Word: christian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...know you're just trundling back to suburbia next week. Ever since my parents decided we couldn't afford the psychic toll of another family vacation (the fighting in the back seat finally got to them). I have known, with a sense of doom approximating the feeling of a Christian Scientist with appendicitis, that I will not be embarking on a spree in the Netherlands Antilles, but on a hopeless quest to entertain myself in a deserted suburban wasteland...
...most prestigious parties in Italian politics last week added a significant red tint to Europe's most troubled government. It was not the "historic compromise" that would bring Communists to power in Italy, but it was the next, most important step. After 52 days of do-nothing disagreement, Christian Democratic Premier-designate Giulio Andreotti and Communist Party Chief Enrico Berlinguer accepted a "governing agreement" that puts Communists directly in the majority for the first time since 1947, when they were expelled from the postwar Cabinet of Alcide de Gasperi...
...Christian Democrats had lately enjoyed a resurgence in the opinion polls, but any call for an early election would have further complicated the political situation. The Christian Democrats could probably have expanded the 38.7% of the vote they got in 1976-but only at the expense of other non-Communist parties. The Communists, who got 34.4% of the vote in 1976, would probably also have picked up support. So instead of risking an election, Andreotti skillfully dithered until Berlinguer dropped his call for full Cabinet representation, then made it clear that Berlinguer would have to pay a price...
...Other complaints were sure to be heard from younger far-leftists, who have long accused Berlinguer of being too ready to barter away the revolution. In a big print shop in an industrial suburb south of Rome, a 50-year-old Communist said angrily: "The party should let the Christian Democrats drown. By supporting them, it is disenchanting the youth, who are the soul of the party. You can see the disenchantment in their [violent] behavior at the universities...
Like Berlinguer, Andreotti also moved swiftly to defend his deal. Christian Democratic spokesmen insisted that the arrangement with the Communists was indeed temporary and not "organic." Said the Christian Democratic newspaper ll Popolo: "The basic differences between the parties are certainly not canceled...