There are many definitions or concepts for the culture and different interpretations, all of which recognize the important role of the culture in the history, the present and the future; for each person, family, community and nation. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) stated that “Culture is that which consists of lively activities and creations in the past and at present. Over the centuries, such activities and creations have formed a system of values, traditions and tastes – the elements which define the unique character of each nation.
For Vietnam, thousands of years ago, our forefathers made efforts and worked hard to cultivate vivid cultural values; leaving to today’s generation a system of cultural works running from the North to the South with abundant and proud spiritual heritages.
With a special position and role, Hanoi has a cultural background with great potential. Since King Ly Thai To placed his the permanent capital in Thang Long until now, experiencing more than 1010 years, the land of Thang Long – Hanoi has been a place with “the soul of mountains and rivers for thousands of years” and of converged and crystallized national culture. Hanoi also selectively absorbed cultural values and human civilization to enrich its cultural vitality. The millennial city does not only deserve to be the heart of the whole country, but also is honored by friends around the world as “The Capital of Conscience and Human Dignity”, “City for Peace”, “City of Creativity”. “… “Culture, heroism, peace, friendship” which have long become noble qualities and fine traditions making up Hanoi’s cultural identity.
In 2008, Hanoi merged with Ha Tay province, Me Linh district (Vinh Phuc province) and 4 communes Dong Xuan, Tien Xuan, Yen Trung, Yen Binh (belonging to Luong Son district, Hoa Binh province). This created a new stature for the Capital and thickened Hanoi’s culture, especially the addition of Doai culture.
Currently, Hanoi is possessing invaluable and extremely rich heritage treasures, including 5,922 relics, 1 world cultural heritage, 1,793 intangible cultural heritages; with 3 heritages registered by UNESCO as representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity and 1 world documentary heritage. Hanoi also possessed a system of 1,350 craft villages and those with crafts which contain unique cultural features and high economic value.
All of those have shown that Hanoi’s culture is a source of great strength in terms of aspects, levels, depth, scale and nature.
President Ho Chi Minh recognized culture as a torch that “lights the path for the nation to go”. Thanks to the strength of culture, our country has overcome many difficulties and challenges; ” preventing storms and thunderstorms in the morning and preventing the sun and fire in the afternoon”, “Haughtily standing up after getting rid of mud”, and set up many victories which were included into history records. After victories over colonialism and imperialism and the success of 35 innovation years, the country has been constantly developed with internationally recognized potential, position and prestige which have never seen before.
As a capital and thanks to the strength of the national center of culture, Hanoi has long become a symbol of the national self-reliance will with its milestones through thousand years of history, from “Dong A spirit” to the spirit of “Determined to Brave Death for the Survival of the Fatherland” has penetrated deeply in the blood of Hanoians.
Despite accounting for 1% of land area and 8.5% of the population as currently recorded, Hanoi has annually contributed to over 16% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 18.5% of the state budget revenue, 20% of domestic revenue and 8.6% of total export and import turnover of the whole country. The capital has gradually deserved its role as “the center of political-administrative affairs, culture, science, education, economy and international transactions of the whole country”.
Thanks to the cultural strength which has been expressed from the patriotism, solidarity and humanity, despite the heavy impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in the two years (2020-2021), Hanoi is still a bright spot and an example for taking the lead in pandemic prevention, maintaining economic growth, ensuring social security, maintaining security and defense and successfully completing political tasks such as coordinating with The Central Committee which protects the absolute safety of the 13th National Party Congress and the election of the 15th National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels for the 2021-2026 period…
In 2021, Hanoi was an area at high risk of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, with the efforts and determination of the whole political system, especially the support of the residents, the business community, Hanoi has proactively taken measures in advance and implemented flexible adjustments to prevent the spread of the pandemic, protect the health and safety of residents and minimize economic losses. Since the re-opening of activities until now, despite the increased number of SARS-CoV-2 infected cases, the situation has been still under control. The city has actively established the state of “safe adaptation, flexibility, effective control of the Covid-19 epidemic” in accordance with Resolution 128/NQ-CP of the Government and focused on solving difficulties in production and business. business.
