Also attending the Forum were Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Doan Van Viet, representatives of Central and local departments, ministries and branches, and a large number of ethnic minorities...
Promoting cultural resources of ethnic communities
Speaking at the Forum, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung said that in these historic days of April, the entire Vietnamese people are enthusiastically organizing many practical activities to return to their roots and promote the strength of national unity. In this series of activities, the entire culture, sports and tourism sector has placed on its shoulders the responsibility, together with the people, to look back at the strength of Vietnamese culture according to the Party's viewpoint and guidelines.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung gave a speech at the Forum.
“Keeping in mind the teachings of beloved Uncle Ho, Culture guides the way for the nation , thoroughly grasping the direction of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Cultural Conference : If culture exists, the nation exists, if culture is lost, the nation will be lost and continuing to implement the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress on the cultural field, in recent times, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in particular and the culture, sports and tourism sector of the whole country in general have deployed many solutions to develop cultural resources. The implementation process has received deep attention from the leaders of the Party and State, and support from the people. Since then, the whole sector has made more efforts in building, reviving and developing Vietnamese culture”, Minister Nguyen Van Hung stated.
According to the Minister, just 2 months ago, the entire sector of Culture, Sports and Tourism gave the Party leaders the right advice to organize well the activities to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture , the first document of our Party on culture. Including the successful organization in many aspects of the National Conference with the theme of 80 years of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture: Origin and development motivation . After the Conference, the entire sector had a fuller understanding of the implementation of the Party's viewpoints, correct policies and guidelines, and Uncle Ho's thoughts on the cultural field; linking cultural development with the current Vietnamese revolutionary practice to organize the implementation with focus and key points of the 6 tasks and 4 major groups of solutions proposed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Cultural Conference.
Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Doan Van Viet presented a number of solutions for developing the culture of ethnic communities in the future.
The Minister continued to affirm that Vietnam is a very beautiful country, with a long-standing culture, associated with the history of formation and development. The 54 ethnic groups living on the S-shaped strip of land have united to create a history of building and defending the country for thousands of years and have a very close community connection and companionship. In which, each ethnic group has its own cultural identity, creating unity in diversity of Vietnamese culture. That is the characteristic and at the same time the law of development of the country's culture; creating endogenous strength, synthesizing national strength and the attractiveness of Vietnamese culture; contributing to positioning Vietnamese cultural identity in the international arena.
During his lifetime, Uncle Ho paid special attention to the culture and cultural heritage of Vietnamese ethnic groups. Cultural heritage is understood as an element and means to express cultural values; deeply demonstrating the mettle, intelligence and soul of the Vietnamese people. For that reason, generations of Vietnamese people have constantly built, nurtured and fostered to create a national cultural strength that is increasingly rich in identity. The achievements of culture - art and creativity are always preserved, passed down, forming a rich and massive treasure of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In Vietnam today, according to statistics from the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Vietnam has over 3,600 national relics, 128 special national relics, 8 world cultural and natural heritages, 15 intangible cultural heritages and 9 documentary heritages recognized by UNESCO. In addition, we also have 468 national intangible cultural heritages, 238 national treasures and nearly 9,000 folk festivals. Citing these numbers shows that Vietnam's cultural resources are extremely rich, diverse and massive.
Along with that, the Vietnamese people have a spirit of tolerance and creativity to promote peace; always strive to share the spirit of solidarity and humanity, for the better life of their compatriots and humanity. The Vietnamese people have the ability to adapt and have a steadfast spirit when having to deal with challenges and difficulties. These valuable qualities are an important source of endogenous strength to help build and develop the socio-economy, ensure national and ethnic sovereignty; and effectively solve the challenges of the times.
Overview of the Forum
The Minister emphasized that in recent times, with the promotion of the role of the people as creative subjects, the team of artists plays an important role, millions of literary and artistic works have been created, becoming a means of conveying and disseminating new messages, ideas, and values to promote patriotism, pride in the Vietnamese nation, compassion, affection, diligence, creativity, etc.
