ABSTRACT: Intervening in the debate on the radical party's transformation into a transnational political subject, Luigi Manconi suggests that the Radical Party privilege the initiative in defence of the rights of the immigrants and for the development of Europe's multiethnic characteristic.

(Radical News N. 302 of 31 December 1987)

I must apologize in advance twice: a first time because I will inevitably start with a few tedious considerations and also because from these I will draw an extremist (so to say) and daring hypothesis, politically speaking. In complex societies with a very high degree of computerization and systemic integration, the regime based on party power is not a moral perversion, but an inevitable effect. In such societies, a form of politics which is not self-legitimated, a non-statalist and non-centralist-authoritarian policy can base itself, in my opinion, only and exclusively on conflicts mechanisms concentrated on the rights of citizenship. In other words, it can be based only on something which is outside of the system of parties. Only there can politics find an ethic basis, with reference to that public ethic Maffettone was referring to. Only there can it find a collective legitimation and a social response. Only there, in the conflicts mechanisms concentrated on the rights of citizenship, has the Left and the

workers movement in the past (and only in the past) found any legitimacy and basis.

If this "extremist" hypothesis (from the point of the institutional analysis) is valid to some extent, we need to consider the current form and substance of the right of citizenship. Obviously, these are not simply the ones Marshall pointed out: political, civil and social rights. I'm thinking of the new rights, the "daily rights", the rights to information as a priority compared to any really enjoyed citizenship.

Why this academic premise? Because the radical party represents an exception with respect to this hypothesis; it has another imaginary constitution, another founding element. It is not founded and legitimated in the conflicts for the rights of citizenship; nonetheless, it cannot do without those conflicts and those movements. What do I mean by this?

The radical party, like the other parties, is a party which self-legitimates itself, it is a centralist party; it did not arise as a movement nor as a party based on the collective movements that aim to obtain access to the full enjoyment of citizenship rights. The radical party - I'm attempting a historical reconstruction which, I imagine, you will challenge - was born as a democratic-revolutionary lobby, which is legitimated in the fact of belonging to that sector of the liberal political class endowed with a strong institutional culture and inclination. Of this political class it represents the extremist-institutional fraction, and it is precisely from this position, this culture and inclination that the radical party draws that which in my opinion is inevitably and legitimately its natural and obvious outlet: its destiny as a government party. This is an interesting element in my opinion, precisely because there have been extremely violent controversies both inside and outside of the party on this govern

ment function of the radical party; and that definition ("government") was used in an essentially moralist meaning, in the sense of a dependence from other political forces or as a weakening of its characteristic as a party engaged in struggles. I believe instead that this government function which the Radical party claims is the inevitable consequence of that initial identity of the radical party which I perceive in the fact of forming itself precisely in a segment of the liberal political class endowed with a strong institutional culture and inclination. This is precisely where the radical party's criticism of party power finds its expression: precisely this leads it to emphasize the supraparty dimension of the government and of the government function it aims to. However, this democratic-revolutionary lobby with a governmental vocation - and I believe it is a unique case in the history of the Western political parties - has represented the leadership of vast mass movements. Hence the statement I made abov

e: the radical party is a democratic-revolutionary lobby which cannot do without conflicts and movements (it needs them like the air it breathes). This calls for two remarks: 1) unlike other leaderships of movements, the radical party comes first, was created before the mass movements which it represents the political leadership of; 2) the radical party control several mass movements, it is the political class of several movements, endowed with different social realities, different cultures and different belongings; movements that focus on issues that differ widely, mobile and replaceable. These are the two characteristics which make the relation between a political class - that of the radical party - and the movements something which cannot be compared absolutely to the classical relation which exists between collective movements and their political-institutional expression.

If we accept this summary description of the radical party's model of political action and if we compare it to what we might call the radical party's European ambition, we can see that that model could on the one hand be applied, and on the other encounters difficulties and contradictions.

We see that even in the transnational dimension, a political organism (which I called a democratic-revolutionary lobby) endowed with a political inclination and culture, with structures, with its representatives in institutional forums, has been operating for some time and producing culture. And yet, the only moment in which this political group has been successful (and we know now it was a very fragile and short-lasting success) was when its initiative encountered and intertwined with something which resembled a movement of opinion, an action of collective mobilization, the action of many individuals on a common issue. That is to say, only when the struggle carried out by this group concentrated on the question of the system of North-South relations, on the problem of starvation: only when the Europeanist aspirations, vocation and culture of a lobby encountered something resembling a collective movement; only then did it have some success.

