[Wu Bingan] Cultural security in the protection of my country's intangible cultural heritage

From the promulgation of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity at the beginning of the new century to the official entry into force of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, our work on protecting intangible culture has been carried out under extremely difficult circumstances.

During this period, international organizations have held many important meetings on protecting cultural diversity and protecting intangible cultural heritage.

Especially in recent years, many countries have successively held national conferences with the theme of cultural diversity and issued a series of legal documents to promote the theory and action plan of cultural diversity on a larger scale and even around the world to protect the intangible cultural heritage of their own country or nation.

At today's Yuhang Forum meeting, we will also pay close attention to the concept of cultural security to protect cultural diversity and the importance of intangible cultural heritage protection.

So far, the definition of cultural diversity and the significance of intangible cultural heritage protection elaborated in the Declaration and Convention have played an impeccable guiding role in practice.

Article 1 of the Declaration states: "Culture has taken diverse forms of expression in different times and places.

This cultural diversity is reflected in the uniqueness and diversity of the characteristics of the groups and societies that make up mankind.

As a source of communication, innovation and creation, cultural diversity is as essential to humans as biodiversity is to nature.

In this sense, cultural diversity is the common heritage of mankind and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of today and future generations of mankind." The Declaration also emphasized: "Cultural diversity is also one of the driving forces of development.

It is not only a factor that promotes economic growth, but also a means for individuals and groups to enjoy a more satisfying intellectual, emotional, and moral and spiritual life." The Convention also emphasizes: "Acknowledging that the process of globalization and social transformation, while creating conditions for new dialogue among groups, also, like intolerance, exposes intangible cultural heritage to serious threats of damage, disappearance and destruction.

This threat is particularly serious in the absence of protected resources." This passage is a very important judgment.

It reminds people that in the process of recognizing and promoting "globalization and social transformation", we must also see the threat of serious damage to intangible cultural heritage caused by globalization and social transformation, and regard this threat as an intolerable phenomenon.

This clear judgment warns people not to regard globalization and social transformation as 100%"modern civilization", but should clearly understand that in the process of modern civilization, it is also accompanied by the serious threat of destruction of "modern barbarism."

Second, the relationship between biodiversity and cultural diversity needs to be straightened.

For some time, the global media has been reporting heavily on the biodiversity crisis and strongly called on people to protect the environment and protect biodiversity.

However, mankind is also facing a crisis of the world's cultural diversity, which has attracted far less widespread attention than the biodiversity crisis.

The cultural field around the world has faced serious problems of loss of diversity, and the most serious one is that the importance of cultural diversity is not known to more people.

In fact, cultural diversity is no less important than biodiversity.

If cultural diversity is damaged, the human cultural and spiritual world that has been accumulated for tens of thousands of years will be threatened.

We already know that in the 1970s, there were still 8000 languages in common use around the world, but in just over 20 years, the number of languages has dropped by more than 2000.

Among the more than 6000 existing languages, vulnerable minority languages are rapidly extinct.

Due to the popularization of the common language on the global Internet, the extinction of spoken languages is accelerating.

As we all know, the demise of a national spoken language means a reduction in the diversity of world cultures, because while the language is lost, the culture that originally used this language as the carrier will inevitably be lost.

Today, the languages of some ethnic groups have disappeared or are disappearing.

Once a national language disappears, this national culture, especially oral and intangible cultural heritage, will also disappear, and will eventually seriously damage the cultural diversity of the world.

However, many facts have proved that ethnic minorities are the weak among the weak.

In order to survive, they have to give up their innate mother tongue and local culture, and are forced to be involved in the terrible turbulent trend of globalization.

Almost all conferences also called on the vast majority of developing countries to formulate relevant and effective policies to strengthen the protection of cultural fields of all ethnic groups and countries.

All activities that have been carried out to protect cultural diversity have repeatedly proved that culture is the first wealth of mankind, and only culture is the only area that equally accommodates everyone of every ethnic group, because the diverse cultures and arts of all ethnic groups have the same value.

The historical evolution of the law of cultural diversity is also a topic worthy of in-depth study.

In today's world political and economic context, culture is divided into strong and weak.

While focusing on the development of strong culture, we must also pay attention to the development of weak culture.

Faced with this dualism, scholars who safeguard the quintessence of China have also put forward with great emphasis in recent years that China's unique "national subject culture" should be developed under the premise of economic globalization and at the same time absorb excellent foreign culture.

However, there is still a lack of comprehensive and in-depth discussion on the connotation of China's "national dominant culture." In the explanations they have made, they clearly refer to the elite culture and art of the Han nationality, including calligraphy, painting, music, opera, ancient architecture, etc.

In other words, the folk culture and art of the Han nationality and the cultural and artistic heritage of 55 ethnic minorities, that is, the folk painting art, folk music, folk opera, residential buildings, etc.

of 56 ethnic groups are not included in the "national main culture".

In cultural practice, the traditional art categories of ethnic minorities are not strongly supported, and some are even on the verge of extinction.

On the one hand, the artificial assimilation policies and concepts left over from Han chauvinism in history are still very popular in many ethnic areas and cultural fields; on the other hand, ethnic cadres in some ethnic minority areas have not shown due attention and respect for the artistic heritage of their own ethnic groups.

In particular, there are still many ambiguous issues in terms of understanding and protection policies for the identification and protection of transnational ethnic traditional artistic heritage in our country.

All of these have become obstacles and obstacles to the protection of the cultural and artistic heritage of ethnic minorities in our country.

After investigation, many scientists at home and abroad agreed that almost all the vast areas around China where ethnic minorities live are concentrated are areas where the world's biodiversity and ethnic cultural diversity are concentrated.

The current local environment and the ethnic culture and art of poverty-stricken areas are very fragile; The local government has not fully considered international standards for cultural diversity protection in economic construction, social development and poverty alleviation projects, and has not established a complete system for evaluating and monitoring major protection projects, policy implementation environment and cultural impact; At present, there are no cooperative institutions for training and education, and there are no interdisciplinary cultural diversity protection talents; To this day, it has not been possible to compile and promulgate a relatively complete list of national cultural resources and cultural and artistic heritage protection; there is a lack of publicity and public awareness construction on cultural diversity protection, allowing the whole society to understand the close relationship between cultural diversity and biodiversity.

The relationship and its importance, and the call to respect the existence value of various ethnic groups and different cultures is very weak; economic decision-making and legal research on the protection of cultural diversity still need to be strengthened.