我在Cafe Philo

Rethinking Taiwan's democratization in light of the European experience
--Speech on the occasion of Europe Day 2005


Li-chiun Cheng
National Youth Commission minister


The process of European integration in the 20th century was actually a very delicate process of democratic operations. The entire operation surpassed national frameworks. The formation of the EU was a delicate integration process among states and also a mammoth project in terms of political and economic development of human society. Assuming one would want to undertake such an integration project if the European countries were not democratic states, then it would probably turn into a big disaster, because it would likely be a forced process. This also is what makes the EU so precious. EU integration established a model amid the democratic trend of human society.


Speaking of my European experience, I went to Europe in 1993, the year after the Maastricht Treaty was adopted. In Taiwan I studied philosophy. When I arrived in France I harbored a longing to study films and particularly adored French films. But when I was there I was, nonetheless, deeply attracted by the nation's tradition of humanist thought. At the time I deeply felt that the philosophy that I studied in Taiwan was actually some sort of archeological work on philosophy and not true philosophy. But in Europe, philosophical thinking is still pretty much alive and kicking. In European history the force of humanist thought has had a very important influence. Consequently continued to delve into philosophy. I returned to Taiwan only in 2001 after the ruling party had changed, hoping to be able to participate in Taiwan's democratization process.

From the "true self" to a "self that is not about me"


We could say that my seven or eight years of studying in Europe were a time of self-exploration. During that period in my life I established a "true self," that is a thinking subject. But after returning to Taiwan in 2001, I again returned to the life that I led before leaving Taiwan, and was very eager to do something. The self that wanted to do something definitely wasn't about me. You are probably familiar with this way of putting it, as this is what Lee Teng-hui was talking about when he said he discovered that the latter half of his life was not about Lee Teng-hui, meaning a Lee Teng-hui that does not belong to "the smaller self Lee Teng-hui," but to the "the bigger self Lee Teng-hui." Now that I have gotten inside the government, I also maintain such a mindset. Since I joined the Cabinet team coming from the student movement outside the establishment, a lot of people have asked me whether I will deviate from my past thinking. My stance is very simple. The self that has plunged into public affairs is my bigger self, it is equally me, but a "self that is not about me."


From the subjectivity of individual thought to the subjectivity of the public sphere


The most beneficial aspect of studying in Europe for me was seeing the breeding ground behind European democratic culture as well as the influence exerted by humanist thought at the grassroots level. In terms of thought and culture, the Europeans several centuries ago freed themselves from old systems and relationships of rule, which also meant that human thinking and subjectivity were freed from a bigger self. It was a process of generating the modern subject. The entire process from the reform of religion, philosophy, art, and culture in the Renaissance era to the development of political thought and revolutionary action, the founding of political parties and the building of representative systems of modern democracy takes man as its subject. The subjectivity of the smaller self was anchored in culture, art, science, and philosophical thought, meaning that its place within the universe and nature was established and was different to the subjectivity in the theocratic world of the past. The smaller self was no longer dominated by rulers. The subjectivity of this smaller self expanded into political society, establishing some sort of public, collective subjectivity in the public sphere of society. The establishment of the former - the subjectivity of the smaller self - is the very crucial breeding ground and nourishment for the birth of the latter - public subjectivity.


In contrast, Taiwan's democratization lacks a process that springs from the subjectivity of individual thinking. It also lacks the experience of establishing subjectivity in the public sphere of society. As a result our democracy feels very hollow as numerous phenomena in politics are immensely immature. Therefore, progress needs to be dynamic and must evolve. If we lack a rich cultural breeding ground as a basis for our systemic reforms, deepening democracy will be difficult.


Salons and coffee houses


I will cite another example. From the perspective of cultural history, the salons that sprung up in Italy during the Renaissance era played quite an important role within the Old Order environment of that time. The salon culture fostered the creation of knowledge and its disseminated to other European countries, thus exerting wide-ranging influence. In the Paris of the 17th century, it was first of all women from the aristocracy who stepped out of the stately mansions and palaces of their social class to serve as the hosts of salons, enabling people from different classes such as philosophers, thinkers, and even business people to engage in debate. A lot of modern thought was developed here. Salons were for example also major bases for the very important Enlightenment movement of the 18th century. At the time many philosophers and thinkers depended on the tacit support of these upper class women. Baron de Montesquieu's (1689-1755) work "The Spirit of the Laws" was first read at a very renowned salon. Salons were an extremely important condition for the dissemination of culture at the time and one of the roots of change that affected the entire social structure. I would like to emphasize in particular that many people don't know at all what an important role European women played amid the forces that liberalized the old order. Were it not for the aristocratic women who came out to promote a free, open, democratic space for dialogue at the time, the development of (philosophical and political) thinking would probably not have progressed as quickly as it did.


