(CPV) – Over the years, cultural heritage has increasingly proven its role as an abundant resource for economic growth and a solid foundation for spiritual life, an environment that nurtures and enriches cultural identity and cultural diversity. Therefore, protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage is also to meet the increasingly high cultural needs of the people, contributing to the construction and development of an advanced Vietnamese culture, imbued with national identity and contributing to the world's cultural heritage treasure.

State and people work together

According to the Department of Cultural Heritage (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism), the whole country has inventoried more than 40,000 historical - cultural relics and scenic spots; of which 8 relics have been recorded by UNESCO in the List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, more than 10,000 relics have been ranked (119 special national relics, 3,551 national relics, 6,340 provincial relics); 64,000 intangible cultural heritages, of which 14 intangible cultural heritages have been recorded by UNESCO, 396 intangible cultural heritages have been recorded in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage, 1,390 artisans have been awarded the title of People's Artisan and Meritorious Artisan by the State (77 People's Artisans, 1,313 Meritorious Artisans); 7 documentary heritages have been recognized by the Memory of the World Program (3 world documentary heritages, 4 Asia-Pacific documentary heritages). The country has 185 museums, including 128 public museums and 59 non-public museums, preserving more than 4 million artifacts; 215 artifacts and groups of artifacts have been recognized as national treasures. In addition, there are nearly 8,000 festivals that have been passed down, associated with many customs, practices, performing arts, handicraft villages, culinary culture, costumes, etc., including many customs and practices of ethnic minorities that have been researched, collected and restored to ensure the diversity and richness of cultural nuances of regions and areas across the country.

It must be affirmed that the preservation and promotion of heritage values is not only the responsibility of the State but also the cause of the entire people, of all organizations and individuals in society, in which the State plays the role of creating the legal framework and policy mechanisms; and the people play a key role in protecting, preserving, transmitting and promoting the value of cultural heritage.

During the process of building and developing the country, our Party and State have always attached importance to, cared for and determined that cultural heritage is the identity of national culture, the basis for building a new culture, new people, and a resource for building and developing the country. Right from Decree No. 65/SL - the first Decree of our State on preserving cultural heritage, signed by President Ho Chi Minh on November 23, 1945, 77 years ago, which this day, since 2005, has been decided by the Prime Minister to be Vietnam Cultural Heritage Day, it has affirmed: "Preserving ancient relics is a very important and necessary task in the construction of Vietnam". Preserving cultural heritage is the responsibility of the whole society, strictly prohibiting any acts of destroying cultural heritage.

Later, our State issued many other legal documents on cultural heritage conservation, which were gradually more synchronous, comprehensive, and specific, such as: Law on Cultural Heritage (2001); Law amending and supplementing the Law on Cultural Heritage (2009); 9 Decrees of the Government, 3 decisions and 1 directive of the Prime Minister, 15 circulars, 8 decisions, 3 directives of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Home Affairs... These are important guidelines of a political nature in the work of protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage in Vietnam.

In addition, the good news is that awareness of cultural heritage in localities has been raised, demonstrated through the attention of local leaders to the work of building dossiers to submit to UNESCO for registration, dossiers to submit to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for inclusion in the list of national intangible cultural heritage, national relics and special national relics, national treasures, etc.

Cultural heritage is recognized and is the driving force of sustainable national development.

Over the years, cultural heritages have been recognized for their value, preserved and promoted, contributing significantly to historical education and nurturing the nation's fine traditions; and have increasingly demonstrated their important role in educating Vietnamese people to develop comprehensively, forming human resources that directly and decisively contribute to the cause of protecting, building and developing the country.

Heritage preservation and tourism development have created a shift in the local economic structure, along with that, the community living in the heritage area has a clearer awareness of the value of the heritage, pride in the tradition, the beauty of the homeland, the country, and a sense of responsibility to protect this asset. Campaigns to mobilize people living in the heritage area to participate in environmental protection and activities that contribute to the care of the heritage, improve the quality of tourism services, contribute to raising the people's knowledge, and build a grassroots cultural life. 

With relics in a small community such as the village communal house, when promoted, it has created sympathy and solidarity among the village community through common activities revolving around the worship of the village guardian spirit, festivals and brought balance to the spiritual life of the villagers. The festivals are an opportunity to remind the tradition, history, origin, solidarity, and goodwill of each person in the country, giving them more strength and confidence in labor and production. The cultural heritage of ethnic minorities and thousands of relics of religions, beliefs, communal houses, pagodas, churches have been ranked, invested in to prevent degradation and restored, contributing to the consolidation of national unity.

Cultural heritage in our country participating in the integration process does not stop at the internal activities of the heritage or tourism industry. Foreign visitors to Vietnam enjoy, study, and experience tangible and intangible heritages, thereby they understand more about the traditional values of the Vietnamese people, and at the same time help them have confidence in choosing Vietnam as a destination, a reliable investment destination. On the Vietnamese side, the process of opening up and integration makes many people worry about the massive infiltration of foreign cultures, including cultures that are not suitable for the traditions, customs, and traditions of the nation; about the fading of traditional cultural arts, the degradation of moral values, and deviant manifestations in the lifestyle of a part of the youth... In such circumstances, the cultural heritage and traditional cultural values of the nation are increasingly cared for, preserved and promoted, which is the foundation for us to confidently integrate strongly into regions around the world without worrying about being dissolved. In the integration process, through heritage, in many forms such as through traditional art performances, through conferences in other countries or through mass media, we have focused on introducing Vietnamese cultural values abroad, so that everyone, every country in the world can understand Vietnamese culture, country and people.

