SUMMARY: [Translation of a long interview with Marco Pannella by the Yugoslav newspaper "Nin"]. Asked by the interviewer to provide a picture of the Radical Party, Pannella reminds him that it is the Party of homosexuals, drug addicts, prisoners,, etc. It also led the battle against world starvation and gathered 800,000 signatures for the referendum against hunting, at a time when the Green Party in Germany did not exist yet. Of the spiritual heritage of '68, it preserves the victory on the divorce law, at a time even the Communist Party was engaged in "historic compromise" politics with the Christian Democrats. Pannella then points out its opposition to the present system dominated by Party interests, i.e. opposition to a "continental" style electoral system, which is anything but democratic.

For the Radical Party, he continues, true democracy is "classical" democracy which has not been achieved anywhere in the world yet, also due to the existence of the nation-state ("democracy in a single country is folly"). The Radical Party is libertarian but not anarchist. Because it is not nationalist, it is also not in favor of national demands, for example, those of Kosovo. It considers itself secular but not anti-clerical, etc.

Pannella then goes on to illustrate the features of the "transnational" party, with its double membership card, etc. About the issue of German reunification, he states that the danger of the re-birth of a German superpower would exists if there weren't a EEC, which must become a true federation (or confederation) with actual political unity.

(NIN, October 19, 1990)

Marco Pannella, President of the transnational Radical Party and representative at the European Parliament, was recently in Yugoslavia. Who are the European members of the Radical party?

- We are Cicciolina's party, we are the party of homosexuals, drug addicts, deserters - people who don't want to serve in the military, we are also the party of prisoners. We are, for example, the party that in Italy has among its members some of the worse people who have received life sentences. The first members of the Radical Party in Russia had all been in mental hospitals. Leonid Pljus, for example We fought to close down mental hospitals in Italy. We are the first political party in the world to start a referendum against hunting, when no one was thinking about the issue. The German "Greens' did not even exist yet, maybe they weren't even in diapers, when we gathered 800,000 signatures against the nuclear option.

All of this begins to paint a picture of our party. I don't think there is any other party that is so austere, but at the same time knows how to enjoy life. For example,we have led a fight against world hunger. One and a half million people participated in the demonstrations we organized at that time, and we had only three thousand members. This is what Marco Pannella says at the beginning of our conversation, explaining the "image" of a party that accept members on a year by year basis, with the option of renewing membership.

Q. Did your party continue the spiritual heritage of '68?

A. When the civil rights movement in the U.S. gave rise to the European movement of '68, we accomplished some incredible things in Italy. In that period of great closure on the part of the Church, we were about to be successful in demanding the introduction of the divorce law, going against not only the will of Church, but against the whole political class in Italy. Even the Communist Party, because of its policy of historic compromise, was against it, and the so-called secular parties were in a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party, and not ready to dissolve it. Even the extreme right, the fascist and everybody else, were clearly against it. In Italy, the left, the center and the right had all taken the same position against us. Truly, oftentimes, they were only different aspects of a single party. This is very evident in continental democracies, which are pluralistic and based on proportionality, as we in the European continent don't have real democracies, but rather the rule by parties, with

para-state parties. With such great desire to nationalize everything, they have even nationalized themselves. I think that we in Italy, five or six years after the war, went from a perfect one party system, fascism, to a new, imperfect system of party rule. The left, center and right are intertwined today.

Q. What is democracy for you?

A. We of the Radical Party follow the example of classical democracy, which, one can say, has never come into being. In our opinion, anyone who accepts the limits of the nation state does not really have a chance to lead and govern the life of society in a a democratic way.

Q. Is democracy even possible given the skills that nation states have today?

A. As history has proven that socialism in one country is folly, if not a crime, so, in my opinion, democracy in one country is madness. Even the more so if it is a nation state, given the size nation states have in this century - meaning France and all the others, i.e., 90% of the U.N. member nations.

I think the concept of nation state in our century was, really, a sort of AIDS, a disease of liberals and everyone else.

Q. Usually people think, at least here in Yugoslavia, that the Transnational Radical Party is an anarchist party, anarchist having a negative connotation. But is it really logical to consider the anti-nation state definition positive?

A. Our party is a non ideological one, and given that it consists of a group of people who every year decides to be part of it, I can only answer for myself personally.

I think that the positions going back to Rousseau, that is to nature, all those positions saying "Man is good, society corrupts him" are at the bottom of all the problems of today's world. It is true that I am a libertarian, but I am not an anarchist, and mainly for one reason. I am convinced that even the worst of laws, even the law of "an eye for an eye" is better than the law of the jungle. Therefore, any law, the 12 tables, Moses' laws, any law whatsoever is better than no laws at all. Law sets the rules of the game. The law of the jungle, the one anarchists claim is the law of nature is good only for bullies. This is why our party has adopted the following as its motto, even if it is a philosophical concept - we are the party that demands the right to life and the life of right.

Therefore, I do not mix up elections and democracy, not only because, among other things, in countries with dictatorships people do vote, actually the are forced to vote. Democracy is not only whether you vote or not, but also whether you are forced to vote. But I have to say that I myself, as an Italian, have always been more afraid of Italians than of Germans, Americans or Russians. I do not believe in ethnos" as an "ethos", I don't believe in either a destiny or some type of legitimacy. I am more afraid of the law of the race than of enemy occupation. Because, oftentimes, race deprives its members of freedom, rather than its enemies. This is the reason why I am an internationalist. This is the reason why I am convinced the Austro-Hungaric empire, which was multinational, was more European, actually more civilized than the nation states which were formed both at the end of the nineteenth century and after 1914.