Due to the social distancing for 4 times (60 days), Hanoi’s economic growth was decreased by more than 7% compared with that in the third quarter. But just after implementing “New Normal”, the economic growth recovered sharply (increased by 6.69% in the fourth quarter). The city’s GRDP in 2021 still increased by 2.92% compared with that in the previous year, higher than the national average rate (2.58%). Total state budget revenue in the city exceeded by 12.3% compared with the cost estimation assigned by the Central Government and 5.3% compared with the cost estimation assigned by the city People’s Council; meeting the needs of expenditure for development investment, frequent expenditure, expenditure for Covid-19 pandemic prevention, expenditure for social security and other tasks assigned by the city. The inflation was controlled, the average consumer price index (CPI) for the whole year 2021 increased by 1.77% (it is 2.67% in 2020), etc.
Despite positive results achieved in the context of common difficulties, the city’s leaders were deeply aware that the tradition of solidarity and creativity must be promoted and efforts should be made to successfully implement the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress and the Resolution of the 17th Party Congress of the City Party Committee, focusing on the exploitation of potentials and strengths to make the Capital develop quickly and sustainably in the direction of a green city, a smart and modern city with high competitiveness in the country and in the region.
In which, one of the potential strengths that should be focused for exploiting is cultural resources.
As calculated, in 2018, the cultural industry contributed around 1.49 billion USD to the city’s GRDP, accounting for 3.7%. This is still a small number that is not commensurate with the potential of Hanoi’s culture as well as the goal of becoming one of the three cultural industrial centers of the country as set out by the Government’s Cultural Development Strategy. Meanwhile, the cultural development is one of the key issues and a prominent content in the Documents of the 13th National Congress of the Party.
Speaking at the National Cultural Conference on implementing the Resolution of the XIII Congress on 24 November 2021, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong pointed out that this was the first time when the cultural field was comprehensively and deeply mentioned in the documents of the Party and Party Congress, from the topic of the Congress to views, goals, major orientations, key tasks and strategic breakthroughs. The documents of the Congress emphasized one of the main and cross-cutting guiding views: “Strongly arousing the patriotism, the will of national self-reliance and the desire for developing a prosperous and happy country. Promoting the strength of the whole political system, culture and Vietnamese people…”.
Thus, arousing the cultural strength is not only an urgent set out by the actual situation but also a political task of the Party Committee, governments and residents of the Capital.
In order to do that, all levels of Party committees, authorities, Vietnamese Fatherland Front and organizations from the city to the grassroots levels, firstly the Party committees, Party organizations and heads must be deeply aware of cultural development duty mentioned in the documents of the 17th Congress of Deputies (for 2020-2025 period) of the City Party Committee. That is giving the focus on developing Hanoi’s culture on the basis of the promotion of the thousand-year-old tradition of civilization and heroism; the City for Peace and absorbing the cultural quintessence of humanity. Building the image of elegant, civilized, comprehensively developed Hanoians with deep human values and patriotic spirit, a sense of legal compliance; abundant national pride, the will and aspiration for development; considering this as an endogenous strength and great spiritual motivation for the sustainable development of the Capital.
Cultural development must be placed in the overall development and establishment of stronger Party Committee and political system; complete the annual socio-economic development goals, targets and tasks, ensure social security, maintain security – defense, social order and safety. Foremost, the whole political system from the city to the grassroots levels shall work together with the business community and residents to successfully implement the set 22 socio-economic development targets in 2022, especially make efforts to achieve GRDP growth of 7-7.5%.
Developing culture and residents is a long-term career which requires perseverance, prudence and constant study for renewing development thinking, ensuring the maintained leadership role of the Party and improved effectiveness and efficiency of the state management and ensuring the “right role and grasping tasks task” for each agency, organization and individual who perform cultural development tasks.