Coffee houses also played a very important role in history. They emerged in the latter period of the salon culture. While salons were somewhat more in the sphere of the nobles and intellectuals, coffee houses were the sites of dialogue and debate among ordinary citizens. France's first coffee house was relocated from Italy to Paris during the 17th century and in the 18th century quickly became a literary cafe for thinkers. "Literary" here encompasses all philosophical, scientific, and political thinking. At the cafe thinkers held direct dialogue with members of the public. (French philosopher and author) Voltaire (1694-1778) even moved his desk to the coffee house. The French Revolution erupted on a plaza just a few hundred meters away from it. The forces of thinking and humanist debate are one of the bases for complete political, economic, and social change. More importantly, they take the people as the subjects of action.


A democratization process led by electoral politics


Taiwan's democratization is basically more of a negotiation process among the elites of political parties. Consequently, our democratic system was not at all born from organized action in a bottom-up approach that is based on the independence and liberalization of individual thinking and dialogue among individual members of the society. Under such circumstances, we can see that after the ruling party changed, the elites outside the establishment all rushed into government, which immediately weakened our civil society and also quieted down our social movements. It is evident that our entire social forces are insufficient.


The deepening of democracy very much depends on a continuously maturing civil society. But at present our social action is, nonetheless, very strongly led by political forces. Often, when public incidents occur, the public appears at a loss over how it should respond, if leaders have not voiced their stance. For instance, China recently formulated an anti-secession law. I think if people in ordinary democracies see this law they probably wouldn't need to do much thinking to realize what the main problem is with it, because it violates the individual right to free choice guaranteed in free democratic societies. But here in Taiwan we will wait until President Chen Shui-bian, Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan, or some other political leader has expressed his stance on a certain incident, because during our entire democratization process, the basic values of freedom and democracy were not profoundly developed from our thinking, attitudes, and philosophy of life, but rather in a process led by electoral politics.


I don't mean to say that Taiwan's democratic achievements are insufficient. The peaceful and democratic transition of Taiwan's regime is in fact one of the world's miracles, which highlights the commendable and valuable traits of the Taiwan people. But history cannot be indolent. Since the period of our democratization has been very short, we have not been able to lay a sound foundation for the movement of democratic thinking. As a result, certain difficulties have gradually come to the surface a few years after the transfer of power. Every day when we switch on the TV set or leaf through the newspaper, we all experience a deep sense of powerlessness, but are, nonetheless, are unable to say why we feel like this.


Facing this predicament, we must learn from the European experience and truly look back and continuously monitor the history and progress of our democratization. In particular, we need to clarify and educate anew our thinking with regard to the basic values of freedom and democracy.


Reactionary discourse that suspects and denigrates democracy


The conditions for democratic thinking have not yet matured, which made us begin doubting ourselves not long after the ruling party changed, asking ourselves, "Is all this the right thing?" Some people began to feel that democracy caused only more turmoil in our society. The average citizen does not know how to regard the various manifestations of political disarray, and even less discusses how to solve them. Regarding this point, we have found that in terms of thoughts and concepts our means are utterly inadequate.


There are three phenomena that can demonstrate in depth the severity of our predicament. First, discussion in the public sphere is usually laden with personal and emotional language, or veers more toward power politics analyses, like for instance, analyzing the influence of an incident on political support for the Democratic Progressive Party, on Chen's leadership, or on Lien Chan. What this language highlights is a certain Old Order world that is still obscure and has not yet undergone the baptism of enlightenment. The strong are eternally right, while the weak are always wrong. For instance, when Lien Chan visited China recently, it appears that we hardly discussed what was right or wrong with this trip in terms of democratic procedure. But since we see him as a strongman, we think that he is right. Because he was given VIP treatment when visiting China, it seemed to be right that he went. And as Chen gradually lost the initiative in cross-strait relations, he has become a weakling and was thus wrong. We have not yet left behind a world of thinking that is governed by the smaller self, is emotional, and not completely listening to reason. We also lack discussion of public procedure and public values.


