And I like it. I have never played cards, I am not at all a gambler, but in this case I am, I enjoy risking, the danger, betting everything in short.

Q: Look, you know that the opinion polls of the last few days, and then aside from the polls, from what one hears being said, the Radicals will be an independent variable, if we can put it that way, of the Italian political panorama. In all the forecasts there is not one that does not contemplate the growth, even a spectacular growth, of the PR. Some have even talked of 5%. Pannella has said that if things went in a certain way, he would feel satisfied by reaching two million votes which is five times as much as those won in previous elections. Do you think these forecasts are justified?

A: From the looks of things, I think so. On Saturday I was in my home town, and it has always been a barometer for me. I ran into about twenty people, at least. They told me that they had decided to vote Radical before they knew of my name being on the ticket.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Sordi, Alberto - (Roma 1920) A popular film comedian.

2) Autonomia - Refers to the far-left wing political group Autonomia Operaia (Workers' Autonomy) active in the second half of the Seventies. It reached the apex of its activities in 1977, while in 1979 it was denounced for aiding and abbetting terrorism and some of its leaders were put on trial. According to its theories the working class ought to be organised into forms independent from the State, its historical adversary.

3) Via Rasella - The name of a street in central Rome where a group of partisans on March 23, 1944 organised a dynamite attack on a column of German SS soldiers, killing 33. In reprisal the Germans took ten Italians for each of their own dead soldiers and thus executed 350 Italian civilians and soldiers, many of them Jews, at the Fosse Ardeatine on the outskirts of Rome. A memorial to these victims stands on the spot today.

4) »Avanti! - The official Socialist daily.

5) Pinto, Mimmo - (Portici, Naples 1948) Lotta Continua (a small left-wing party) activist and leader of the Naples Unemployed Movement, he was elected to Parliament in 1979 on the Radical ticket.

6) Montanelli, Indro - (Fucecchio 1909). Italian journalist and writer, famous for his correspondence from Hungary in 1956. After long years of collaboration with the »Corriere della Sera he left this newspaper in 1974 because he no longer shared its line and founded »Il Giornale Nuovo whose respected managing editor he has since remained. He has published successful books.

7) Qualunquismo - A very common pejorative term in Italian political parlance, along with its adjective form "qualunquista", to indicate a rejection of the primacy of politics and its values along with an attitude of diffidence towards parties and the party system. The word comes from the name of a journal »L'Uomo Qualunque (The Man In The Street) founded by the writer Guglielmo Giannini in 1944, expression of a movement, primarily in Southern Italy, of the discontented and under-developed masses who identified their problems with the political parties that arose after the war. As a movement it quickly fizzled out, only its name remaining as described above.