(THE NEW PARTY, MARCH 1993)

The Radical Party, today, is a New Party. It is also new as regards size: having progressed from a Party of two to three thousand "early Radicals" to a Party with over six thousand members from the former Soviet Union in '92, and more than 37,000 Italian members in '93. We also hope that thousands of non-Italian members will join by sending in the coupon in this newspaper, in order to create the new Transnational Radical Party.

The Radical Party has a special characteristic that we always like to remember, which Marco Pannella highlighted in an interview with Adriano Sofri.

"When 400,000 people gave us their vote in '76 - 400,000 people who suddenly became "unconventional" - I did an interview entitled: 'The Radical Party is for grandmothers'. In other words, Catholic women over sixty. This has become more and more true over the years. Why not look on innocence as something deriving from wisdom and strength, something one acquires during a lifetime rather than a quality one is born with that can be likened to an inexperienced expression and associated with newborn babies who look out from Third World posters? We have substituted "a right to a house" with "a right to live in a house". A conscientious old man should move on quickly in order to give his house to the young husband and wife to be. In StrasbourgI met the President of the International ROM Organization. A refugee from Serbia, living in Berlin, and a member of the Radical Party. He spoke to me of the right to a house and to live in that house in the light of his people's experience of nomadism and exile. In '68 I said

that strenuous marches prevented people who were aged or slow from participating."