The success we are talking of, moreover, is a success relative to part of the initial aims and objectives; the real effect was a mobilization of consciences, not the slowing down of starvation, even if only at that moment, in the political and cultural context of the continent, something emerged which resembled a Europeanist collective movement, or rather a transnational collective culture. The interesting thing is that such mobilization did not focus directly on Europe, on the improvement of European intregration or on an electoral battle.

And yet, it was only in that circumstance (regardless of an institutional dimension) that a transnational culture in our continent emerged. This enables me to touch on the core of the problems raised by Strik Lievers, and to express my opinion on them in strictly political terms. It should be clear that I do not mean to emphasize in any way an opposition between movement and party: almost to say that there is a hierarchic sequence of tasks which called first for the organization of transnational movements first and then their projection on the political-institutional scale. This isn't the point. I believe the transnational party, in the limits in which it is possible and useful today, already exists. It is that organism, that structure created by a number of European parliamentarians, of European militants, of European initiatives which produce a group of agitators and propagandists who operate at the continental level on a series of issues (for example, conscientious objection or the struggle against starva

tion). And, therefore, I say that this dimension as a transnational party already exists to some extent (to the extent in which this is useful or possible). The main problem, on the other hand, is that the transnational movement does not exist at all, to the extent in which it is useful and possible. And it doesn't exist at a moment in which it is desperately needed. This is the moment, the stage in which the entire scenario of the European continent is being changed. In fact, it is the anthropological fabric of the continent which is being changed, or rather upset. And this brings us to the figures which would probably lead us to even more drastic conclusions. The figures: in France, 10% of the population is formed by immigrants. In Great Britain the percentage is even higher. In Italy we have 800.000 coloured immigrants, and it is an approximate datum, because there are no official controls or ascertained estimates on such figures. These are approximate but cautious figures, but, as we know, economists and

demographers agree in considering that Italy will be the privileged target of particularly intense and fast migratory flows over the next decade. I believe this is a crucial fact, which should be taken into account when talking of transnationality and when referring to Europe. A continent, I was saying, whose anthropological fabric (i.e. the identity of the communities which inhabit it) is upset. Thus, multiethnic societies are no longer a Third World utopia or a late-romantic hope. They are a seriously realistic demographic forecast. Confronted with this, I believe there are two possible alternatives, and I believe the more pessimistic of these alternatives is also the most likely one: a Europe which has proven incapable in the past of finding forms of continental integration could find them now, with the purpose of safeguarding itself from the pressure coming from the South of the world. A possible scenario, therefore, is that of a Europe formed of classic national States (the States produced by the wars

and revolutions of '700-'800), for which European integration means the solution of an impulse which comes from the collective unconscious: the need to protect itself from the South of the world which forces the boundaries of those same national States. This would have (and is already having) immediate effects in juridical terms, through procedures that restrict the possibility of circulating in the continent. Other countries have already adopted restrictive solutions, and Italy, as we know, has discussed the possibility and is still discussing it. The only possible alternative to this is that of a Europe aware of the fact that the national States no longer exist; not because of a political intregration which, as we know, has made no progress; not because of the integration of the productive cycles and of the highly skilled labour market, of the circulation of football players and of technical and scientific knowledge; but, chiefly, because of the circulation of illegal labour, badly-paid labour, black marke

t labour. And it is precisely this which challenges the very idea of nation as a coherent cultural unity, as a homogeneous ethnic reality. Compared to this, which is an extremely faithful scenario (and which foreshadows what I previously called a sort of anthropological revolution of the continent), the only hope and the only political target we can set for ourselves is that of improving this multiethnic Europe, as a Europe based on the rule of law, on tolerance and on the free circulation of ideas and individuals. A Europe with open frontiers. We thus return to the question of citizenship rights, seen in a new light through a reflexion on the events in this century regarding that concept and through the way in which those rights appear to non-citizens today; in other words, to the subjects of those migratory flows which I briefly described above. I believe the safeguard of the rights of non-citizens of this community, of this subjectivity in transformation, of these collective identities which upset the kn

own scenario, calls for movements and conflicts. And that this is what could give substance and momentum to that idea of a political action at a transnational level which you advocate. This, therefore, is the strongest possibility you have to concretely achieve the project of a transnational party.