The battle between nationalism and democratic politics that has surfaced recently has evolved from an internal KMT matter into a problem of party-to-party relations that will affect the country's future and constitutional system. Unlike the old guard who started the disputes, the generation of middle-aged KMT members are educated and know very well what harm ethnic politics will do to democratic politics and healthy localization. During Germany's democratic Weimar Republic, political parties fought each other, resulting in a chaotic political situation. To end the chaos, the electorate chose the centralized, nationalistic rule of the Nazis. This should serve as a warning for us.
The powers that be in the KMT are now in a dilemma. If they kick out Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), localization work will stop. Then the KMT will have to draw close to the People First Party and ultimately terminate itself. This will speed up the polarization of of these forms of nationalism. Discussions about the end of nation states have shown we can only depend on democratic politics. How the KMT transforms into a real democratic and localized political party will affect the development of Taiwan's political environment as well people's freedom, equality and justice.
Chang Shr-syung is an associate professor at the department of social welfare, National Chung Cheng University.
Translated by Chen Ya-hui
RSS