Another difficulty is that the lack of depth in democratic discourse creates a lot of denigrations of democracy. In other words, since our democratization process lacks grassroots in terms of dissemination of cultural thinking, we have very strong suspicions about democracy. And in the course of democratization, the fierce competition among the political parties keeps using these suspicions as weapons for mutual attacks. The KMT, for example, says that the DPP-led democratization is a kind of populism. Similarly, the DPP accuses the KMT of not loving Taiwan. In fact, democracy and freedom are our common denominators. No matter which political party you belong to, standing on a shared democratic system, we are all establishing competition in a system of representative politics.


In recent years reactionary discourse that denigrates democracy has emerged in Taiwan. Simply speaking, this kind of discourse is not a set of thoughts and is not a consistent thought system. It is a set of literary rhetoric and emotional language that makes you waver and loose confidence in democracy. One kind of discourse, for instance, holds that the supporters of the DPP are all middle and lower class, and that democracy therefore is a gathering of the middle and lower classes. When Lien Chan visited China recently, he summed up Taiwan's democratization as populist, which means Taiwan's democracy amounts to populism. Similar discourse once appeared in 19th century Europe. The elitists of that time criticized democracy as a gathering of the illiterate. Moreover, when the referendum system was being established last year, some came up with various forms of discourse, saying for instance that referendums cannot solve social controversy, but will only cause greater turmoil. Such discourse cases us to become mired in language fights, instead of conducting dialogue based on arguments and thinking, confusing the thinking of the entire society and compressing the space for independent judgment by each individual so that you virtually have no space for independent thinking.


I will cite two pieces of news for comparison to let everyone get another taste of what reactionary rhetoric is. For example in 1988, one year after the lifting of martial law, when (President) Chiang Ching-kuo had also just passed away, a certain Professor Chou Yang-sun wrote an article in the United Daily News. In his article he mentioned that Chiang Ching-kuo had seized on the spirit of populism, taking the will of the ordinary people as his objective. (Yang wrote) Chiang did not only display leadership qualities, but within a certain scope also realized the ideal of virtuous politics under traditional authoritarian rule. At that time "populist" was some sort of praise. But three years later in 1991, the same Professor Yang, probably because he had witnessed Taiwan's entire horrifying democratization process after the lifting of martial law, came up with another way of putting it, saying he thought that Taiwan's democratization was a kind of Taiwan-style populism. His goal was to denounce direct presidential elections, which were to be discussed as part of the 1991 constitutional reforms. In the same way, last year's implementation of the referendum was labeled populist politics.


After joining the National Youth Commission, I proposed a few activities, hoping to summon our young people to get involved in the long-term project of deepening democracy, to begin building our civil society from each of its individual members. The cultivation of a civic consciousness does not depend on textbooks ?this would only be copying the methods of the past authoritarian society ?but uses constant debate and dialogues among citizens to generate some sort of civil capacity and spirit, thus naturally forming a national issue that takes civic consciousness as its base, and building a united consciousness and a sense of community, from where a civil republic can be built that takes citizenship as its base. Civil society forces that spring from such a bottom-up approach are more stable. If power is a triangular pyramid, it does not matter how the political party or power elite at the top changes, it still won't break from the scope of its center of gravity.


Question from the audience:
Ms. Minister you have just mentioned that you are promoting civil society forums and related projects at the National Youth Commission. But that means that government units are promoting the development of civil society. Shouldn't civil society develop by itself from the non-governmental sector? I do not know how such a promotion process should be changed into a process led by the subjectivity of the populace.


Cheng:
Actually our entire democratic transition must march toward a deepening of democracy. The government and civil society must both make an effort. We have already entered the stage of a democratically elected government whose governance is different from past authoritarian rule. In other words, the current government must establish ways of democratic governance. Therefore if the government is not able to open up mechanisms for civic participation, to establish a mechanism that allows civic participation outside of elections in decision-making and the formation of opinions and consensus, then there will be a structural bottleneck for the growth of civil society. As a result, my self expectations, while I'm working in the government, are to be able to establish a model of democratic governance, to find out how enable the people to not only serve as a force on election day, but as their own masters. Government promotion should not become the subject of civil society, but it must help civil society to lay the foundations for this system.


(Originally published in Taiwan News, May 23 & 24, 2005. Edited by Tina Li and translated by Susanne Ganz.)