ABSTRACT: Political nonviolence is an expression of strength as opposed to weakness and resignation, and "pacifist" neutrality.

It is necessary to create, by using political nonviolence, a transnational "shadow cabinet" to counteract the weak and ineffective "world government" which is only capable of creating inefficient international institutions. It is only by doing this that we will be able to install a true "world government" which, by functioning according to the rules of democracy, collaborating with the international institutions and upholding their laws, will be able to deal with the tremendous problems the world has to face.

The Radical Party, a transnational and cross-party force, offers every democratically elected representative the unique oppportunity of taking an active part in creating a new and tolerant democratic order. It will be the beginning of an exciting new era in which political responsibilities are assumed to the full. So join us now!

(The Party New, n.3, August 1991)

The weapons of nonviolence

Political nonviolence is not a passive reaction to either an aggressor or violence itself, but takes a firm stand between the two. It is trying to find the most effective way of dealing with any form of violence, without violating the principles of human tolerance and democracy.

The launching of "information" offensives; the upholding of our political right - and duty - to intervene and protect the rights sanctioned by international agreements and the Constitutions of individual countries; and the destabilizing of totalitarian regimes, are all forms of nonviolent activity practised - and which will always be practised - by the Radical Party with the new "weapons" of nonviolence and forceful non-military action capable of representing an effective, and certainly not futile, alternative to military power.

While the "pacifists" were campaigning for nuclear disarmament and staging sit-downs throughout the world, and ignoring the fact that millions of people were dying from starvation or in wars fought with conventional weapons in the South of the world, the radicals, by undergoing trials, by going to prison, and by undertaking nonviolent political action in countries under totalitarian rule - from Moscow to Ankara and Prague to Sofia - demonstrated to the world the need to progressively and unilaterally convert "conventional" weapons to infinitely more effective "weapons" which would equip us to destabilize and defeat authoritarian regimes; and to convert military spending into funds that would ensure the development and security of all countries, even the famine-stricken countries of the South of the world.

Then again, immediately after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, the radicals, instead of participating in the humiliating pilgrimages undertaken to the dictator's "shrine", mobilized themselves internationally to launch a powerful "information" offensive, employing all the most modern means of communication, in support of all the victims of Saddam Hussein in the entire Arab world. For years before the invasion we denounced the West, through the proper parliamentary channels, as being criminally responsible for arming Iraq. We also condemned the total silence maintained, above all by the "pacifists", concerning the constant abuse of the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples, the latter having been virtually annihilated by chemical weapons supplied by many European countries.

But if the only choice that exists is between violence and cowardice - as it was on 17 January 1991 when the ultimatum issued to Iraq by the UN expired - the supporters of nonviolence cannot but choose, as many Radicals have done, to side with violence, in order to protect their rights from being abused by those who use violence for that very purpose.

Nonviolence and human rights

We must therefore cultivate the practice of nonviolence - which is to be interpreted as powerful action and not weak resignation - in order to be able to provide a positive alternative to the ineffectiveness of violence and the insipidness of neutrality - the two major weaknesses manifested in the world - which, on the one hand, daily provoke the waste of immense resources within the military-industrial complex; and, on the other, result in total disregard of the rights of millions of people oppressed by totalitarian regimes. And this in the name of upholding our peace and well-being, which has never been more threatened.

The purpose of political nonviolence is to substitute violence with positive, and "supernational", law which is valid for everyone.

We are not advocating peace at all costs, and certainly not when it could cost us our rights, but saying that the law must exist as something concrete, something which is put into practice.

It is the only way. The one that has been opened up by the great internationalists and federalists, and which will enable us to transform the military powers of each country in a supernational institution which would then progressively substitute conventional military weapons with the far more effective "weapons" of economic and political pressure, the defence of democracy at any price, and the enforcement of "a right to life and a life of rights", as an antidote to war and world chaos.

The London "Summit". A second Munich.

