Culture and the survival of a nation

In 1946, at the first National Cultural Conference, President Ho Chi Minh said: "Culture lights the way for the nation". And 75 years later, at the National Cultural Conference in 2021, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong affirmed: "As long as culture exists, the nation exists". The ideological declarations on culture by President Ho Chi Minh and later General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong affirmed that culture is the survival of a nation. Without culture or without respect for culture, a nation will live in darkness and cannot find a way for that nation to reach great human values, no matter how rich that nation is in material things.

Human history proves that: culture is the path and all the rest must go on that path such as politics , economics, education... Before the forms of a state were formed, culture created a living space with human values for people and guided their steps. The highest politics is the politics that contains cultural beauty and humanism. That is the politics that brings to each person freedom, democracy, love, justice, progress and dedication.

I once brought up an example that seemed humorous but it was able to demonstrate the magic of culture as a sacred spell. A chicken living in a silver cage, eating diamond millet, with gold-plated claws and spurs, will never become a human being with sublime human beauty because it is not able to receive the values of culture. Meanwhile, a human being, even though living in the darkness of slavery, in the death of war and in poverty, still carries thoughts and dreams of a future filled with light. Because humans contain within themselves the beauty of culture and from there they know how to dream and act for that beautiful dream. Culture makes people know self-respect, know how to share, know how to distinguish between Good and Evil, know how to sacrifice themselves and dedicate themselves to the community.

In his speeches and works on the fight against corruption and on the character of Vietnamese people today, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong always directly or indirectly places culture as the ultimate foundation for all human thoughts and actions before the people and before the nation. Party members and cadres who have fallen because of greed and indifference to their fellow human beings are those who have strayed from the essence of culture. The collapse of an economy can be restored in one generation, but the collapse of the cultural foundations in the life of a nation can sometimes take several generations to restore. It only takes 10 seconds for a person to throw a bag of trash from a car in a public place, but for someone to pass by and voluntarily bend down to pick it up and throw it in the trash can can take up to 100 years or more. The formation of a cultural behavior is a long process that humanity has no shortcuts to.

On the opening day of the 21st Vietnam Poetry Day held in Ho Chi Minh City after several years of devastation by COVID-19, I said: The government and people of Ho Chi Minh City have been filling the empty streets of loss and pain during the COVID-19 pandemic with the revival of life and economic recovery. But the emptiness in people's souls can only be filled by cultural beauty. If the emptiness in people's souls cannot be filled, nothing can help people reach true happiness.

An art performance at the 80th anniversary celebration of the "Outline of Vietnamese Culture".

Since the 1960s, at every presidential inauguration, the White House has invited an American poet to read poetry. And American intellectuals call those poems the second manifesto of America. The first manifesto is the manifesto of the constitution and legislation of America. The second manifesto that the poets represent is the manifesto of "American conscience". Only when a nation has conscience can it be a happy nation. And culture is the only thing that creates conscience. Nothing material can create the conscience of humanity.

Hundreds of years ago, the farmers of my village Chua wrote on the wall of the communal house: "Poetry does not produce golden rice or white rice, but it creates dreams for the sowers." Poetry here is about culture. Only culture can bring people beautiful dreams about their future. Without dreams, people cannot act for good things. Without dreams, people and their assets will sink deep into darkness and cannot reach the light.

The farmers in my village of Chua also say: "Without food, one cannot walk, without letters, one cannot see the way." Letters here are culture. Without culture, every nation in this world is just a blind person.

This year, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the birth of the Cultural Outline. The commemoration is not to remember or praise an event but to affirm the truth of that event, to affirm the survival of the nation through its choice of path. The birth of the Cultural Outline is not an ordinary event but it is the choice of path for the entire nation during the years of slavery until today and forever. The Cultural Outline has been vividly realized over the past 80 years and continues to create great values for the nation.

And in each period of the nation's history, the Party's 1943 Cultural Outline's ideology has expanded, contributing to the elevation of new cultural values of the Vietnamese people. The path of the Vietnamese people to true happiness, like that of all other peoples in the world, is only the cultural path. And everything that goes on that path will create the beauty and value of human life. Abandoning culture means abandoning the path of humanity. At that time, no matter how rich the world is in money, it will be just a "wild beast's jungle".

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