ABSTRACT: He recalls the time when Pannella (1), Bonino (2) and Faccio (3) protested against one of his television programs in Montecatini, during which he was collecting funds for UNICEF (the program was "devoted to the Third World"). Now he says he does not want to back out, "at a moment such as this".
(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 20 October 1993)
I swear I'm telling the truth.
I never joined any party, but I do not deny that for many years I supported the Christian Democratic Party. At a time when everyone is denying their past I consider it appropriate to face one's responsibilities. I have had violent clashes with the radicals. I was in Montecatini once for a television program on the Third World with the aim of gathering funds for UNICEF. Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino and Adele Faccio questioned the sincerity of the initiative. What has happened since? A crisis? A sudden conversion?
A simple fact: the need, the vital urgency of helping a non-violent movement which aims at safeguarding the values of civilization, of human coexistence and of mutual respect.
At a moment such as this we cannot back out.
Translator's notes
(1) 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.
(2) 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.
(3) FACCIO ADELE. (Pontebba 1920). Leader of of pro-abortion campaigns. For the assertion of this right she was imprisoned but acquitted. President of the Radical Party in 1975-'76, Member of Parliament in 1976, 1979, 1983. Animal rights activist and environmentalist, promoter of the "Verdi Arcobaleno" list, on which she ran at the elections for the European Parliament in 1989.
