ABSTRACT: To whomever today decides that the presence of the Radical Party is a civil right of Italian politics, the party's statute can indicate a possibility that has always been present: dual party membership. Those who are farthest from the Radicals can thus, on the eve of the party congress, make note of it for themselves and others.

(Notizie Radicali no. 192 of August 20, 1986)

At this point, after thirty years, for the same reasons for which we founded our party - reasonable as well as rational, necessary as well as opportune - this assembly of ours opens with the congress reflecting on an issue that should bring us within little more than ninety days to decide if our love for our country, if our love for our ideas, if these same reasons do not demand that we dissolve the party, that we give back to the country clearly, rigorously and seriously, our word and our silence - the silence which is obligatory, even officially - in a situation in which we believe we are speaking, one believes to be speaking and the country can risk believing to be listening, whereas, in our place, only a dangerous caricature of silence is being emitted and thus we are not participating in the formation of the democratic will, but in the formation and protraction of - I want to measure my words to the utmost - a regime which cannot manage to, assuming that it still wants to, be the regime of the writ

ten Constitution, the democratic regime. And something else.

Perhaps in thirty, fifty, a hundred years, it is also possible that one will notice that this "something else" was not and is not unworthy: it is something else, simply something else, neither better nor worse. Let us then put the serious question to ourselves if for the same reasons that we did and do exist we ought not as a social body, as a free and responsible association, to quit our associational responsibility. In any case it does not express everything about us, entirely, and for each single one of us. We are a lay party, not a church. We are a party that has preached to ourselves and others the practice of dual party membership. Woe to us if we should think that even our party, I don't say other ones, can claim to be looked upon, or we were to look upon it as the expression of our integrity, of our persons, as a complete expression and one which must be completed. This is not the goal, and this is not what we have worked for. Each one of us knows it, and will do well to remember it at this mome

nt. (...)

People are here because they know that we are not, like Pascoli (1), trying to emit the final gasps of a voice on the point of death. We are here to say that we are willing and happy to continue assuring the contribution of 2,500 - 3,500 citizens - if it is possible to make this contribution, if it does not disturb the leader, and above all if the law will once again be affirmed; if it will be possible to have the country judge us. (...)

Precisely in consideration of where we as Radicals have always placed the emphasis - on the idea of Einaudi (2) that one must "know in order to deliberate" as the only possible and necessary foundation of democracy - we can say today that it is certainly pernicious for our Socialist and Social Democratic comrades, our Republican friends and for the DC [Christian Democratic Party] itself to have the information media in the hands of those who are culturally incapable of grasping the value of news and of any subject matter. This is the problem of radio and television as well as of a class of journalists incapable, even when they want to, of reporting the contents and the differences between ideas and ideals. Something that one can always count on is that if by chance there is a confrontation between the DC and the PSI or the PRI and differences regarding programs or goals, the country will not hear of it, the 1st Programme TV news will not report it. There will always be the reporting of mere courtly fact

s, they greeted each other, they did not greet each other, they went together (...).

We had said it: take care, the Parliament does not exist, and if and when it exists it is they isolate it from the country. When the Parliament speaks out, the function of the Italian mass media is to keep one from hearing about it except for when it is reduced to being a determining value-added assembly of the hidden ones who are behind those who do the talking.

(...) We are talking about our right, comrades, to be known in order to be judged, or else to say, "please excuse us for the disturbance, goodbye and thank you". That is what I think we must do. But the truth is that not even the voices of the other parties, the voices of democracy which are everywhere present in them, do not manage to pass the barrier.