“Culture is considered the spiritual foundation of society, both the goal and the driving force of development. The culture of Vietnamese ethnic groups has made a great contribution to the sustainable development of the country, and is one of the four important pillars of development along with economy - society - environment. Practice shows that culture is a decisive factor in human development, creating a progressive, healthy, and distinctive social spirit; opposing cultural assimilation. Culture helps build and protect national sovereignty, bringing happiness to the people. More than anyone else, we are fully aware that a country not only needs a strong army and a stable economy, but also needs to be strong in culture. It is culture that creates the environment for democracy to develop, strengthening national solidarity. A civilized society is a society that builds an advanced, humane, spiritual and social cultural foundation, taking people as the center of development,” the Minister affirmed.
In the current period, our Party and State have had a policy of promoting and developing culture in politics and economics in order to build a strong political system, fight against ideological and moral degradation; develop the economy based on a cultural and moral foundation; aim for the people, the community and the nation. On the international diplomatic front, Vietnam is promoting and introducing the diversity of cultural expressions of Vietnamese ethnic groups; gradually promoting the export of cultural industrial products to demonstrate the strength and ability to transform the abundant cultural resources of the ethnic community; promoting the soft power of culture and further enhancing the image of Vietnam in the international arena.
In addition to what has been done, Minister Nguyen Van Hung stated that exploiting and promoting the cultural resources of ethnic communities is something that needs to be done in a sustainable manner, implemented step by step, with tasks, and with focus and key points. Through this, the Minister requested the entire culture, sports and tourism sector to fully grasp the Party's viewpoints, do a good job of state management; promote the role of the people as creative subjects, the intellectual team plays an important role and mobilize the participation of all relevant parties, contributing to the development of cultural resources of ethnic groups, for the common development of the country.
Also following this approach, from the perspective of state management, the Minister hopes that the Committees, Ministries, branches, local authorities, etc. must make efforts to perfect mechanisms and policies to increase investment in the cultural sector; protect and promote cultural values; encourage and facilitate investment activities and exploit cultural resources of Vietnamese ethnic groups. In particular, tourism development associated with enhancing cultural promotion and training of cultural human resources must also be focused on.
The Committees, Ministries, branches, localities... also need to have close and synchronous coordination with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to comprehensively assess the potential and reserves of cultural resources, especially the typical cultural values of ethnic minorities; promote the application of information technology in digitizing heritages that are at risk of fading away; deploy the implementation of strategies, planning projects, and programs for developing types of cultural tourism and cultural services in ethnic communities; turn cultural values into cultural assets, an important endogenous resource for the sustainable development of the country.
On the part of the ethnic community, as creative subjects, the Minister requested that compatriots uphold the responsibility of protecting and promoting national cultural identity; actively participate in creative activities, teaching and inheriting; practice the good qualities of Vietnamese people; absorb and supplement new values to build Vietnamese people with appropriate values in the period of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country.
Delegates present their papers
In addition, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism hopes that through the Forum, businesses will promote the endogenous strength of culture, proactively build business culture and corporate culture. This is an important issue to nurture and create resources for sustainable business development. Businesses need to pay more attention to investing in culture; exploit cultural factors to enhance creativity and competitive advantages of products and services, meet the needs of tourists and people; actively demonstrate their role and responsibility in participating in and investing in the development of the country's cultural industries, creating high-quality products with Vietnamese cultural identity to serve the public and introduce to international friends. Each business and each citizen should strive to become an ambassador promoting Vietnamese cultural values and people.
Political and professional social organizations, depending on their functions, tasks and missions, need to organize more creative activities suitable for cultural development; promote the role of a bridge between the Government and businesses and social classes, people in cultural propaganda, promotion and social criticism. From there, Vietnamese culture will develop more and more. The culture of Vietnamese ethnic groups will become a powerful resource, contributing to the cause of developing a prosperous and happy country.
Cultural resource development must be substantive.
In their direct and sent presentations to the Forum, the speakers affirmed the role of Vietnamese ethnic cultures in the process of national development. Prof. Dr. Tu Thi Loan, Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts, said that Vietnam is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious country. Therefore, Vietnam possesses a treasure trove of tangible and intangible cultural heritage that is extremely rich and unique. That is a great human resource for today's generation to inherit, exploit and promote for development.
