Cultural development - the driving force for sustainable development of the Capital

Photo: Nguyen Thanh Ha

Lesson 1: The solid spiritual foundation of society

(HNMCT) - As the "natural capital of Vietnam with a history of thousands of years" as commented by a famous 20th century geographer, the cultural development flow of the land "Before Nhi Thuy River, after Hoan Guom Lake" bears the unique mark of geopolitical and geocultural factors. Understanding that, Hanoi has constantly proactively cleared this flow with many action programs, plans, and solutions, including Program 06/Ctr-TU of the Hanoi Party Committee on "Cultural development, improving the quality of human resources, building elegant and civilized Hanoians in the period of 2021 - 2025" (abbreviated as Program 06).

Cultural development - the first task of the program covers many important contents such as cultural environment, cultural heritage, tourism..., once again showing the consistency of the goal of making culture truly become a solid spiritual foundation of society, a driving force for the sustainable development of the Capital.

From the culture

In 1943, Ho Chi Minh proposed the concept of culture: “For the sake of survival as well as the purpose of life, mankind created and invented language, writing, ethics, law, science, religion, literature, art, tools for daily life of clothing, food, housing and methods of use. All of those creations and inventions are culture.

Thus, closely linked to “survival”, culture and cultural development have become natural and inevitable. However, cultural development depends on each historical stage and each period, so there must be a specific strategy for construction and implementation that is consistent, flexible, creative and must be based on a certain foundation.

The Resolution of the 17th Hanoi Party Congress (term 2020 - 2025) has determined that foundation as: "Focusing on developing Hanoi's culture and people on the basis of promoting the tradition of Thang Long - Dong Do - Hanoi with a thousand years of civilization and heroism". This is also the consistent viewpoint stated in Program 06: "Developing Hanoi's culture and people on the basis of promoting the tradition of Thang Long - Hanoi with a thousand years of civilization, City for Peace, City of creativity and absorption of the quintessence of human culture."

Program 06 also clearly stated the goal of "cultural development is for the perfection of human personality, and building people to develop culture". To achieve that, the entire political system and each citizen have continuously accompanied and joined hands to implement 8 contents of cultural development: Building a cultural environment; Building culture in politics and economics; Preserving and promoting the value of cultural heritage; Improving the quality of cultural and artistic activities, protecting copyright, developing cultural industry; Developing tourism; Developing information and communication; Developing physical education and sports; International integration.

The content of the task of cultural development has shown its importance and decisiveness to other tasks.

Some initial results show how culture creates a spiritual foundation for society and impacts the sustainable development of the capital. By the first quarter of 2023, 18 specific targets in 7 thematic content groups were assessed to have achieved good results. Setting targets and implementing targets is a quantitative measurement method, ensuring that the program is on the right track. But life is always vibrant, cultural development is a story influenced by many factors. Even in the achieved and unachieved targets, we can see the common efforts, and especially the rich lessons.

Heritage conservation has only achieved 50% of the target for relic ranking... but in this field, interesting stories have emerged about creativity and the ability to promote cultural resources, such as the Hoa Lo Prison and the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam relics that really attract tourists, especially young people. More than 1,000 professional art performances each year may not have reached the target of 3,000 performances/year, but have demonstrated the efforts of many artists to explore and experiment with reaching audiences through creative models in the harsh context due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In international integration, Hanoi is often mentioned and associated with many creative cultural events as a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, such as the successful organization of the Hanoi International Film Festival 2022; Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2022..., most recently the Photo Hanoi'23 International Photography Biennale - an important event that contributes to introducing Hanoi to international photographers, and also brings international photographers and their works to Hanoi.

All reflect the efforts to connect and unleash the resources of the political system and especially the proactive participation for the love of Hanoi as well as the creativity of all classes of people on the cultural foundation of the Capital.

Developing Hanoi's culture and people is a task that goes hand in hand with the sustainable development of the capital . Photo: Nguyen Thanh Ha.

Create environment, unleash resources

Program 06 affirms: “Culture is the soul of the nation, the solid spiritual foundation of society, the important endogenous strength ensuring the sustainable development of the capital and the country”. Therefore, the task of developing culture with the proposed contents is a long-term, regular, continuous work with the nature of inheritance and development.

The areas and contents of the cultural development task must become essential requirements in all areas of the capital's life. Actions for the environment and a healthy cultural life must be carried out simultaneously in both rural and urban areas, in educational environments, offices, and in society... Having a system of sports and cultural facilities covering the entire city is a valuable infrastructure, but building a cultural environment by connecting people and arousing the cultural spirit in people through that space is the most important thing. The rate of 88% of families achieving the title of Cultural Family, 63% of hamlets achieving the title of Cultural Village, and 72.5% of residential groups achieving the title of Cultural Residential Group every year continues to raise the question of how to replicate positive and effective models.

In particular, the overlapping imprints of Hanoi's history constantly remind artists of the precious heritage to exploit and promote its value to serve the spiritual life of the people and develop Hanoi's cultural industry.

Through the first phase of implementing Program 06, besides the proactive and positive marks, it is clear that there are limitations in the contents of cultural development work, with the common point being confusion in connecting resources, certain bottlenecks in public investment and the proactive and creative capabilities of some Party committees and authorities... The slow progress in upgrading equipment for some theaters, difficulties in standardizing the apparatus, and effectively operating the cultural institutional system in the area have once again revealed human weaknesses in meeting new requirements and tasks.

At the National Cultural Conference on November 24, 2021, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong stated: “The documents of the 13th National Party Congress have identified cultural development as one of the key issues, a prominent content. This is the first time in the documents of the Party Congress that our Party has comprehensively and deeply addressed the cultural field, from the Congress theme to the viewpoints, goals, major orientations, key tasks, and strategic breakthroughs”. At this conference, the General Secretary also pointed out the limitations: “Development of cultural fields is not yet synchronous, one-sided, heavy on form, not going into depth, substance... The cultural environment is still polluted by social evils, corruption, and negativity. The role of culture in human development has not been properly identified, and there is still a tendency to focus on the entertainment function...”.

It can be said that cultural development is a task that always goes hand in hand with the sustainable development of the capital and the country. Recognizing successes, identifying limitations, and overcoming weaknesses to unleash resources is an inevitable requirement. The creative and specific lessons in the articles in this topic will illustrate more vividly the journey of implementing Program 06 with the consistent goals mentioned above.

(To be continued)

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