An important cultural heritage that is increasingly receiving attention from the domestic and international community is the rich and diverse intangible cultural heritage of the 54 ethnic groups in our country. The preservation and promotion of the value of intangible cultural heritages such as: Nha nhac, Cong chinh, Ca tru, Mua puppetry, etc. not only revives and strengthens cultural heritages with strong national characteristics, but also creates conditions for these performing arts to actively contribute to development. Dragon boats on the Huong River are now indispensable for the singing voices of Hue singing teams; Nha nhac and Hat boi are performed regularly and periodically at Duyet Thi Duong in the Hue Imperial City; Quan ho is not only around Bac Ninh during festivals, but has also participated in serving at tourist destinations throughout the country... are the most convincing evidences for the contribution of this type of cultural heritage to the overall development of the country.

Many shining examples in protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage have been praised and spread in social life, strengthening people's confidence in the cause of protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage, building culture, building and developing the country. International exchange, cooperation and integration activities have taken new steps of development, contributing to promoting Vietnamese cultural values in general and cultural heritage in particular to the world, while promoting the process of cultural exchange, absorbing the quintessence and progressive values of human culture to enrich and build Vietnamese culture.

In addition to contributing to cultural development and shaping identity, this system of cultural heritage has been contributing significantly to the economic development of localities with heritage. For example, Hoi An Ancient Town, a heritage listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage, has had positive changes, becoming a "tourism brand" that is quite attractive to domestic and international tourists, contributing effectively to the development of the tourism and service industry in Hoi An, increasing income, improving the lives of people - owners of relics, while increasing conditions for preserving and restoring relics; becoming the foundation and luggage for Hoi An to steadily move forward to build and develop its economy and society. When the Complex of Hue Monuments and Ha Long Bay were first listed as World Cultural and Natural Heritage, there were only a few tens of thousands of visitors per year, but now this number has reached millions of visitors. Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex, at the time of the nomination dossier in 2012, had only more than 1 million visitors/year. In 2019, after 5 years of being recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage, it attracted 6.3 million visitors. In 2019, 8 world cultural and natural heritages in Vietnam alone welcomed about 21,336,148 visitors, including 10,650,114 international visitors, with revenue from ticket sales and direct service fees reaching 3,123 billion VND. Museums with a lot of visitors (such as the Museum of Ethnology, Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture, Hue Royal Antiquities Museum, etc.); intangible cultural heritages that attract a large number of participants and experiences (such as the worship of the Mother Goddess of the Three Palaces, the Hung King Worship, the Giong Festival, Bac Ninh Quan Ho folk songs, and Don Ca Tai Tu music, etc.) have brought clear economic benefits.

The exploitation of cultural heritage resources also entails the development of many other factors such as infrastructure, services, the expansion of exchanges and the increase of flows of goods, labor, etc., creating inclusive and harmonious development. More and more individuals, businesses, and communities effectively use cultural heritage in their business, creating more profits (such as eco-tourism areas, resorts that incorporate cultural heritage into construction, decoration, landscape architecture or organize traditional cultural activities that attract a large number of tourists); private museums/collections, large art programs that display and perform various types of cultural heritage very effectively. Such cultural heritage spaces not only become cultural and commercial products that create economic growth, but also spread heritage values, contributing to the development of a harmonious, humane and unique society...

However, besides the achieved results, the process of protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage in our country still has many limitations, such as: Cultural heritage has not been paid attention to and developed in proportion to the economy and politics, and has not really become an endogenous resource, a driving force for the country's sustainable development; The restoration, embellishment, and prevention of degradation of relics sometimes and in some places still do not ensure the provisions of the law, leading to the deformation of relics; The management, protection of relics, preservation of antiquities, relics, and artifacts in some localities is still ineffective; Human resources working in the field of cultural heritage are still thin; The tasks of inventorying relics, archaeological planning, restoration, embellishment, and promoting the value of relics in many localities are still lacking in uniformity and have not been strictly managed, leading to violations still occurring, many relics are still degrading, most of the relics have not received attention in planning; Museums are still limited in their effectiveness… In particular, when it comes to cultural heritage, it is the moral traditions, lifestyles, and traditional ways of life of society. Everyone understands that preserving cultural heritage goes hand in hand with socio-economic development, but the alarming thing is that social morality is deteriorating, and the good traditions of our ancestors that have been passed down for thousands of years are gradually being lost.

In order to fulfill the requirement of protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage, contributing to building, preserving and developing an advanced Vietnamese culture with strong national identity, promoting the cultural values and strength of the Vietnamese people, creating motivation to realize the aspiration of developing a prosperous and happy country, it is necessary to synchronously implement a number of the following solutions: First, perfecting the legal system, policy mechanisms, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of State management in the field of cultural heritage. Second, harmoniously resolving the relationship between cultural heritage conservation and socio-economic development. Third, strengthening inspection and examination work; management capacity and developing sustainable human resources. Fourth, promoting the role of the community, improving the effectiveness of socialization of activities to protect and promote the value of cultural heritage; Respecting and promoting diverse cultural forms of each ethnic community and locality. Fifth, actively promote and diversify propaganda measures, have an extensive communication strategy...

Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country. The ethnic groups in our country, although having different languages, customs and practices, are all parts of the Vietnamese national community, working together, uniting to fight against natural disasters and enemies to build and defend the country. The distinct cultural nuances of each ethnic group are shaped, developed and complemented each other, creating unity in the diversity of Vietnamese culture.

Source: dangcongsan.vn