The Cultivation Of Civil Awareness And Autonomy Of Villagers

Modernization is an inevitable process in all countries and areas in the world. The development of Chinese society calls for the modernization of China. As regard to the modernization of politics,one of the key elements is to construct socialist democratic politics. It is important to mobilize and organize the farmers who account for 80 percent of the country's population. Their participation in the democratic process is essential. It is generally agreed that autonomy of villagers is a realistic approach towards the realization of China's socialistic democratic politics. Thus,autonomy of villagers has been a primary focus in academic and theoretical circles. But the author finds that the relationship between cultivation of civil awareness and autonomy of villagers has never been studies in detail by previous researchers. So under the guidance of my supervisor Dr. Chen Qin,1 undertook this research using the Marxist analytical method and modernist theories.In order to gain a deep understanding of this issue,the author puts forward a hypothesis after summarizing and explaining the main contents and system arrangements of autonomy of villagers based on the previous researches. It is hypothesized that any system changes will need the support from cultural psychology,value and ideology. The autonomy of villagers also needs the support from the civil awareness. This paper is an attempt to analyze the autonomy of villagers from the perspective of cultivation of civil awareness.Field research has been conducted in the Dufangdian village,Weihui City,Henan Province. It is found that many reasons exist which have caused some changes in the autonomy of villagers,which is the lowest level of democratic political system. One of the main reasons is that instead of the civil awareness,the world view typical of farmers pervades among the farmers. Many phenomena point to this face:the lack of sense of rights and responsibilities,lack of individuality,lack of cooperative spirit,lack of sense of law and order and contract. All these render the autonomy of villagers unpractical and unrealistic.Analysis is also made to explain the lack of civil awareness. They are:first,the sense of home and country being one is the historical reason why civil awareness is missing. In the past,the traditional Chinese society originated from the unit of home and is blood-related society where three key relationships(blood-related relatives living-location-related)govern the interaction between individuals. After the founding of People's Republic of China,especially after the implementation of reform and opening up,the social structure has undergone some minor changes but never be broken. Against this background,the civil awareness of contract spirit,democracy,law and order,and sense of responsibilities and rights can never take root. Secondly,the village economy,which is far from being market oriented,is the economic reason. The market is the best place to learn how to do business,for the nature of market economy is independence,equality,cooperation and action with laws;the spirit of these also are basic elements to realize the autonomy of villagers,and the core of civil awareness. However,since China is in the transitional period from merchandize economy to market economy,the independent identity of farmers has not been established,which is the economic reason of the lack of civil awareness. Thirdly,the village administration does not actively promote the development of civil awareness. Democracy has to be nourished,and the cultivation of civil awareness cannot be realized without the support and promotion from the village administration. However,in reality,the county andvillage administration neglect this issue. For example,when the administration implements the autonomy of villagers,some of them do the election work with reserve,resentment or reluctance because they doubt the ability of the farmers,even forbid farmers themselves to speak. The political commissar of some villages even obstruct the election process because their own...