ABSTRACT: In the sixties the radicals invented the sandwich boards worn for the first time by the "outlaws of marriage" for the campaign on divorce. But on one remembers this major and successful innovation in Italian political communication.
(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 11 November 1993)
Hand-written, elementary, immediate, sandwich boards had a particular political effect that came from the physical involvement of the person wearing it.
The period was the sixties: the regime of the parties of the "Constitutional range", from the DC to the PCI, had already decided to ostracize any news or political interference. In that tense and terrible climate, Marco Pannella (1) outlined the future information strategy: "information must be taken away from the hands of the opponents and force them to address our political novelty".
In a country where most citizens were afraid or shy in expressing their opinions or in assuming a personal commitment in political demonstrations (we need only think of the innovation of the campaigns for civil rights, conscientious objection, legalization of abortion, equal dignity for homosexuals), the Radical Party accustomed people not to be ashamed of their ideas and of their experiences, and of lending their person, their bodies, as the affirmation of a political truth: with sandwich boards, marches, sits-in, passive resistance, hunger strikes...The shock was tremendous. The first demonstration of "cuckolds" taking to streets with pro-divorce boards caused incredible interests in the media: it was a successful battle. But does anyone remember it?
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.