What is fundamental for me is the rights of the individual. This is not the principle of the French Revolution which denied all of them, in the name of those Enlightenment ideals that led to the French Revolution. I believe, and by now I'm sure to be putting my foot in my mouth, that the rights of the Albanian people in Kosovo as in Albania, if they became the main goal, they would represent the end of the rights of every single Albanian man and woman. Because then, in the name of history, in the name of the people, in the name of language and culture, the race will excommunicate anyone who is in disagreement with it. It means that even before beginning to fight against the enemy, if will make any effort to liquidate "dirty traitors", to say it in the language of the Radical party.

Q. What is your attitude towards the Church and of the Church towards you?

A. We are a secular party. Therefore, we are an anti-clerical party where clericalism exists. The Italian Communist Party always accepted dialogue with the Church, but did not want to talk about divorce, abortion, etc. Because all of these issues implied big moral and social problems. We not only faced those issues head on, but we also won the battles. And when we won the battle for the divorce law, more than one European paper wrote "Italy has joined Europe". The newspapers printed a small caricature of David (the Radical Party) knocking down Goliath (the clerical forces). I am against the Church as representing power. I don't believe in the dogma of the immaculate conception. I don't believe in any dogma. Therefore, my position is a clear one, but I am literally ready to die for the right of Catholics to believe in their dogma. I must say that sometimes I really like John Paul II, when, against the world, he defends and insists on [missing word].... if there only were more politicians of all p

arties, liberal, socialist willing to defend their position with such consistency of principle and integrity as he does.

But if he were to seek new agreements between the State and the Church in Eastern Europe I would be strongly against it. Believers have the right to lead their religious life, but neither the Church nor the State has the right to make agreements on privileges, or to behave like the hand of God. This is true also for other fundamentalists, whether Islamic or of any other type.

Q. How many members of the Radical Party are there in the socialist countries? When were they able to join with equal rights the Radical Party as a Transnational party?

A. Here is an example. If some members of the Radical party, engage in an action to save the Danube in one city and their goals are legitimate in that country, I think that with the help of the transnational party at the same time, on the same day, party members in the different Parliaments of the various countries could initiate the same bill, and there could be large international demonstrations to support such initiatives.

If in Rumania or in Italy there were to be an action in defense of the rights of Rumanian or Italian citizens, at the same moment, on the same day there could be demonstrations in front of the Italian or Rumanian Embassy, in Belgrade, Moscow or Paris, and in other cities.

Q. Can a member of the Radical Party also be a member of another party?

A. We are the first party in the world that has defended a person's right to belong to two, three, four different parties. That is any person's right and the party has no right to interfere. Today it is still different. We no longer are in any way a national party. Today when you engage in competition with national parties, it is not possible for the Radical Party as such--and let me underline this 5 times-- the Radical Party cannot appear with its own symbol in any part of the world, because the Radical Party does not want to compete to gain power and be part of any one government. This is our basic principle. If at an ecological, legal and social level we do not, as of yet, have a common transnational organization -- especially in countries where parties rule and there is a proportional system, unlike the Anglo-Saxon system-- it is for us a preliminary condition to be an inter-party organization. If the opposite were true, we couldn't guarantee the course of democracy, which at the end is reduced t

o choosing between two possibilities.

Q. This is the same as was proved by free-masonry, only that your organization is not secret.

A. You are right. Two centuries ago, freemasonry played a very important role in civilization. It defended thinking, freedom, culture and tolerance. But the same thing that happened to Christianity happened to the Free-masons too. Christianity became the Church, and after that, it was farewell to religion!

Q. What do you think of the re-unification of Germany? Will Germany as a superpower be too strong for the European context?

A. If all we were doing was going back to the EEC, then not only would there be a danger, it would be certainly detrimental. But if we accelerate our struggle for the creation of the United States of Europe, then Germany's re-unification is a positive step on this path. I officially asked the political committee of the European Parliament to request that the European Community express the desire that Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians and Yugoslavs be allowed to take the same step granted to the GDR. Indeed, it would be sheer madness to claim that the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Slovaks and the Yugoslavs are less inclined towards democracy than the East Germans.

A United States of Europe also implies a reduction in the consolidated sovereignty of nation states. We are working precisely towards that goal, with a strong minority, and the majority of the European Parliament. As I said before, these different national-democratic nation-states are really a downfall, and, therefore, it is necessary, as soon as possible,to embrace all of them into a single, federal, political entity, and not be satisfied simply with economic cooperation. If all of these countries were to join a political federation, they would have a lot more interest in it. In this way, their economic interests would be fulfilled more easily than with simple agreements with one of the two superpowers.

Q. In the discussions of the European Union is there room for a confederate state?

A. The issue is of great importance. If we have a United States of Europe like the United States of America, there is a federal government. And each little state has got its own government. If such state is a federation or a confederation, that's its business. Coincidentally, let me express my thoughts. I understand this attempt to try and find a way out -- let's create a confederation, etc.-- but what does that change, here, now, in historical terms? A federation or a confederation, that's not the essential issue, if we cannot really help the situation. Maybe only for selfish reasons, and I emphasize maybe, the rich republics will integrate increasingly with the West, and they will detach themselves increasingly from the poor republics, in such a case- whether you are a federation or a confederation doesn't matter. Maybe that is due to crisis, it may be a convenient way to gain some time, one or two years, but there is no future in this.