SUMMARY: John Bok, the main activist of a substantial group of Czechoslovakian Radicals, has delivered a speech during the second Congress of the Italian Radical Party which was held in Rome at the end of January. We hereby report an exhaustive synthesis, in which the author depicts the role that the trans-national Radical Party may play in Czechoslovakia's approach towards democracy and Europe.

(Radical News n. 51 2 March 1990)

In the past months, in the past weeks, we in Czechoslovakia are experiencing events that before we would have considered unheard-of The monstrous tyrant of the totalitarian mafia, that has sucked and strangled the life of our country, has been defeated in a couple of days by the popular emotion that rebelled without any form of violence. Czechoslovakia is sure that it will persist in the path toward democratic pluralism - and this because of the non-partitical character of the popular movement (the Civic Forum in Bohemia and the People Against Violence in Slovakia), because the students woke up after a long sleep of political apathy, because President Vaclav Havel is a man well known for his humanitarianism and his democratic commitment. Who would benefit of the founding of a trans-national Radical Party in Czechoslovakia? It might be asked, given that in the sixties Vaclav Havel fought to for the same causes such as the abolition of the death penalty, and that his civic initiatives have always been inspired

by the principle of non-violence, given also that the students are all Radicals. What need would there be therefore for a Radical Party? We, the Radicals of Czechoslovakia answer: the Radical Party responds to a fundamental need of our country. We have freed ourselves from the chains of long years of totalitarianism, but even if our President, Vaclav Havel, and the rector of Radim Polaris University speak about a united Europe and of the advent of a new era, these opinions do not reflect the majority, nor is their way of thinking that wide-spread.

So many among our peoples, Czechs, Moravians, and Slovakians, have been accustomed - during the last 40 years of absolute lack of democracy - in seeing in the countries of the regimes that are known as real democracies, something that represents the highest "ideal" for us, and their institutions seemed the best. One might argue that the origin of this illusion was the iron curtain, that made things unknown appear better. In comparison to countries of the "real democracy" the lack of material goods was even more evident. Many believe that real democracies are better not because the people there play a more important role in the management of the country, but because it is easier to purchase a micro-wave oven or whatever. The poverty that reigns, for example, in Latin America, the hypocritical monopoly on morality detained by the Catholic Church in Italy or Brazil, that expresses itself in the abominable opposition to contraception and legal abortions, the negative attitude of the Pope with regard to homosex

uals - all this our people refuse to see in the West. The first task of the Radical Party in Czechoslovakia is therefore that of informing people, to open their eyes against the temptation of building a society blindly based on consumption following the model of western Europe, but something different instead, a world with no frontiers, a true democracy.

And it is for this reason that there is the need for a Radical Party in our country, so that together with Radicals all over the world we can build a country in which there will be no place for violent death, hunger, oppression - be it used by a powerful minority against the majority of the population, or by the national majorities against ethnical, cultural or religious minorities. In what way can Czechs, Slovakians and Moravians, be they members of the radical Party or not, contribute to world development? Owing to our present government, and to the person of our President, as well as to the process started in November before everybody eyes, our country is open to the whole world. Our President is a man that spent the whole of his life to encourage a greater respect for human rights and for their fulfilment, he has fought for the accomplishment of brotherhood among states and nations. Our revolution - caused by events that a year ago were unheard-of, carried out any shedding of blood of our people, without

one single broken glass! - proves how much our nation, in spite of all it has gone through, retains a deeply rooted social culture that has guided it throughout all the vicissitudes of its troubled history.

This social culture is a typical feature that not all nations can boast to have always retained. It is this social culture that inspires the pacific struggle of the Lithuanians. It's antithesis is represented by the tragic and barbaric methods adopted by the extremist nationalists of Azerbadjan, giving rise to the escalation of a perverse conflict by creating the suitable conditions for the use of military force.

Our nation's deeply rooted social culture is present among the whole of the population, from common people to our highly professional government, to our President, and it will lead us closer to the achievement of true democracy.

I believe that it is thanks to the developments achieved in Czechoslovakia today that the slumbrous spirit of Democracy and of Unity will be awakened in the rest of the world.

Thus, we Czechoslovakians, Radicals or not, can all help the Radical Party, with our contribution, to the accomplishment of the United States of Europe.