Talk:The Left – The Rainbow

Dubious - Far left coalition?
Checco uses the term far left to describe the coalition. I disagree with the term which i think is misleading.

The federation is composed of 4 parties:


 * the Communist Refoundation Party according to wikipedia "Eurocommunism" is part of its ideology
 * the Party of Italian Communists according to wikipedia "Eurocommunism" is part of its ideology
 * the Federation of the Greens. According to wikipedia is a "eco-socialist party".
 * the Democratic Left. According to wikipedia is "a democratic socialist party"

Moreover, I thought none considered these parties as "far left". Refodiazone for most people is considered similar to the French CP which according to the far left article is NOT considered a a far left party.

How can this platform be a far left one? I suggest that the term is removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * PRC and PdCI are far left communist parties. The Greens are a far left green party. SD is a democratic socialist party similarly to German Linke but is very small compared to PRC. The leaders of the parties describe them as "radical left", thus I can't understand what is the problem. Maybe you are not Italian... --Checco (talk) 19:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No I am not! :) But, can you please show me a document that the platform characterizes itself as a "far left" one? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There's no platform yet. You can check in every newspaper Italian website and you will find that the are described as sinistra radicale (= radical left = far left). Take a look for example to that: http://www.unita.it/view.asp?IDcontent=71289, a left-wing source. But can you find a source which say the opposite? Frankly its your "opinion" to be supported by sources and it will be very difficult to do it: generally communist parties are far left and this is not the exception. --Checco (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe the problem is this: I don't agree that generally communist parties are "far left". To be more specific, I don't think thar the majority of these parties uses this term. For example in the far left article it says explicitly that PCF is not a radical left party. In Greece, I am from there, none uses this term to describe CPG. In fact, this term is used to describe parties which stand "left to CPG". Give me some time to read more opinions and I ll remove the tag. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's interesting... indeed we do have different views on what is far left and what is not. Maybe the PCF is not considered far left in France 'cos there are more leftist parties in that country. Anyway I consider (maybe it is my mistake) all these parties to be far and I do not consider this something offensive or pejorative: it is what they are. Let's ask other users what do they think. --Checco (talk) 22:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Without knowing much of the party platforms, in terms of 'labels' I assume that radical left or hard left would be more applicable (from my own educational experiences, far left or extreme left would indicate organisations that would not get involved in mainstream democratic politics. Although that may obviously be different elsewhere). --Free Socialist (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

'Far left' is an inaccurate description, and has a clear pejorative tone. If it is to be used at all, it should be used for the non-mainstream left groups (in Italy that would be autonomous sectors, extra-parliamentary left, etc). I think that 'leftwing' is the best description, this grouping broadly represents the leftwing stream of Italian mainstream politics, and PD the center-left. --Soman (talk) 10:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC) The same also goes for 'extreme left', of course. --Soman (talk) 10:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * And why do you think that they are proud of being "radical left"? Moreover, I don't understand what is pejorative in far left: people who would replace liberal capitalism with a socialist cooperative system and this is what communist parties (at least in Italy) support. --Checco (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)~
 * 'Far left' is a pejorative in English language, the pejorative aspect lies not in its lexical meaning but in the way the term is used. Sometimes political terminology doesn't provide very good direct translations. Its of course possible to make a direct translation of sinistra radicale to 'radical left', but in an international context and comparison in English language, 'radical' is just a bit odd. 'Left' is presuposed to be radical, and radical is added in Italian context to differentiate from the center-left. In English wiki this is not really necessary, as terms 'left' and 'center-left' are perfectly clear on their own. --Soman (talk) 12:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with you. In Italy the late Democrats of the Left and the Socialist Party are left and The Left is far left. I understand that, being close to those movements, you don't want to use pejorative terms and you probably consider these groups as the true left, but pejorative or not far left is an accurate description of what The Left is, as acknowledged by its members. --Checco (talk) 12:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You may think that sinistra radicale is a typical term used in Italy not having a good translation in Italy, but this is not true. The far left in Italy started to call itself sinistra radicale two or three years ago and took that term from the English "radical left" (synonim of "far left"), thus disappointing the Italia Radicals, a very liberal party. This is to say that Italian far leftists use that term in the English sense. --Checco (talk) 13:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Something similar happened to Greece. But still the term far left is used for non-mainstream parties. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I do think that is very difficult to consider these parties as mainstream as the are full of no-global, revolutionary and Trotzkjist members, who even theorize violence as a form of political action. This is not the case obviuously of their leading members, as Bertinotti who consider Gandhi one of his political heros. I don't know in what sense they can be considered mainstream, anyway, and this is not say because I don't support them... I simply try to be objective and these parties are definitely very far from the mainstream, as also many of their partners in government acknowledge. Take the Greens: they are so far left now that they lag at around 2% and most of their most important leaders has switched to other parties in the last ten years. --Checco (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