Prof. Dr. Tu Thi Loan said that in recent years, especially since the Doi Moi period, the culture of ethnic minorities in Vietnam has made great strides, achieved many great achievements, and made positive contributions to the overall development of the country. Documents of the Congresses of the Communist Party of Vietnam have always identified the ethnic issue as “having a major strategic position”, “a fundamental long-term strategic issue” in the development of the country.
Along with that, to implement the policies, the Government has issued the National Target Program for Cultural Development in the periods of 2005 - 2010, 2011 - 2015 and most recently 2016 - 2020. In addition, on July 27, 2011, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 1270/QD-TTg approving the Project on Preserving and Developing the Culture of Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam to 2020. This is an important Project contributing to supporting, preserving and promoting the culture of ethnic minorities to serve development. In the Cultural Development Strategy to 2020 and recently the Cultural Development Strategy to 2030, there are contents closely related to the work of preserving and promoting the culture of ethnic minorities.
Most recently, the Prime Minister approved the National Target Program for Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas for the 2021-2030 period , of which Phase I is from 2021-2025. The Program has dedicated the entire Project No. 6 to Preserving and promoting the fine traditional cultural values of ethnic minorities associated with tourism development.
Lively discussion atmosphere at the Forum
But besides that, Prof. Dr. Tu Thi Loan frankly acknowledged that the development of cultural resources still has many limitations. There are still many shortcomings in the planning, building and promulgation of policies. The effectiveness of policy implementation is not high. Some policies lack specificity and are not suitable for reality. The evaluation, summary and adjustment of policies are still slow. As a result, although many documents and policies have been issued, up to now, compared to the general development level of the whole country, ethnic minority areas are still the slowest developing areas. This is one of the key bottlenecks that need to be resolved soon to change the current situation.
Sharing the same view, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Binh, Hanoi University of Culture shared that developing cultural resources, especially in ethnic minority areas, is facing difficulties due to the phenomenon of "discontinuity" between generations of fathers and children, which is quite common. In addition, the investigation, research, restoration, preservation and promotion of cultural values of ethnic groups have not received adequate attention. "We have made great efforts in researching traditional cultures of ethnic groups, many cultural heritages of ethnic minorities in Vietnam have been recognized as cultural heritage of humanity. However, there are also many works and research topics of poor quality, not worthy of the money invested. Many festivals, traditional occupations, and traditional customs of ethnic groups have been restored and applied, but they still "remain" formalistic. Therefore, the exploitation and application of research results on the cultural values of ethnic minorities in socio-economic development is currently not much. Socio-economic development projects have not really paid attention to preserving the traditional culture of ethnic groups. All of the above have more or less contributed to pushing the traditional culture of ethnic minorities in Vietnam to difficult challenges to overcome," Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Binh expressed his opinion.
Step by step perfecting the policy on national culture
In his closing speech at the Forum, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Doan Van Viet affirmed, Ethnic culture is a resource for the socio-economic development of the country. The cultural resources of ethnic minorities currently have a lot of potential to be exploited and promoted. With the efforts of local authorities at all levels and the joint efforts of the community, the cultural resources of ethnic minority areas in recent years have not only been cared for and nurtured, but have also been initially promoted and exploited to serve socio-economic development. Ethnic policies have been gradually improved, and cultural policies have initially contributed to preserving and promoting values for development.
Also according to Deputy Minister Doan Van Viet, in the context of the fourth industrial revolution and the digital transformation period of the culture, sports and tourism sector, developing the cultural industry, effectively exploiting diverse materials of traditional culture, inheriting and creatively using the cultural heritage values of ethnic minorities is a way to preserve and promote new and promising heritages .
Performances to celebrate the opening of the Forum
On this occasion, the Deputy Minister suggested that socio-economic development through cultural resources of ethnic groups should soon change awareness, establish strategies and policies; as well as organize the application of those strategies and policies in practice for the purpose of sustainable development of the country. At the same time, continue to propose models and solutions to improve the efficiency of investment and use of cultural resources for sustainable development of the country. In particular, it is necessary to strengthen the trust and pride of ethnic people in traditional cultural values; improve the knowledge and awareness of cultural subjects, gradually form a team of managers, technical workers and intellectuals of ethnic groups; link the preservation and promotion of cultural values with tourism development; maximize the diversity of cultural expressions.
DINH TOAN - HOANG NGUYEN; photo: TRAN HUAN
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