from "Il Corriere della Sera", 1974

ABSTRACT: Lists the fours reasons for which Pannella (2) and dozens more people adopted "the extreme weapon of the hunger strike". The press never mentioned it, so the public is kept ignorant and could be lead to think that Pannella is nothing but "a monster".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 11 November 1993)

...You will be deeply surprised, dear reader, to discover the initial reasons for which Pannella and dozens more people have been forced to adopt this extreme weapon of the hunger strike, in such state of indifference, abandonment and contempt. No one "informed" you from the beginning and with a minimum of clarity and timeliness, of such reasons: and obviously, considering the situation I have described, you are free to imagine scandalous enormities. Here they are instead:

"1) The guarantee that the RAI-TV grant a quarter of an hour of air to the LID (3) and a quarter of an hour to Don Franzoni; 2) the guarantee that the president of the Republic grant a public audience to the representatives of the LID and of the Radical Party, which had in vain been requesting one for over a month; 3) the guarantee that the Chamber Health Commission consider the socialist bill on the legalization of abortion; 4) the guarantee that the ownership of "Il Messaggero" ensure not a generic respect of the lay principles of the paper, but a lay information and namely the right to information of the lay minorities". As you may see Pannella and the other were simply asking for the guarantees of a normal democratic life. Their "purity" of principle does not exclude their complete applicability. Considering, as I said, the total lack of information in which the "entire" Italian press left you about Pannella and his movement, it would be small wonder if you thought this Pannella were a monster...

Translator's notes

(1) PASOLINI PIERPAOLO. (Bologna 1922 - Rome 1975). Italian writer and director. Novels ("Ragazzi di vita", 1955; "Una vita violenta", 1959), verse ("Le ceneri di Gramsci", 1957, etc.), plays, cinema ("Accattone", 1961, "Il Vangelo secondo Matteo", 1964, etc.), but especially powerful polemist and moralist, he denounced the evils of the "bourgeoisie" and severely criticized the Italian Left for its shortcomings. Sympathizer of the Radical Party, on the subject of which he wrote some beautiful pages, the day after his death he was supposed to go to Florence to take part in a congress of the party.

(2) 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.

(3) L.I.D. Italian League for Divorce. Established in 1965 by Marco Pannella, Mauro Mellini, Loris Fortuna (socialist deputy) and Antonio Baslini (liberal deputy); organized the forces which supported the introduction of the bill sponsored by the two parliamentarians, chiefly aiming at the energies of separated couples and those who needed to solve their family problems. It was instrumental in mobilizing the divorced and the militants who enabled the introduction of the bill in Italy. It was the first example, in Italy, of an association created on civil rights themes.

It is related to the Radical Party on a federate basis.