Former Minister Le Doan Hop: "Ethics is the root of culture"
Respectfully publish a very interesting and meaningful article by Mr. Le Doan Hop - former member of the Party Central Committee, former Minister of Information and Communications, former Secretary of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of Nghe An Association in Hanoi.
"Never before have the mass media mentioned ethics and culture as much as they do today. It is completely reasonable that people talk a lot about culture being closely linked to ethics. Because ethics is the root of culture. Culture is the outward expression of ethics. A person with ethics is always cultured. A person is cultured because he or she has ethics.
In my opinion, the most precious thing for a person is health. The most precious thing for nature is green. The most precious thing for a country is culture. National culture has three most important pillars expressed in three aspects of society, economy and politics: family culture, business culture and office culture (public ethics).
I remember at the end of 2006, in the conference summarizing the Culture and Information sector; Many delegates asked questions about how to develop criteria to measure a cultured person. With the responsibility of the head of the Culture and Information sector, at the end of the conference, I proposed 3 concepts to define a cultured person as follows:
A cultured person is someone who makes others feel comfortable wherever they appear (That is behavioral culture).
A cultured person is someone who is shy when first meeting, happy to talk to, and looking forward to meeting again when parting (That is intellectual culture).
Mr. Le Doan Hop - Former Minister of Information and Communications.
A cultured person is a person who always enjoys the fruits of his legitimate labor (That is material culture).
Having these 3 elements is a person with the standard culture we desire.
In early 2007, when I visited and worked in Japan, when I had a meeting with my Japanese counterpart, I boldly said: I really admire Japanese culture, the pinnacle of which is 5 values: love children. Respect women. Respect the elderly. Honor the talented. Be strict with those who make mistakes. I asked the Japanese Minister of Culture if he could summarize in a few words what the highest cultural characteristics of the Japanese people are, so that I could easily implement them in Vietnam.
Before that, I mentioned 3 concepts of a cultured person in Vietnam so that the Japanese Minister could easily visualize and choose words. The Japanese Minister gently exchanged: Culture is so vast that it is very difficult to generalize it into a few words, but I will temporarily find a few words to answer you first, later when we meet again, I will add more. The shortest way to generalize Japanese culture is "not bothering others". I immediately realized that this is Ho Chi Minh's culture. Uncle Ho never bothered his subordinates...
In mid-June 2008, I visited and worked in Egypt. I took the opportunity to ask my Egyptian counterpart why Egyptian Muslims are allowed to marry 4 wives. The Egyptian minister happily replied: Egyptian marriage law allows Muslims to marry 4 wives with the following specific conditions: To marry a second wife, the first wife must agree in writing. There must be a house for the second wife to live in, equivalent to the first wife, and the husband must have 500,000 dollars in his account.
Similarly, to take a third wife, the two previous wives must agree in writing. Having a house for the third wife to live in is equivalent to the two previous wives and the husband must have 1 million USD in his account. Likewise, when taking a fourth wife (this is the end), the three existing wives must agree. Having a house suitable for the fourth wife to live separately and the husband must have 1.5 million USD or more in his account. I think carefully and realize that, although being allowed to take 4 wives, the foundation of Egyptian Muslim marriage still upholds culture and ethics, with 4 honored values: Voluntariness, fairness, equality and the husband must know how to make money to nurture the happiness of all 4 of his small homes.
I think culture and ethics must be taken care of from the foundation: people, family, clan, homeland. In which family culture is the root. Because family is the basic economic unit, family is the basic security unit, family is the basic cultural unit. All the good or bad things of the country, the people, even of humanity always start and originate from the family.
Uncle Ho taught: Only when the family is good will the society be good. If the family is not peaceful, the society will not be happy. On the other hand, the morality and culture of the society also depend on the morality and culture of the ruling party. These are the two most important poles that we must take care of to have a nation rich in morality and culture.
That is why General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and the 12th Central Committee, 8th session, have just issued a Resolution on setting an example for senior officials of our Party and State. It can be said that setting an example is the true value of ethics and culture. Our Party has the right idea, let's act resolutely to regain the people's trust from the ethics and culture of Party members and officials, by setting an example for leaders, just like in Uncle Ho's time."
