ABSTRACT: Is joining the Radical Party for 1994 because he is "faithful". Because "there's nothing better", etc. At the moment, he fears a "Restoration", as proven by the events of the RAI. At any rate, he has reached a "bitter conclusion": Italy is a country which is not incline to "democracy". He says he has remained with the radicals "of ten years ago". He appreciates Pannella's (1) decision of promoting the referendums.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 23 November 1993)

Why I'm joining the Radical Party also for 1994? Because I'm faithful. Because there's nothing better. Because this party needs to be helped. Because I appreciate innovative, democratic ideas to achieve a reorganization of Italian politics.

Almost everything has become worse, even though something - I admit it - is changing. There's something, however, that worries me now; I see in front of us the danger of a restoration. For example, look at what's happening to the state-owned television, which is about to be reformed. Obviously I don't understand or appreciate everything Pannella does. For instance, I didn't understand his initiative about defending Parliament. This Parliament needs to be changed, because every change is in any case better than what we have now. That is why everything that's happened in these last two years, including the appearance of the Northern League, is important.

I have reached a bitter conclusion: that Italy is a country scarcely incline to democracy. I am exasperated, as the radicals were ten years ago. And I have remained with those radicals: against party power, against compromises, against the untouchability of the historical left. What can we do now? The referendums proposed by Pannella.

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.