Lai Shianlung, Standing member of CAPDTC, former senior official of Social and Economic Affairs Office of the United Nations: "Comment on the policy of preservation and development of Tibetan culture---Perspective on the development process of UN"

I. Globalization and Cultural Issues in Development Process

Globalization is one of the most noticeable phenomena of the current world development trend. The United Nations has since the beginning of this 21st century put forth a Millennium Development Agenda as guidance for the development effort for countries around the world. One of the emerging issues confronted with most of the countries is the notion of “Cultural Right”. Due to such an unprecedently enormous flow of cultural exchanges, integrations, as well as conflicts in many places in the world, the question of how best to manage and mitigate such a huge scale of exchange and conflict over language, religion, culture, ethnicity has taken of extreme importance. If the world is to reach the Millennium Development goals and ultimately to eradicate poverty, it must first successfully confront the challenge of how to build inclusive, culturally diverse societies. Not just because doing so successfully is a precondition for countries to focus on other priorities of economic growth, health and education for all citizens. But because allowing people full cultural expression is an important development end in itself. The United Nations Millennium Development Agenda has put priority to build and manage the politics of identity and culture in a manner consistent with the bedrock principles of human development.

The united Nations strategy in this regard, however, is to highlight and emphasize the vast potential of building a more peaceful, prosperous world by bringing issues of culture to the mainstream of development thinking and practice. Not to substitute for more traditional priorities that will remain to be countries’ core development process but to complement and strengthen them.

II. Emphasis on the Social Development

Since the 1995 world Social Summit, the United Nations Millennium Development Agenda (MDA) has shifted its emphasis to areas of the Social Development, which include provision of basic education, public health, environmental protection, basic infrastructure, legal infrastructures, institutional renovation, etc. The primary goal of such a development strategy is to aim at enhancing humanitarian living preconditions for further economic growth and political stability. Many practical examples in various developing countries have shown the effectiveness of such a strategy.

III. China's Policy on the Development of Tibet Autonomous Region

In view of the last two decades of the China’s development policies and programs in Tibet since China’s Reform and Open Door - policy initiated in 1978, many cases have shown the government has put social development as her priority in her development effort. Huge budgets and support have been provided to build up basic physical infrastructures in Tibet as well as education and health related social facilities. Furthermore, the local culture has been carefully preserved and respected. In general, China has paid great attention toward the role of culture in the development process to minimize any frictions and misunderstandings and to raise the level of protection of Tibetan traditional arts, music, drama, and religious cultural entities. The modalities and approaches applied to develop Tibet are of great interests to and admiration in the international development professional community. Empirical cases have shown such an effort is in general in agreement with the basic principles of the United Nations Millennium Development Agenda.

IV. The Concept of Cultural Liberty

While the United Nations MDA recognizes the cultural right of people in their development process, it also needs to point out that in a globalized world, cultural progress itself is a dynamic process in which different ethnic values, behavior codes, living customs, institutional forms are all changing and evolving when different peoples and cultures interact to each other. Preservation of culture should not be interpreted as static form of keeping the culture in a fixed time framework. How best to manage such. an inter—exchange and mutual influencing of different cultures is one of the most sensitive and delicate development tasks in a globalized world. While the United Nations MDA emphasizes the cultural right of people in different countries and areas but such a development agenda also implies a concept of “Cultural Liberty”, which means the people should have their right to select and to choose their cultural expressions in their development process. For instance, preservation of traditional visual arts iv important but to further develop them and to enrich them so to meet the demand of the people in a modern world and for a modern life is even more important for the people to be able to enjoy their life and to appreciate the arts. For this purpose, it is crucial for a society to develop itself into a culturally inclusive one, so different cultures have an equal opportunity to interact each other, to enrich each other, to promote the development of the society as a whole. The concept of “Freedom of Choice as a Development” emphasized by Nobel–Laureate economist Amartya Sen explained this concept well. Without the freedom of choice, the development would be meaningless, not to mention the “cultural liberty”, which now represents the main objective of a true development of a country and a people.

V. Poverty Eradication as the Key of Cultural Preservation and Development

Many discussions on the cultural right have been centered on which and how the traditional cultural forms and their related expressions are to be kept or preserved or promoted. While this is an important aspect of cultural preservation, but there are additional important dimensions of the concept of cultural liberty in the development process. The fundamental objective of development is to enhance and to better the living conditions of people under consideration. For many developing countries and people, the most important and urgent development objectives is to eradicate poverty and at the same time, to assure their living environment is sustainable, only then their lasting welfare could be quarantined. This is the basic concept of sustainable of development which the United Nation MDA has long aimed at.

The strategy is to include cultural elements into the poverty eradication and environment protection programs and processes. The strategies and programs and actions of cultural preservation and development are built into the whole development process in all activities concerned with efforts of local economic growth, social enhancement, and political stabilization. The final result of such development effort will naturally and intrinsically preserve or even promote those cultural elements which are in favor of the development process and abandon those negative cultural elements which have been shown detrimental to the development. Only a country or a region or an area where people live reasonably well economically and socially, could they preserve their valuable cultural traditions and further develop their positive cultural elements.

Globalization has brought cultural exchanges and integrations as well as frictions and conflicts into the frontier of development. For countries and regions and peoples to actively engage exchanges and to effectively manage its interactions with different cultures, one of the most relevant key approaches or strategies to truly enhance their own development is to include and build the element of cultural liberty in their development process.

Lai Shianlung, Standing member of CAPDTC, former senior official of Social and Economic Affairs Office of the United Nations