Speech delivered by Marco Pannella (1) at the European Parliament on 30 October 1985

ABSTRACT: For years the European Parliament has been addressing the problem of South Africa and racial segregation, but has it really chosen the "best way of confronting the problem?". Judging it in its "African context", without forgetting that armed and violent revolutions have taken place in Algeria, Lebanon and the Far East, we must take into account the fact that "apartheid" guarantees a certain freedom of human rights. In other African countries, the human rights situation is much worse. By acting and discriminating as we are doing we are committing an act of "Eurocentric racism". The ANC must be asked to relinquish its "terrorist...position".

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, Special European Parliament, 26 November 1993)

Mr President,

one of the subjects we most often address is that of South Africa and racial segregation. But I wonder whether so many discussions have done any good. Parliament has expressed its opinion three or four times in these last ten years. Hasn't the time come to wonder whether we have chosen the right way to face the problem?

The fact is, Mr President, that this situation needs to be placed in the African context far more than we are accustomed to doing. The President of Tanzania, Nyerere, talked about the problem of the white tribes of South Africa, whose traditions and will must be respected in the context of a new organization of South Africa. If we give some thought to the events of Algeria and of Lebanon today, President Nyerere's concern will assume a greater interest: thus, we need to give it maximum attention. Moreover, the left in particular should reflect on what happened in the Far East with respect to our positions and choices of supporting armed liberation struggles. We should not forget our - or your - inability to understand non-violent movements, such as Buddhism and other movements s in Indochina, and later in Vietnam, which have tried to draw our attention on the fact that it could be dangerous to rely on weapons, violence and counter-violence or revolution to obtain the respect of rights and independence.

The strength of apartheid, his historical force, the one against which all those who disapprove of it and fight it clash against, is that this system, while morally deplorable, guarantees a certain degree of freedom. What I'm saying could seem terrible, but it is the truth and we cannot go on pretending. Look at the situation of human rights in Burundi! It i never mentioned, perhaps because slavery or discrimination is a problem of the blacks, and, in a certain sense, what you are really asking the South Africans is the same thing you are not asking, by Eurocentric racism, to all Africans. This is the terrible truth. If a South African does not respect your statements on human rights, you denounce this. But what is the situation like in Central Africa and elsewhere, with very few exceptions? You are the accomplices of those who maintain that Africans are incapable of democracy. You are content with supporting a form of capitalism rather than supporting those who have tried to encourage Africa on the way to p

olitical democracy. There are extremely serious situations: terrorism is growing in Africa, claiming many victims especially among the Africans. Should the left recognize, in three, five or seven years' time, that it was mistaken once again? Shouldn't we frankly tell the ANC that it must change its position, especially its latest positions, since it is clearly a terrorist position? Isn't it a coincidence that we are often supported by the Right or by the Extreme Right, which have often helped the fight against apartheid?

All this should be carefully considered, Mr President. I believe our resolutions, and the opinions of the minorities which they contain, are positively not enough.

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.