It looks very likely that tomorrow the Rifondazione majority will remove Marco Ferrando as a candidate for the Senate. Ferrando is in Progetto Comunista, the biggest Trotskyist minority in the PRC. His ‘crime’ was to have given an interview to the Corriere della Sera newspaper in which he implied that the suicide bombing against Italian troops at Nassiriya was justified, and made various criticisms of Israel, in particular describing it as an ‘artificial state’. (See translation of part of the article at end of this entry.)

I don’t agree with Ferrando’s analysis of the situation in Iraq – in particular what he says about the ‘fusion of the the revolt against the foreign imperialist occupation and the social struggles of Iraqi workers’. He seems to have missed the fact that the so-called ‘resistance leaders’ are themselves attacking trade unionists, making fusion a tad unlikely. Nor do I agree with his views on Israel. However, it is wholly wrong for the leadership to exclude minority candidates from the party lists in this way.

A second ‘left’ candidate, the no-global activist Francesco Caruso (criticised by the right as a “criminal” for being involved in occupations and other direct action), will probably receive a warning from the leadership to stay in line but not be removed as a candidate.

A proposal to replace Ferrando with another Progetto Comunista candidate, Franco Grisolia, has been turned down by the leadership.

This comes in the context of a slanging-match between the coalitions about who has the more ‘extremists’ in their ranks. The right has been pointing to the likes of Ferrando and Caruso (and also PRC candidate Vladimir Luxuria, but in his case just because he’s transgender not for any political reason that I can see). The left has been pointing to a deal between Berlusconi and the neo-fascists over candidates.

Yesterday Francesco Rutelli, leader of the Margherita party (liberals, ex-Christian Democrats mostly) which is part of the Unione centre-left coalition, said in a newspaper interview: ‘It’s up to Bertinotti to show that – whoever is the candidate – he/she will be faithful and loyal and will support the programme of l’Unione for the five years of the parliament.’

Now why does that remind me of all the times they said ‘don’t rock the boat’ in the run-up to 1997 in Britain?

This is what Ferrando told the Corriere della Sera:
Asked about his criticism of non-violent resistance (the majority line in the PRC), Ferrando replied:
41% of Rifondazione, not just me, criticise the non-violent method. Oppressed people have to fight for emancipation with methods that work and can’t build a future on the basis of an abstract philosophical prejudice. Also because on the other hand there are always great powers which use violence. But it should be clear: we are against forms of struggle like terrorism.
Intervierwer: Intifada yes, suicide-bombers no?
Ferrando: Are you joking? We support all intifadas, the great uprisings from the Middle East to Latin America. Intifadas which are naturally not gala lunches.
Interviewer: And the Iraqi resistance?
Ferrando: A more complex question. There’s a sacrosanct right to self-determination and to resist the forces of military occupation which are there for colonial interests. Then there are different conceptions, between popular resistance movements and fundamentalists. And armed popular resistance is a different thing from terrorism against the civilian population.
Interviewer: Terrorism against civilians? But against the military?
Ferrando: The armed struggle against the military occupation is just. We are for the fusion of the the revolt against the foreign imperialist occupation and the social struggles of Iraqi workers.
Interviewer: So it’s right to fire at Italian soldiers?
Ferrando: We are for the defence of the rights of the Iraqi popular uprising against our troops. All the incidents in which our soldiers have fallen are entirely the responsibility of a military mission in the service of Eni (Italian oil company).