So, basically it all boils down your own feeling about these parties? As per 'In Italy the late Democrats of the Left and the Socialist Party are left and The Left is far left.', the point is exactly that this being a global wiki, terms have to be used in accordance with an international context. If you do not wish to admit that usage of pejorative terms is problematic, the utility of further discussion is limited. --Soman (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, sinistra radicale is by no means synonymous to 'far left'. Revolutionary does not imply being outside of the mainstream, all these four parties are definately part of the political mainstream in Italy. --Soman (talk) 15:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I just said that what I was writing was not affected by my personal views. I write a global wiki and calling me Italian is a little bit offensive, but anyway... --Checco (talk) 15:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I apply one simple rule when judging arguments on wikipedia: One who claims to be impartial is (nearly) always presenting a personal opinion. That's at least my experience. That said, both english and italian wikis are of course global (as are all versions of wikipedia), and just therefore one should use a terminology which is not specific to a single country. In this case, it would be useful to use wordings that would at least hold in a comparison with other European countries. --Soman (talk) 15:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

A reading of the far left article quite clearly shows the difficulties and pov issues of using the term to label parties on wikipedia. Left-right divisions are always contextual, and in the end exact placements are always subjective. Thus it is better to stick to more general and uncontroversial namings. 'Far left' is a pejorative in English, it is not a term that this group would use for itself in an English presentation of themselves. The question is rather, would PD feel offended in being labelled as 'center-left'? If so, we'd have to continue the discussion of which terminology to use. --Soman (talk) 15:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As a preemptive comment: Far left has as its interwiki it:sinistra radicale. Here it should be clear that interwikis are not necessarily linked on exact lexical meaning, but often approximations of meaning and context. The translation of 'extreme gauche' as 'far left' (instead of 'extreme left') is a clear example of this. A reading of the Italian article shows some notable differences in usage of terminology from the English one. --Soman (talk) 15:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The article on sinistra radical in it.Wiki is badly written and it.Wiki in general is not a good source because of its provincialism and unbalance. For that reason I prefer to work more in en.Wiki. --Checco (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

To me, it's neither "far left" (that's reserved for anti-democratic or extraparliamentary or ultra-radical leftists) nor "centre-left" (that's clearly reserved for moderate leftists, like social democrats, social liberals, moderate greens, ...). It's somewhere in-between, i.e. simply "left", without the "far". — Nightstallion 16:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I give up, but there's almost nothing more far to the left in Italy and I say this not in relative terms but in absolute ones. --Checco (talk) 17:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all those who said that "far left" is a totally inappropriate term to define La sinistra - L'arcobaleno. As a mother-tongue Italian speaker, I contend that this is not only inappropriate in English: also the Italian equivalents of the term ("estrema sinistra" or "sinistra radicale") would *never* be used to define the party by party members themseves, nor generally by left-wing commentators, including people who stand on the left of it and would be glad to characterize themselves as "far left" (and who, of course, think that La sinistra - L'arcobaleno does not deserve the term). Terms such as "estrema sinistra" or "sinistra radicale", in reference to this party, can indeed be seen in the media (especially righ-wing media), but they are clearly intended as pejorative, or anyway informal. One hardly hears the term in more official contexts, such as TV debates, where even right-wing journalists or politicians would hesitate to use them in the presence of politicians belonging to this party, which would cause them an immediate (more or less courteous) reproach. BTW, I think that Nightstallion's characterization of the term "far left" as denoting "anti-democratic" is both unfair and inaccurate: e.g., anarchism is definitely "far left", although it would be ridiculous to call "anti-democratic" the very movement advocating absolute democracy! Dreamers, maybe, but certainly not anti-democratic... Also "extraparliamentary" is not really accurate, as I think that, e.g., a couple of other smaller parties running for the Italian parliamentary elections can indeed (and would probably be proud of) being called "far-left", but they are not, by definition, "extraparliamentary". Anyway, I do agree with Nighstallion's proposal of simply using "left(-wing)" (which is what "sinistra" means, BTW); as also Checco "gave up" back in mid December, I hope everybody agrees if I do and change "far left" to "left-wing" now. 151.47.167.167 (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * What you are saying is not true and you know it. Right-wing media don't use sinistra radicale because of their respect for the Italian Radicals and its precursor, the Radical Party. The term sinistra radicale (=far left) is used especially by the members of the four parties forming The Left. I did not give up in mid December, I simply aknowledged that there was no consensus about using "far left" to characterize this coalition, even if that would be fairly more precise that "left-wing". --Checco (talk) 07:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This clearly and obviously a far left group, as Checco has said. Even self desribed as such. Just as Tricolour Flame is can be described as far-right. It is disgusting and offensive to the values of Wikipedia, how international far-leftists are trying to sanitise the extremities of a groups actual stances, in the hopes to garner more mainstream support for it. This would never be accepted on far right organisations articles and should not here. - Gennarous (talk) 20:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Euro-communism and eco-socialism are not "far left" trends. I have to remind once again that "far left" is used to non mainstream left parties. -- Magioladitis (talk)


