ABSTRACT: Basile Guissou, member of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Co-operation in Burkina Faso in the government of President Sankara, comments on the XXXVI Congress "from an African point of view".

(THE PARTY new - N. 7 - May 1992)

A strange creature, the Transnational Radical Party, when you see it living and expressing itself. Only the specific context of Italian political life could have produced such a phenomenon. If Italy were in Africa and not Europe, it would be defined as a "one-party dictatorship". The "real democracy" in this country is, in fact, characterized by certain "unusual" features: the importance of the Catholic Church and the role of the Christian Democratic Party, which has been in power for almost fifty years. Despite this, and perhaps because of this, Italian politics has created a space for lay and libertarian battles, in which the Radical Party has played a leading role for over twenty years. At the Bologna Congress in 1988, the Radical Party chose to become a transnational and transdivisional force, an aim which was confirmed by the XXXV Congress, held in Budapest in April 1989. Whilst in Italy, where it has decided no longer to stand in elections, the Radical Party is widely acclaimed as the force which, almo

st alone, has waged nonviolent, Ghandian battles for the right to divorce, abortion, and conscientious objection, the international media present it as the "party of pornography, with Ilona Staller baring her breasts to the world".

In Africa, this negative image is predominant. For example, the battles fought by the Radical Party to save 40,000 African children who die every day of starvation have never been reported by the press. Thanks to these actions, the Italian Parliament passed a law for a contribution of 4 billion dollars to fight drought and desertification in the Sahel countries.

For the Radical Party, the battles for the rights of minorities, for anti-prohibitionist drugs policies, for a single-seat electoral system, for the abolition of the death penalty, and for the political integration of the ex-Socialist countries in the European Community are part of a single objective: the fight "for the right to life and the life of rights".

The Radical Party is no longer a "small Italian party", but is not yet a transnational and transdivisional force capable of mobilizing tens of thousands of people on a number of issues. No African democrat, in the knowledge of the real nature of the Radical Party, which it is possible to join without any commitment of faith to an ideology or an individual, can remain indifferent to the appeal which it is making. Joining the party means challenging the problems of the individual, of the environment, and of justice.

African democrats, who are involved in the difficult but necessary process of democratization of political life in their own countries, have many reasons to join the Radical Party and contribute to its aim to become a transnational force. To help the Radical Party to become stronger and to play a wider role in the international political debate means to help the development of the new political culture of democracy in Africa. It also means being more free and more democratic.

The Congress has decided to give itself a further six months, until January 1993, to find the material and human forces for its future action. No resolution was passed during the first session: some members felt a sense of frustration at the fact that it was not possible to take up political stances on the serious problems of their own countries. The situation in Eastern Europe, in Croatia, in Bosnia Hercegovina, in Africa (the Ivory Coast, and also Somalia and Ethiopia), and in Cuba, for instance, certainly deserve suitable radical and nonviolent responses. However, it is first necessary to create the transnational organization, and this does not depend only on the good intentions, the organizational skills and the political qualities of the four leaders of the Party who have worked during the last few years to keep this "instrument" of political struggle alive. Togather together the "Democrats of the whole world" - this was the Congress slogan - each of us must play his or her own part and explain the natu

re and the objectives of the Radical Party. African democrats must join and persuade others to join, so that together we can get to the roots - a radical is "he who gets to the roots" - of the problems which are preventing the full development of democracy in Africa.