ABSTRACT: New forms of totalitarianism and militarism will be added to those that already exist: from "ecological" and "national" forms to forms related to "energy" and to the "war" against prohibited drugs. All the political forces are resigned to paying this tribute of blood, non-democracy, and intolerance in the name of emergency, necessity, and naturally the inevitability of war and violence.
This is opposed by the firm faith of the Radical Party in the power of reason, tolerance, democracy, and law - of political nonviolence, in short - to face and solve the great challenges of history without giving up the principles of respect for life and for human rights.
(The Party New, n.3, August 1991)
The symbol of Gandhi: the radical promise for the next decade
The next decade will be characterized, on a number of fronts, by great appointments, great conflicts, great challenges and, unfortunately, great tragedies: the greenhouse effect and environmental devastation which, according to scientists, may well have the same consequences on the earth, in the short-to-medium term, as a nuclear war; the starvation of one and a half billion people whose supplies of food are less than the minimum needed for survival; the possibility of overcoming the disastrous effects of real socialism within an acceptable timespan; the biblical-scale migration from the poorest countries to the richest countries; the occupation of entire cities, and even States, by the international crime rings which control the traffic of prohibited drugs; the crisis of the law, not only international law, and intolerable social differences and injustice in the very heart of opulent society.
Everyone is aware of these matters, everyone talks about them. The world of science and politics have come up with reasonable solutions, but the powers-that-be have not acted and parliaments and supernational institutions have seen their duties and functions taken from them.
If these problems develop rapidly, and there is no time to prevent the disastrous effects, will we therefore be "forced" to use the most obvious, costly, lethal, and least effective weaponry, that is violent, military, totalitarian violence? Have we already become resigned to the fact that the problems are irreparable in order to then impose on public opinion the obligatory choice between "succumbing in freedom or surviving in non-freedom"?
New forms of totalitarianism, militarism and fanaticism will be added to those that already exist: "ecological" and "national" forms, and those related to "energy" and to the "war" against drugs. The world government of the seven most industrialized countries, those champions of Western democracy self-described the "G7", has assumed functions and powers that no law or treaty has conferred on it. It operates completely outside the traditional principles of democracy and seems in effect to be both whimsical and irresponsible.
Meanwhile in Zagreb, Moscow, Vilnius and Baku new armies are taking up arms with the self-interested blessing of the West, in the illusion that this is the best way to defend democracy from communism; new "iron curtains" are being raised to prevent the exodus of millions of people who are forced to leave their own countries to seek food and freedom; the "restriction of development" called for by many people for the safeguard of the environment is actually already a reality, but only to the detriment of Africa and Latin America, which are forced into hopeless underdevelopment; in order to "protect" citizens from drugs, the most elementary principles of the protection of privacy are violated and entire generations are condemned to Aids; there are no longer certain rules, or rules that can be respected.
The traditional political forces are resigned to paying this tribute of blood, non-democracy and intolerance in the name of emergency, of necessity, and naturally of the "inevitability" of war and violence. They are the cause of the current disaster.
The image of Gandhi that we have chosen to adopt in the symbol of the new Radical Party is intended, on the other hand, to represent our firm choice of reason, tolerance, democracy, and the right and duty to face up to and solve the great challenges of history without abandoning respect for life and the inalienable rights of the individual.
The "Italian" history of the Radical Party encourages us in the hope of taking on and winning the hardest battles with the weaponry of nonviolence, democracy and international federalism.
Political nonviolence to affirm democracy
We now have to take on the most ambitious aim - the constitution of the transnational party, capable of accepting the challenge of the next decade, of representing the promise of nonviolence for all those who are not prepared to give up the fight to affirm and bring to life the reasons behind democracy.
The "stake" behind the radical gamble in forming the transnational party is in fact to perfect political democracy, to make the culture of political non-violence the civil force of our time, to refuse to accept violence to the individual or to his environment or to accept the contradiction between means and ends as obligatory historical tribute to be paid in the name of civilization, security and progress.
Political nonviolence, in fact, is the most advanced and unimpaired form of lay tolerance, which should be the basis for the civilisation of democratic society and of a democratic State. And this can become possible only if nonviolence is turned into laws and forms of conduct by the leaders and the activists of democracy.
Radical nonviolence (with the often dramatic use of the instruments of civil disobedience - leading at times to imprisonment - and of the hunger strike, the extreme weapon) has, in fact, always been obedience to a higher law, the premise to obedience to a just law. The weapons of nonviolence are never used to impose our own views or to protect our own interests. They are used only to demand that the adversary respect that which he himself proclaims as his own law. When we went as far as a "thirst strike", we were not asking the Italian Parliament to vote for our laws on divorce, restrictions on preventive imprisonment, abortion, or conscientious objection, but to vote on those laws in the respect of its regulations and of the Constitution. Similarly, when we fought for five years against mass famine, backed by the majority of the Nobel prize-winners, our aim was to make governments respect the commitments they had made in international forums, especially through the motions approved by the United Nations Ass
embly, to devote a precise percentage of the national product to aid for the starving in the south of the world. The new name of peace and security is called development, the salvation of millions of people condemned by the "world order" to death by starvation, we cried - and we should cry once again even louder - in marches, sit-ins, demonstrations, and parliamentary chambers. True, we did not win. But as a result of our actions millions of women and men are alive rather than dead.
In taking this action we have come up against two different, but convergent ideologies and interests: on one hand the leaders of the liberation movements in the Third World, for whom the freedom of peoples from misery and exploitation could only be won through armed conflict and the military organization of rebellion; and on the other hand the Western world, which in order to ensure international "stability" and defend the "rights" of the "free" exploitation of the Third World believes that it is necessary to guarantee maximum "internal order" in the countries of the south, even if such order is imposed by barbaric, fascist regimes. Both sides have a common contempt for democracy, considered a "luxury" for developed countries and not the necessary condition for any kind of true order.
Nonviolence, not "pacifism"
In order to win this battle we have to break off with those political traditions, both in the liberal and the socialist cultures, which have always denied that democracy and justice can only be reached with the instruments of democracy and the law, which claim that it is necessary to take arms against the enemy of the fatherland or the class enemy, which believe that the liberation of peoples means wars of liberation, which associate the affirmation of justice with the decapitation of the unjust, which believe that it is impossible to overcome the contradiction between the ideals that are fought for - those of fraternity, equality, liberty and tolerance - and the negation of such ideals necessary in the political battle, in the just war. But we also have to struggle against those movements, incorrectly defined as "pacifist", which in the name of "peace" propose another form of resignation, even more violent than the first: the passive acceptance of injustice, totalitarianism, the violation of human rights, a
nd a practical neutrality between agressors and those subject to aggression, between totalitarian countries and democratic countries.
We could try to give a brief summary of one reason which on its own is sufficient to motivate the choice of political nonviolence, of democracy as the certainty of the rules or of the rule of dialogue. The means qualify and prefigure the ends much more than the ends justify the means. If you want peace, prepare peace. If you want liberty, use liberty. If you want justice, respect the law. In the clear awareness that there are no absolute values in the world, nor in the world of politics.
