In the long history of human society, our brave, wise and hard-working ancestors created rich and colorful civilizations. As time goes by, some of these civilizations have become history, some have continued forever, and some have blended with each other to create new civilizations. Today, human civilization is undergoing profound changes. Scientific and technological progress and economic and cultural exchanges have shortened the distance between various civilizations. Whether on the Champs Elysées in Paris or Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, you can see people with different clothes, different skin colors, and different native languages ??walking one after another. Whether in the East or the West, people's interactions have never been as close as they are today, and the factors that affect people's daily lives are no longer limited to a certain culture. Culture is the soul of a nation and the basis for its survival and continuation. Whether it is the Chinese nation or the French nation, the culture we each inherit and carry forward is the root of the nation and the soul of the country. Cultural diversity is an important feature of human civilization. Cultural diversity is to human society what biological diversity is to the natural world. It is an objective reality. Only by respecting cultural diversity can human civilization develop.
How to make different civilizations survive and develop ultimately lies in "harmony." This is peace between countries, harmony between people, and harmony between people and nature.
At the height of the development of human civilization, we should put peace first. Is it possible for countries with different civilizations to coexist peacefully? The answer is yes. We live on this planet with more than 6 billion people, more than 200 countries, more than 2,500 ethnic groups, more than 6,000 languages, and many religions such as Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism. It is the interdependence, mutual exchange, mutual learning and mutual complementation of these different civilizations that constitute today's rich and colorful world. Since ancient times, China has held the idea of ????valuing harmony, harmony in diversity, and harmony among living things. "Harmony is most important" means that unity, mutual assistance, and friendly coexistence should be the highest state between countries, ethnic groups, and people; "harmony without difference" means that a country or a nation can accommodate different civilizations. "Harmonious Creation" means that only when different civilizations learn from each other can cultural relics be transformed into new ones and the progress of civilization be promoted. "Harmony" is the basic spirit of Chinese cultural tradition and the ideal state that the Chinese nation pursues unremittingly. As early as more than a thousand years ago, China's Tang Dynasty had very active foreign exchanges. There are more than 70 countries in the world that have contacts with the Tang Dynasty. There was an endless stream of peaceful missions and caravans along the Silk Road. At that time, Chinese culture spread to the Eastern Roman Empire and Arab countries. At the same time, the dance, music, painting, food, clothing, and religion of the Tang Dynasty also absorbed the essence of foreign culture, pushing Chinese civilization to a new peak.
Harmonious coexistence between people is an important symbol of social civilization and the foundation of national stability. Mencius, the famous ancient Chinese thinker, once said: "The weather is not as good as the right place, and the right place is not as good as the people." That is to say, as long as people live in harmony, any difficulty can be overcome. To truly realize harmony among people, we need to develop social productivity, eliminate poverty and backwardness, and enable people to live a prosperous life; we need to achieve social fairness and justice, insist on equality before the law, and respect and protect human rights. ; It is necessary to encourage people of different nationalities and different beliefs to tolerate each other, respect each other, be kind to others, and work as neighbors.
The harmonious coexistence between man and nature is the prerequisite for the development of human civilization. Chinese culture advocates the idea of ??"harmony between man and nature". The so-called unity of nature and man includes the meaning of the unity of man and nature. Resources and environment are the basic conditions for human survival. The development of human civilization has always been dependent on nature. People can understand nature, survive and develop in harmony with nature, but cannot destroy nature. An important reason why some ancient civilizations went from prosperity to decline was the wanton exploitation and plunder of nature, which ultimately led to nature's punishment of humans and led to the tragedy of civilization. Therefore, caring for nature and treating nature well are the common interests of all mankind. An unbalanced earth cannot support the building of modern civilization.