The cultivation of nonviolence, of the law, of rights, and of democracy, and the practice of the same, is still foreign to international politics, to governments and opposition alike.

The spectre of Munich, which manifests itself as our inability to cultivate democracy and create democratic institutions in the West, walks again in the cynical realpolitik that prevails today.

Even when faced with a coup in the Soviet Union which was almost doomed to fail from the beginning, the democratic leaders of the West - unlike the people of Moscow and Leningrad who immediately organized resistance against the conspirators - declared, for some time at least, that they would be prepared, as always, to collaborate - and indeed were - with the new dictators of the Kremlin, in the name of international "stability"! Yet again, the UN and its Security Council, with their false respect for the legal and political power of the State, did not speak out against the illegal coup plotters, and betrayed their right to intervene in the name of democracy, a right that they had rigorously upheld several months previously. Thus, the UN deluded and, indeed, buried, all the hopes the world had of its capacity to function as an international seat of government able to resolve international crises, whether these arise within a single country or between different countries. On the other hand, the democratically

elected European Parliament, and the national parliaments, whose specific powers and functions are steadily being devolved to centres outside the government, did not even have it in them to hold a meeting and respond to the appeal made by the Russian Parliament! For the record, a transnational cross-party, composed of parliamentarians, would have immediately been able to take significant and positive action.

Less than a month previously, the nations taking part in the "summit" held by the seven most industralized countries triumphantly declared that the "new world order" had been established, and handed out solutions to all the problems of the Earth, from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia, from drugs to the environment, from the Middle East to famine in the Third World, and from disarmament to civil rights. However, these declarations were just a cover for the world chaos that continues to reign, fostered by the weak-willed and spineless attitude adopted to problems such as the domination of the weak by the strong; the submission of the weak to the strong; the constant violation of human rights, and violence in general. Such an attitude only creates more problems and prepares humanity for even greater defeats. In the end, the Russian Parliament had to defend democracy alone. Where were the great world leaders?! People are still dying in wars in Croatia, Sri Lanka, India and Tibet, and the Third World is still dying

of starvation. The peace-dividend can neither be reaped, nor invested in liberal-democratic and radical economic reforms throughout the world; nor used to benefit the millions of poor people in this world. Political leaders continue to illude the voting public that it is possible to discuss peace with, and obtain justice from, the dictators who rule with an iron fist in China, the Arab world, the Far East and most of Africa.

A Democratic Opposition

We need to form an international Opposition if we are going to benefit from the great "summits", win the great wars, and meet the great challenges of our time. However, if we don't start to create one now, at least in embryonic form, by organizing a rational and efficient political force, a party of radical, democratic and nonviolent reformers - anti-war and anti-pacifist - we will always be left only with a concept. Those of you who believe in the classic Anglo-Saxon form of democracy know that a government is better able to act in the people's interest if it has the firm but constructive opposition of a shadow cabinet, which carries out its responsibilities with a view to replacing that same government. Today, the "world government" of seven, and tomorrow maybe eight, operates independently of every rule, reason and guarantee of democracy. It only has to answer to itself, and not to the national parliaments which are steadily being stripped of their specific functions; for example, the European Parliament

- the only supernational institution that exists today - whose powers, which derive from being elected by universal suffrage, continue to be unconfirmed, with the result that it has become a caricature of itself.

We must restore power to our democratically elected institutions. We must rally those democratically elected representatives who want to play an active role in political nonviolence, who want to create a rule of law. We need to organize a "parliamentary party" composed of transnational parliamentarians, which would be capable of performing the functions of a shadow cabinet, alongside or in opposition to the "non-world government" of the UN, and dealing with the tremendous problems of our time. A shadow cabinet that would function according to the rules of democracy, collaborate with the institutions that uphold international law. And we need to do this now.

The Radical Party, the transnational and cross-party force, is offering you this opportunity - however modest it may seem! And if you do not take it, would you please propose another solution motivated by the same ideals, and equally as valid.