Lesson 1: Solid spiritual foundation of society
(HNMCT) - As the "natural capital of Vietnam with a history of thousands of years" as commented by a famous geographer in the twentieth century, the cultural development flow of the land "Before the Nhi Thuy River, after Hoan Guom Lake" bears unique imprints from geopolitical and geocultural factors. Understanding that, Hanoi is constantly actively opening this circuit with many action programs, plans and solutions, including Program 06/Ctr-TU of the Hanoi Party Committee on "Developing culture, improving the quality of human resources, building elegant and civilized Hanoians in the 2021-2025 period" (referred to 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 the solid spiritual foundation of society, the driving force for the sustainable development of the Capital.
From the culture
In 1943, Ho Chi Minh introduced the concept of culture: "For survival as well as the purpose of life, mankind created and invented language, writing, morality, law, science, religion, literature, art, tools for daily living in terms of clothing, food, accommodation and methods of use. All those creations and inventions are culture.
Thus, closely associated with "survival", culture and cultural development have become natural and inevitable. However, cultural development depends on each historical period and each period, but there is a specific strategy for construction and implementation that is both consistent, flexible and creative, and must be based on a certain foundation.
The Resolution of the 2020th Party Congress of Hanoi City (term of 2025 - 06) has defined that foundation as: "Focusing on developing Hanoi's culture and people on the basis of promoting the tradition of Thang Long - Dong Do - Hanoi thousand years of civilization and heroes". This is also the cross-cutting point of view stated in Program XNUMX: "Developing Hanoi's culture and people on the basis of promoting the tradition of Thang Long - Hanoi of a thousand years of civilization, the City for Peace, the City that creates and absorbs the quintessence of human culture."
Program 06 also clearly states the goal of "cultural development is for the perfection of human personality, and human development for cultural development". To achieve that, the whole political system and each citizen have constantly accompanied and jointly implemented 8 contents of cultural development: Building a cultural environment; Building culture in politics and economy; Preserve and promote cultural heritage values; Improve the quality of cultural and artistic activities, protect copyright, develop the cultural industry; Tourism development; Development of information and communication; Developing the career of physical training and sports; International integration.
The content of the cultural development task has shown its importance and decisiveness to other tasks.
Some initial results show how culture creates the spiritual foundation for society and how it affects the sustainable development of the Capital. By the first quarter of 2023, 18 specific indicators belonging to 7 groups of thematic content were evaluated with good results. Setting targets and achieving them is a quantitative measure that ensures the program stays on track. But life is always lively, cultural development is a story influenced by many factors. Even in the achieved and unsatisfactory targets, we also see the collective effort, and especially the rich lessons.
Heritage conservation has only achieved 50% of the target of relic ranking... but in this field, there are also interesting stories about creativity, the ability to promote cultural resources, such as Hoa Lo Prison relic, Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam really attract tourists, especially young people. More than 1.000 professional art performances per year may not have met the set target of 3.000 performances per year, but they have demonstrated the efforts of many artists to explore and experiment to reach the audience through creative models of many artists in the harsh context caused by the appearance of the Covid-19 epidemic.
In international integration, Hanoi is mentioned a lot and associated with many creative cultural events as a member of UNESCO's Creative Cities Network, such as the successful organization of the 2022 Hanoi International Film Festival; The Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2022…, most recently the Photo Hanoi'23 International Photography Biennale - an important event that introduces Hanoi to international photographers, and also brings international photographers and their works to Hanoi.
All of them reflect the efforts to connect and unlock the resources of the political system, and especially the active participation for the love of Hanoi as well as the creativity of people from all walks of life on the capital's culture.
Create environment, unleash resources
Program 06 affirms: "Culture is the soul of the nation, a solid spiritual foundation of society, an important endogenous strength to ensure the sustainable development of the capital and the country". Therefore, the task of cultural development with the proposed contents is a long-term, regular and continuous work of inheritance and development.
The arrays and contents of the task of cultural development must become essential requirements in all areas of the capital's life. Action for the environment and a healthy cultural life must be carried out simultaneously in both rural and urban areas, both in the educational environment, in the workplace, in the society... Having a system of sports and cultural institutions covering the city is a valuable infrastructure, but building a cultural environment by connecting people and arousing the cultural spirit through that space is the most important thing. The rate of 88% of families achieving the title of Cultural family, 63% of the village (village) achieving the title of Cultural village, 72,5% of the residential groups winning the title of Cultural neighborhood group every year still raises questions about how to replicate positive and effective models.
In particular, the overlapping mark of Hanoi's history constantly reminds artists of the precious heritage source to exploit and promote values to serve the spiritual life of the people and develop Hanoi's cultural industry.
Through the first stage of the implementation of Program 06, besides the active and positive imprints, it is clear that the limitations on the contents of cultural development work with the common point are the confusion in connecting resources, certain bottlenecks in public investment and the initiative and creativity of some Party committees and authorities... The delay in upgrading equipment for some theaters has once again revealed the difficulties in standardizing the cultural system, and the difficulties in operation and standardization in public investment. about people in meeting new requirements and tasks.
At the National Cultural Conference on November 24, 11, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong stated: "The document of the 2021th Party Congress has identified cultural development as one of the key issues, an outstanding content. This is the first time in the document of the Party Congress, our Party comprehensively and deeply mentions the cultural field, from the congress's 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 the cultural fields is not synchronized, it is one-sided, heavy on form, has not gone into depth, in essence... The cultural environment is still polluted by social evils, corruption and negativity. The role of culture in building people has not been properly defined, and there is a tendency to focus heavily on entertainment functions…”.
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. The recognition of success, identification of limitations, and overcoming of weaknesses to unlock resources are indispensable requirements. The creative and specific lessons in the articles in this topic will more vividly illustrate the process of implementing Program 06 with the above-mentioned consistent goals.n
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