 * Indeed Eurocommunism is not the ideology of the alliance. Only PdCI, a small party compared to PRC, has some Eurocommunist tendencies. The coalitions presents itself as "far left" and newspapers reckon this. I'm very happy that Gennarous agrees with me on the issue, indeed I hope that we can be more precise on the ideology and the political position of this alliance in the future. All the other users live in countries where far left is not present or very small, probably that's why they find difficult to acknowledge that The Left-The Rainbow is far left. --Checco (talk) 21:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's weird because we have a coalition of four mainstream parties, two of them participate in the Party of the European Left which functions under EU laws!, can form a far left coalition. I think time will show us more because I am also not sure that this alliance will last long or not. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 21:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Time will definitely help us. In any case only PRC is member of EL. That could seem strange as PRC is the more extreme of the two: not a long time ago a 40% of party members were affiliated to the Fourth International. Time will help us also because the imminent elections will show us the strenght of The Left and of three PRC splinter parties, Critical Left, the Communist Party of Workers and Communist Alternative Party. Maybe the exit of these three groups means that PRC is actually more moderate now... in any case The Left is continuosly considered "far left" both by its members and political commentators. --Checco (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Alliance with L'Unione
Is this grouping of the hard left still allied with L'Unione, or has it broken away to stand as its own political coalition? --Free Socialist (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As of today yes, but, as we are approaching to a fresh election, we will obvoiusly update all the articles and templates about Italian political parties and coalitions. Be prepared to that long work! --Checco (talk) 13:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, it was the new-born Partito Democratico who broke out from L'Unione, not this "far" left party. "We will run on our own" is one of the most well-publicized buzzwords of Veltroni's electoral campaign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.47.167.167 (talk) 22:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * True. Can you fix the article in this sense? --Checco (talk) 06:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Long-term aims?
Is this federation more of an ad hoc group formed for the purposes of the general election, or does it aim towards eventually uniting each of Verdi, PRC, PdCI and SD into one party? -- Free Socialist 22:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The federation was launched when there was no election on the horizon. I don't what will happen about it, but what is sure is that if the election result is good it has more chances of becoming a single party. PRC leader Bertinotti wants to make the federation a stable political force in Italian politics as United Left is in Spanish politics, without merging the four parties together. Some Communists and some Greens don't agree... we'll see what will happen. --Checco (talk) 22:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it safe to say that with the poor electoral result, this federation's days are pretty much over already? -- Free Socialist 20:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My sensation is that. --Checco (talk) 08:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Bertinotti?
Hasn't Bertinotti resigned now? whose the new leader of the coalition? --Soman (talk) 14:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * He just resigned. Let's wait some days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Consensus about "far left"
If there's consensus here, could someone point me to it? thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought in "Dubious - Far left coalition?" section we had a consensus. Haven't we? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We reached a consensus: not to write that The Left is a far left coalition, but that it is defined "the far left" by its members. --Checco (talk) 16:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks to me more like an agreement to disagree, plus "time will tell". And I don't know what you actually mean, Checco, by "defined by its members". The outlook of a political party is usually defined by the official statements of its leaders, not by the members in general - unless it is an anarchist group, which this one isn't. If this group frequently, not just as a one-off, describes itself as "sinistra radicale" then that defines it 1) in Italian and we could talk about the most appropriate translation and 2) in an Italian political context, and we have to decide how much sense the epithet makes in an international context. It's sure that it is not on a far extreme of the political spectrum. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:49, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We do not have a consensus, at least not involving myself. No-one disputes that the term 'sinistra radicale' can be used in italian language in an italian context to describe the group. No-one disputes that 'sinistra radicale' could be translated as 'far left'. The dispute is whether it is appropriate to the term 'far left', which has a much more negative connotation in vast parts of the world, to describe to label the group in wikipedia. The fact that the group itself identifies itself as 'sinistra radicale' doesn't matter, since the context of the term and its connotations in Italian politics are lost in translation. --Soman (talk) 17:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * @Itsnejudith: I was referring to Bertinotti, Diliberto, Mussi and Pecoraro Scanio.
