Farewell to Emma Bonino: a life of struggle

The defining trait of Emma Bonino’s character is intellectual honesty. Examples include the campaign – of which she was a fervent supporter – concerning allegations of corruption against the President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone, and her sincere and public apology once the now former president’s innocence had been established. She began her political career with the campaign for the legalisation of abortion, and did so by self-incriminating herself of the offence of procuring an abortion. On this issue, which has been central to her campaigns, Bonino has held extreme positions, which were not limited to calling for the decriminalisation of abortion, but asserted that it was a fundamental right, showing no understanding for the reasons of those who defend life from the moment of conception. In addition to her campaigns for civil rights – or so-called civil rights – in Italy, which she led as head of the Radical Party alongside Marco Pannella, she promoted civil rights campaigns in Eastern Europe as early as the beginning of the 1980s, campaigning for the establishment of an International Criminal Court, which, partly as a result of that pressure, was subsequently established. She travelled to Warsaw to protest against General Jaruzelski’s dictatorship and was arrested and deported; and in New York, to challenge a law prohibiting the sale of syringes without a prescription, she allowed herself to be arrested whilst distributing syringes. She met with the Dalai Lama to support the rights of the Tibetan people, in opposition to the Chinese government. On the international stage, too, she championed the fight against hunger through high-profile initiatives, which were also commended by Pope John Paul II, who met with her at the Vatican. This, too, is a sign of the spirit with which Bonino approached each individual campaign, seeking understanding and constructive dialogue with those who shared her specific objective, even if their broader vision differed significantly from her own.

Her campaign against the death penalty, supported by all political parties, led her to represent Italy at the United Nations during the session dedicated to the ‘moratorium on the death penalty’. In 1994, she was elected in the Padua constituency as a member of the centre-right, whilst in the European elections of the same year she was elected on the Pannella list; however, she subsequently declined her European seat, choosing to remain in the Italian Parliament. In 1995, she was appointed European Commissioner by the Berlusconi government and immediately travelled to Sarajevo and Mostar to denounce the powerlessness of Europe and the UN in the face of the ethnic genocides in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She also supported the intervention in Kosovo, even at odds with her pacifist friends. In the same spirit, she travelled to Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Iraqi Kurdistan and Afghanistan. In 2001, she moved to Cairo to learn Arabic and subsequently launched an Arabic press review programme on Radio Radicale. Following a period of alignment with Forza Italia and a phase of Radical Party autonomy, she joined Romano Prodi’s centre-left government as Minister for International Trade and European Affairs. She also worked on bringing the retirement age for men and women into line, a measure which became law in 2012. In 2013, she became Foreign Secretary in Enrico Letta’s government.

In recent years, she has been a supporter and, at times, a critic of the Più Europa movement, which ultimately elected her as its president.

Her long political career reflects a profound consistency of ideas, which have been expressed across different and even opposing political spheres and sectors – the expression of a woman who thought for herself, seeking to influence rather than be influenced by political factions.