Gianna Benson

ABSTRACT: The day after being elected secretary of the Radical Party, Emma Bonino (1) answers questions on the conclusion of the radical congress (Rome, 4-8 February 1993), on the periodical self-financing campaigns, on the many times when the very existence of the radical party was in danger, on corruption, on abortion, on the massive adhesion of parliamentarians from all parties.

(IL MATTINO, 11 February 1993)

Emma Bonino is the new secretary of the radical party.

After some resistance and hesitations, you have accepted to be secretary by decision of Marco Pannella (2). But can the Radical Party exist without Pannella?

BONINO - Of course it can: I became secretary of the radical party following Marco's indication, but also because I was urged by and with the vote of the congress. This influenced me a lot, and helped me overcome my resistances. As to the question, whether the radical party could exist without Pannella, I cannot see one good reason for asking myself this question.

Q: You dream of massive adhesions to the radical party. Are there no criteria of selection? Aren't you afraid of becoming a "once-only", "disposable" party, a party people will take advantage of?

BONINO - The other parties have an organ, the "probi viri", who are charged with checking on the morality and dignity of all members or would-be members. All parties impose a sort of oath and want to be considered as a church. This is ludicrous. All this hasn't stopped those same parties from being the ones most heavily involved in the bribes scandal. Which was worked best then, the "disposable" party or them?

Q: What did it feel like to be applauded at the congress by the same people who are under investigation?

BONINO - It is not up to us to prevent people from clapping. We are lay people, we judge people by their actions, not by their moral intentions. Anyone joining the party knows he/she is assuming precise responsibilities.

Q: What sort of party will be the radical party be if the 30,000 memberships aren't reached?

BONINO - Quite simply, it will be closed or liquidated.

Q: Do you consider the hypothesis advanced by Martelli (3) at the congress, of a "democratic party", to be realistic?

BONINO - It is realistic and in fact indispensable. The Martelli affair proves that the risk is the collapse of every other prospect. The party that counts 150 MPs from all parties, with the socialist Martelli, the DC Nicolosi and Tiziana Maiolo from Rifondazione Comunista, is already more than just a hypothesis: I think we can already talk about a "laboratory" of the new democratic party which exists and wants to grow, if only 30,000 Italians decide to support it.

Q: The radical party and you personally have been in the forefront fifteen years ago in the campaign for the legalization of abortion. How do you judge the current requests to modify the law on abortion?

BONINO - The question is how to modify it. Those who want to abrogate it will need to explain to women how to readjust to the clandestine market of illegal abortions. We want to change it in the sense of considering abortion as any other medical operation, to be performed both in private and public facilities.

Today having an abortion in a private facility is a penal offence. As a consequence of this situation there has been widespread corruption and bribe-taking in public hospitals, to favour patients who can afford to pay to step up their operation, whereas poor women have to endure the humiliation of intolerable delays.

Q: Is a conflict between lay forces and catholics on the subject of abortion likely? And, if it is, would a compact lay front arise, as it did then?

BONINO - There never was a lay front during the campaign that lead to the current law on abortion. There was a bloc that wanted to reach a hypocritical compromise, the sole purpose of which was avoiding the referendum and safeguard the national unity, i.e. the form in which party power expressed itself. We radicals carried out an all-out obstructionism, and the consequences for that were a total isolation. At any rate, we are not interested in a lay front, but in safeguarding the lay nature of the State, which must restore abortion to the inviolable sphere of individual conscience and responsibility.

Q: At the time of the referendum your positions on the subject of abortion were extremist. Things have changed now. Do you think these positions are still valid, or would you admit some mistakes?

BONINO - Only intolerance is extremist. We radicals and I personally are not. Rather, we are firmly reasonable, and the abortion campaign proves it. If our proposal had been voted in lieu of the current ambiguous and inadequate law, many inconvenients would have been avoided. It's the same with prohibition on drugs: as time goes by it becomes clearer and clearer that our lay and tolerant approach was the most suitable to safeguard all women. But party power won.

Translator's notes

(1) BONINO EMMA. (Bra 1948). President of the Radical Party, former member of the European Parliament, as of 1976 member of the Italian Parliament. Among the promoters of the CISA (Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion) and active militant in the campaign against clandestine abortion. She was tried and acquitted in Florence. Participated in the conduction, on a national and international scale, of the campaign on World Hunger. Among the founding members of "Food and Disarmament International", promoted the circulation of the Manifesto of Nobel Laureates.

(2) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

(3) MARTELLI CLAUDIO. Socialist former Minister of Justice.