ABSTRACT: Seven reasons to join the Radical Party...to become shareholders of a non-profit enterprise...to fight the kickback scandal...to oppose the plague of drugs...to create a new international law...to free the states of the world from the death penalty...because the world has become small and threatened...to organize the campaigns the radicals are carrying out in Italy also in Moscow, Ouagadougous, Baku or Sarajevo.

(PAESE SERA, February 23, 1993)

The following text was sent to us by Emma Bonino, secretary of the Radical Party. We are glad to publish it.

There are only five days left to save the Radical Party. The objective is having at least 30,000 members by the end of the month. At present there are only slightly over 7,000. Therefore much needs to be done.

Joining. An ambiguous word, an ambiguous decision. Joining is a pleasure and an honour when it makes up for the meanness, hypocritical interest, dogmatic delegation or typical distraction with which so many have joined parties, to the point of degrading the very idea. At the end of a parabola which started enthusiastically on the ashes of a single- or compulsory-membership regime, one feels proud never to have joined any party, or to have quit them. It is a sad lesson.

Joining the radical party, year after year, buying the rights and duties of every other member in a party formed by late-comers, is something so different that it causes pleasure and pride. For instance, meeting other people who are members of the radical party like you during an adventurous visit to Sarajevo is a precious emotion.

A few more reasons? Here are the seven points which we have been insisting on these last few days:

1. To become shareholders of a non-profit enterprise, which does not favour careers, which is not ashamed of calling money with its name but does not steal it: an enterprise there is nothing to be ashamed about.

2. To fight the kickback scandal, to affirm the nobleness of politics, to renew the institutions and the parties, to overcome the Italian crisis and establish a stronger non-violent democracy, respectful of the law.

3. To fight the plague of drugs with measures capable of breaking the ruthless monopoly of drug dealing and organized crime.

4. To create a new international law based on the respect of the environment and the quality of life both in the North and in the South of the world, both among developed countries and those beleaguered by the plagues of starvation and under-development.

5. To free the states of the world from the penalty of killing in the name of the law, ie, to free them from the duty of inflicting the death penalty.

6. Because the world has become small and threatened, because freedom is trampled in too many countries, because poverty is suffocating, because intolerance is undermining social relations and the pleasure of life.

7. To organize the campaigns the radicals are carrying out in Italy in Moscow, in Ouagadougou, in Baku or in Sarajevo.

Emma Bonino