ABSTRACT: The author remembers that in 1962, when he joined the FGCI, he was undecided on whether to join the Radical Party instead. Each choice, Nicolini says, does not cancel the other one, which "remains like the other possibility, the spark that fuels the critical conscience". He also recalls "the radicals' opposition against mayor Petroselli" and the proposal of "Nathan lists" advanced by Pannella (1).

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 5 November 1993)

Even if if I first joined the Radical Party in 1993, I can say that my relations with this party date back to far earlier. I'm not referring only to my adhesion to the CoRA, the Radical Antiprohibitionist Coordination. In 1962, when I first joined a political party, adhering to the FGCI (the organization of young communists) I had long considered joining the Radical Party instead, as Massimo Teodori (2) urged me to. As often in life, one has to choose between two things, both possible. The actual choice is influenced also by circumstances that are difficult to describe: modern science has discovered how subtle and mutually penetrable the borders between order and chaos are. Ultimately, it is a true act of freedom that leads you to prefer one of the two faces of the way in which you interpret the reality. But the other choice is not canceled by this choice. There remains the other possibility, the spark that fuels the critical conscience and protects from any form of fanaticism. Also, if I have to be honest,

there is another reason, strictly political. Not only the affection with which I remember the radicals' opposition against mayor Petroselli, which was more coherent than that of many councillors of the time. But in particular Marco Pannella's proposal in 1989 of introducing a "Lista Nathan" (3), that was to ideally overcome all patterns of party affiliation. Pannella placed my name along with that of Pietro Ingrao (4). Something of that reasoning urged me to decide to run for mayor of Rome on my own, without any safety net.

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) TEODORI MASSIMO. (Force 1938). Italian member of Parliament and senator. Among the founders of the Italian Communist Party. Architecture graduate, professor of American history at the State University, at the John Hopkins University and at the LUISS. In Parliament he has focussed on the problems relative to the greatest political scandals. Expert in electoral techniques.

(3) NATHAN ERNESTO. (London 1845 - Rome 1921 - assumed Italian citizenship in 1888). Politician, at the beginning of the century he headed a lay and reformist coalition to conquer the local administration of Rome, until then controlled by exponents of land speculation linked to the most reactionary and clerical forces. As mayor of Rome (from 25 November 1907 to 4 December 1913) he achieved major social reforms of the Roman local administration. A Jew and member of the Masonry, Nathan represented a never forgotten nightmare for Roman reactionary forces. In 1989 Marco Pannella launched a project called "Lista Nathan" for the administrative elections which he proposed to the lay forces of the Left. The proposal was not accepted.

(4) INGRAO PIETRO. (Lenola 1915). For many years chief exponent of the Italian Communist Party. After militating in the fascist university organizations, leader of the party's "Left", open to the so-called "dialogue with the Catholics" and to a grass roots conception of politics, perceived as struggle of the "masses" against capitalist exploitation on a world scale. President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1976 to 1979, at the time of the "compromesso storico" and of "national unity".