Origins of Vietnamese cultural policy
Originally conceived in the mountains of the resistance zone, Vietnamese cultural policy became firmly subordinated after 1945 to the task of strengthening the Communist revolution and advancing the socialist cause. Today Communist Party General Secretary Trường Chinh’s 1943 idea of building a ‘progressive Vietnamese culture and imbued with national identity’ remains the cornerstone of Vietnamese cultural policy. However, as Việt Nam moves into a market economy under the banner of
dổi mới (‘renovation’) new thinking, represented primarily by the doctrine of ‘socialisation’ (
xã hội hóa), has also come to the fore.
As applied in Việt Nam, the term ‘culture’ (văn hóa) should be understood in its wider sense of the inherited, learned and shared behaviour of the community, defined by anthropologist Sir Edward B Tylor as 'that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society' and more recently by the 1982 Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies as 'the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a society or social group.' As such culture may be seen to embrace many different forms of cultural expression, including but not limited to the arts (nghệ thuật).
Contemporary Vietnamese cultural policy finds its origins in an outline for the preservation and development of Vietnamese cultre (
đề cường về văn hóa) drafted by Communist Party General Secretary Trường Chinh and adopted by the Communist Party Central Committee in 1943 during the resistance war against the French and Japanese. Designed as a rallying point for artists and intellectuals in the long struggle against foreign aggressors, this document contains five key points – (i) culture is the spiritual foundation of society and a motivating force for socio-economic development; (ii) Việt Nam’s culture should be ‘progressive and imbued with national identity’ (
tiên tiến, đậm đà bản sắc dân tộc); (iii) Việt Nam’s culture is united and diversified; (iv) the Party leads all the people in building and developing culture; and (v) culture is an ideological battleground and developing it is a long term ‘revolutionary cause’.
Key objectives of Vietnamese cultural policy as set out in this document include raising the overall level of knowledge of the working classes in the field of culture, science and aesthetics; developing the cultural life of rural and remote areas; nurturing and developing the rich and diverse cultural traditions of the 54 ethnic groups which make up the Vietnamese nation whilst promoting that body of core values, ideology and culture which characterise the Vietnamese national identity; and achieving harmony between economic and cultural development.
