Civic awareness does not mean blood relations or ethnicity. The breadth of understanding of the differences between the two concepts is a basic indicator of the maturity of democratic politics.
Confusion between the two resulted in unprecedented bloodshed between Western nations and, indeed, throughout the world in the 20th century. Chinese nationalism, in the hands first of the KMT and then the Chinese Communist Party, put paid to the prospects for democratic politics and the people's freedom in China, but the specter of nationalism continues to loom and even expand. Sometimes our politicians ask their constituents to draw a line between civic awareness and ethnicity, but ethnic sentiments remain a major focus in campaigns. If we can't escape this deadly trap, our democratic system will prove to have been a mere flash in the pan.
Civic awareness and ethnic awareness are actually things that help to build goodwill among people, and are the coagulants for gradual unity and an integrated society. Over more than 200 years in Western society, ethnic and cultural groups have become irresistible forces. We can choose our own friends, but we can't choose our relatives. Such awareness has been used to arouse patriotism in order for the ruling class to strengthen its power and accomplish the "sacred historical mission" of unifying nation states. From France's Napoleon Bonaparte, to Germany's Adolf Hitler, to Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic, the history of nationalism and nation states is filled with page after page of racial discrimination, xenophobic struggles, authoritarianism and bloody massacres.
Born with the French Revolution were the democratic politics of equal participation and a shared civic awareness among citizens. Democratic politics mean that a group of people work together for their own lives and future, and they can participate in choosing, deciding and managing their interests. Democratic politics connect people to the land they live in. Through identification with and commitment toward their living environment, people turn themselves into citizens in a gemeinschaft (a society of people sharing a strong sense of common identity). The key point is not the fictitious blood relations or great nationalistic cultures, but a feeling for and a sense of responsibility toward the land one inhabits. From this point of view, democratization and localization are two sides of the same coin.
In this sense, we can tell good localization from bad localiza-tion. The former regards the future of the people and land as the end, but the latter regards it as a means to achieve higher ab-stract goals like national unification. Under the latter, foreign missionaries and medical workers who have contributed so much to Taiwan will always be foreigners. On the other hand, people who are "born" ethnic Chinese and yet dare to identify with Taiwan and its people's localized democratic politics must be punished as traitors and collaborators.
True nationalists who do not care about their own fame and gain are few and far between. Most people use nationalism to seek, keep, or strengthen their personal power and material interests. Those who use nationalism as a disguise to benefit themselves are good at using localization as a tool to deliberately confuse democracy with nationalism. In fact, by contrast, good localization is real democratic politics. It allows all the people living on this land to have equal opportunities for participation and survival. It also respects other people and regards them in the same humane light.
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