In order to perform well, the city’s authorities of all levels should give directions on cultural development strategic planning which is commensurate with the potential and advantages of the capital; ensuring appropriate allocation of investment resources to create favorable mechanisms for attracting social resources to meet development requirements and making Hanoi deserves to be a big cultural center of the country. In that process, Hanoi must be placed in the time flow of the country and efforts must be made to build a richer, more beautiful, civilized and modern capital; it is required to proactively give forecasts and take advantage of favorable international factors for rapid development, be ready to cope with and overcome the impact of negative and risky factors such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic. We must analyze and evaluate the potential and development level of Hanoi in comparison with the capitals of other countries; thereby correctly identify and promote comparative advantages to affirm its position in the global production network and value chain; combine and solve harmoniously the patient pursuing of long-term goals in line with the strategic vision and the effectively-focused mobilization of all resources for successfully implementing short and medium-term goals. At the same time, it is required to strongly promote the realization of the goal of building up a “Creative City”.
Recently, the city has removed obstacles to commence the project on preservation, embellishment and promotion of Ha Temple relic value. This is a national historical and cultural relic which belongs to the Tan Vien Son Thanh relic complex in Minh Quang commune (Ba Vi district). The project not only has historical, cultural and spiritual significance, meeting the aspirations of the people and possibly creating tourism attraction, contributing to the development of the local economy. This project will open a series of projects to restore important relics to create new momentum for cultural tourism and history of the capital such as Kinh Thien Palace (Thang Long Imperial Citadel), Ngo Quyen Temple (the relics of Co Loa, Dong Anh district), Tram pagoda (Chuong My district), …
Each district, town, ward, commune and agencies, units and organizations in the city’s political system must also have specific cultural development plans with focused investments on some highlighted heritages, creating new momentum on the tourism culture and residents’ income.
The whole city focuses on establishment of a healthy and humane cultural environment in the political system, in each village community, residential area and group, schools, agencies, enterprises and each family. The key task is to practice political culture for officers, officials and civil servants at all levels in association with promoted study following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and style, the Party’s regulations on setting an example and spirit of the 4th Central Conference (in the XII and XIII terms). All levels and sectors continuously improve the efficiency of the implementation of the city’s 2 codes of conduct; encourage the construction and development of corporate and entrepreneurial culture; replicating cultural models in families, communities, schools, progressive and civilized cultural lifestyle in weddings and festivals…
We must patiently implement the goal of building up the image of elegant and civilized Hanoians; taking the families and the residential community as the main fulcrum for implementation; effectively combine the dissemination, advocacy, education and the strength of the legal system, including the task of the Capital Law amendments and revision.
Based on the implementation of the Resolution of the City Party Committee on “Developing the cultural industry in the Capital area for the 2021-2025 period, vision up to 2030”, all levels and sectors must thoroughly grasp the awareness on cultural industry development as a spearhead economic sector with interdisciplinary, inter-regional and highly socialized characteristic which takes the culture and human as the foundation, resource and driving force for the sustainable Capital development. The goal is that the cultural industry will make contribution of about 5% by 2025; 8% by 2030 and 10% by 2045 to the city’s GRDP.
In order to promote the cultural strength, we must take advantage of all resources in terms of finance, science and technological knowledge; make efforts to become an attractive destination for exchange, cooperation, promotion and organization of prestigious domestic and international cultural and sports events. Firstly, it is necessary to build up a network of “Hanoi Initiatives” to attract, gather and promote the enthusiasm, intelligence and love for Hanoi of local and foreign artists, intellectuals, entrepreneurs and the community.
A new spring is coming. The Party Committee, government and Hanoi residents are proud of their achievements after a year full of difficulties and challenges and confidently move towards the goals and tasks in the year 2022 with the determination for arousing the strength of the culture, bringing Hanoi to a new level. This is not an easy goal; but together with efforts of the whole political system, the companionship and sharing of Hanoians with their love and community responsibility, it is strongly believed that we will do success.
To all residents, officers and soldiers of the Capital, congratulations on a new year of health, happiness and a new success!
Photo: Viet Thanh and Collaborators
Design: T.P
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