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| Miao women hold a contest on embroidery as an activity for cultural and historical heritage. |
In the last 300 years of development of the West, science and rationality, together with capitalism which advocates free competition, has been pushing the world towards modernisation in anticipation of the dawning of a brave new world. As a mode of development, modernisation implies industrialisation, urbanisation and the transformation from a subsistence economy to a commodity economy. Modernisation has been considered by many as the only course of evolution and advancement for all societies, but in the process traditional cultures are repudiated and rejected as 'backward' and 'superstitious'.
However, with the passage of time, we witness lamentable scenes of global ecological disasters, alienated human relationships and loss of spiritual values, as consequences of rampant development facilitated by modernisation. There is a wealth of wisdom in traditional cultures which could provide a way out of these predicaments. In this issue of the e-newsletter, we explore elements of traditional culture that support the practice of sustainable living in modern societies. Our colleagues and friends use examples and cases from our programmes to explain how traditional cultures help to rebuild the harmonious relationship between human beings and nature so that a healthy natural ecology may be restored, and how community solidarity and cultural belongingness, when rediscovered, may help to rebuild connections among human beings.
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