 * @Soman: Correct translation or not (and it is), we are talking about a political force which is far left (its positions are well to the left of PCF or DieLINKE), anyway on this we don't agree. At least let us leave the compromise as it is: they speak of them as far left. --Checco (talk) 17:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I do not agree. I do not want to have the term 'far left' as a description at all in article, regardless of how it is attributed, since that commentary contributes nothing in terms of information. We could describe it as 'radical left' (without wikilink), but I would say that it would be somewhat superflous. --Soman (talk) 17:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We need a compromise and, as all of you non Italians don't know how far left is The Left, let the article as it is now, at least. --Checco (talk) 17:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Can someone write a position of The Left that it's considered as "far left"? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly well acquitted with Rifondazione, I would not call them 'far left' in the sense the term is used in English. The notion that Checco assumes our edits are based on ignorance is a bit of WP:OWN. --19:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is the last article I would like to own and what I am proposing is simply to stick to the compromise we reached before. --Checco (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11040930: another source where the Italian far left is defined... far left! For me it's self-evident that The Left - The Rainbow is far left and I would like you to reflect on this. --Checco (talk) 07:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say defined. Again this is all contextual. If one where to say 'party X represents the far left in the national parliament', that could be correct since the labelling is based on a relative comparison. But to simply state 'party X is a far-left party', or even worse 'party X is alledged to be a far-left party' is not appropriate for an international encyclopedia. --Soman (talk) 07:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * But The Left, exluding the Democratic Left (a small minority in the coalition) is closer to French LCR and LO than to PCF: that's why Th Economists defined PCF left-wing and The Left far left. Simple, very simple. --Checco (talk) 08:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I dispute that, i don't think the The Economist journalist had a French-Italian comparison in mind. Even so, one could argue extensively on what are the difference and similiarities between Rifondazione and PCF, equally one could discuss forever whether whether Rifondazione is more left than PdCI or vice-versa. What if we where to compare Rifondazione with Portuguese Communist Party or the Communist Party of Greece, who is then further to the left? This is exactly the reason why I think wikipedia should avoid a to detailed description of left-right axis positionings. --Soman (talk) 08:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd like to suggest a practical solution. Rather than a simple list of parties, we put in sections in the article on specific countries. Compare grammar school or alternative education, other articles that have to cope with widely different definitions of terms even in countries that speak the same language. Thus in a section on France we can explain that "extreme gauche" is regarded as a descriptive term and includes all those parties to the left of the PCF. A section on the USA could carry the fact that one commentator has labelled the Daily Kos as "far left", etc. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I inserted "hard-left" as there is a very good source, The Economist. --Checco (talk) 11:44, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 'Hard left' is not an improvement, as hard left is a specific term in British politics, somewhat different from 'far left'. I retain my position that we should avoid detailed descriptions of left-right axis in the articles. The Economist reference doesn't change that. --Soman (talk) 12:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You continue to deny something which is a matter of fact, as the source evidences, indeed when we talk about PRC we talk about something which has its equivalent in the Revolutionary Communist League and not in the French Communist Party, due to the presence of Trockijst and Stalinist faction, but anyway I won't revert your undefendable rollbacks: it is a beautiful sunny day and I don't want to spoil it by discussing about unrelevant issues. Have a nice summer. --Checco (talk) 13:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Dissolved?
When was the official date for the dissolution of the federation? I assume it was dissolved, as the web site is non-functioning, and all of the component parties are now outside parliament. --Autospark 22:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Autospark (talk • contribs)
 * God only knows. There was no official dissolution, as it was more of an electoral list than a true federation. Anyway the alliance could come back with a different name, especially if Parliament introduces a new law for European elections including a 5% threshold. As I said, God only knows. --Checco (talk) 07:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)