(...) What historical sense does it make other than to justify things historically, if the entire Communist sphere from Ingrao to Natta, from Lama to Marramao meets regularly, not only without an ensuing scandal, but creating a scandal if it were not to happen? Or if the whole Christian Democratic sphere meets from Andreotti to Fanfani to all the others we know - Mazzotta, the CISL [DC labour union, ed.] Marini, Scotti - what sense is there if they meet and we or you should meet in order to quarrel on only these good occasions? That is to say, what historical sense does it make, not in terms of "ethnos" but of "ethos" to continue thinking that the PSDI [Social Democrats] must propose for itself its own distinguished succession, a distinguished future for itself - and the same for the Republicans, the Socialists, the Radicals, the Liberals - as the inheritance of our society of 2000 or 1990? Or otherwise, would there be among you greater differences, even historical ones, than those that unite in diversi

ty and have made the Christian Democrats the party of power? Certainly yes, if we do our work of making distinctions, of historical chronicles. But otherwise I believe that the 30% represented by those we call the forces of <> is already the third family quantitatively. Separated... why, to do what? (...) I don't know if this is unreasonable. But I would like to allow myself - during this probably next to last assembly of the Radicals and convinced that in so doing I would not be impinging on any part of my party - to put this question to Nicolazzi, to Spadolini, to Martelli, to De Luca (3): is it really so stupid, so gratuitous or artificial a thought to arrange - I ask you this as party secretaries - perhaps once every two or three months for a single day, a meeting closed to the public, with no agenda to be announced, of the Liberal, Republican, Socialist, Social Democratic party secretaries - and the Radicals if we are still around - as well as any others who want to participate? (..

.)

Hunger strikes, if they are Radical ones, and non-violence will no longer be feasible except with outcomes that we do not desire. Conscientious objection and the affirmation of conscience - today anything which is really news is expunged by Italian television. The situation is clear: with 3,000 or 3,500 of us, we cannot offer the country guarantees that we will accomplish the things for which we have formed our association and, reasonably, with integrity, call our yearly assemblies. We cannot say it to ourselves and we cannot say it to others. My pride is in having spoken folly. We were the Radical Party, we were the Divorce League, and with Loris (4) we said: give us your trust, give us a hand, we can succeed. But now, what can we do? This is what we must try to say. Can we continue with our hunger strikes? Up to what point? (...) If from now until the [party] congress - that was the hypothesis we went on - instead of 3,000 registered members we had 10,000 registered Radicals, then what will you do? Do

you want to hear what I think: I think there is also yours: it is our duty to reconsider our analyses and our decisions in consideration of the fact that we cannot have either 10,000 or 20,000 registered members because the country honestly cannot judge the things the Radicals do, and so cannot adopt or reject them when only more or less two, three or four per cent of the country can judge, hear and know what the Radicals want at various times.

My conviction is that we will approve the plan to cease our activity. For my part, I am determined for the time being to support this idea until convincing alternatives are presented. Anyone today who wants to decide if the existence of the Radical Party is an Italian civil right - allow me to put it in these terms - can find an indication in our statute: we have always said that there is the solution of dual party membership. Those who are farthest from us Radicals can thus, on the eve of the party congress, perhaps make note of it for themselves and others while remaining free and participating in that party - if it should stay alive - that today may perhaps take up again the battle against hunger in the world and for the constitutional state. Precisely those things which, as it happens, are I believe not only a ground for true unity which cut across and unite our family, the family of reformist, liberal democratic, "critical democracy", but which can unite in new alliances many things which cannot he

lp but find shelter among the Christian Democratic or Communist spheres as well. We must first of all call upon ourselves, all of us in our uniqueness, if we want the primary force in our country to become that for which each of us exists, will exist and has existed along these lines. (...)

Otherwise, dear comrades, let us get ready to realise that after our congress we will have to accept our solitude and thus new friendships, new loves, new comrades.

If the party decides to break up, this means that we must consume as arbitrary, to the end, the hope or expectancy that there will be among us, each and all, one last reason for unity to be kept and protected. It will be a creation of solitude, because it is from solitude, alone, with solitude's integrity, that one achieves new unions, new unity, new comrades and friendships. And we will take leave of each other saying this is goodbye for good. But we will know at the same time that we will still have before us the things which, by our having loved them together for so long, made of us the Radical Party.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Pascal - Giovanni Pascal (1855 - 1912), one of the major Italian poets of the 19th Century.

2) Einaudi - Luigi Einaudi (1874 - 1961), statesman and professor of financial science.

3) Nicolazzi (PSD); Spadolini Giovanni (PRI); Martelli Claudio (PSI); De Luca (PLI).

4) Loris - Loris Fortuna, Socialist deputy who was the author of the divorce law.