In recent days, the topic "Shanxi ancient buildings are threatened in the wind and rain" has rushed to the hot search, and the repair, protection and revitalization of ancient buildings in Shanxi have become the focus of attention from all walks of life. It is understood that due to the continuous rainstorm disaster, many cultural relics with heavy historical background in Shanxi are at risk of being damaged. Among the nearly 30,000 ancient architectural relics in Shanxi, less than 3% are listed as national and provincial cultural relics protection units. Most of the people affected by the rainstorm disaster are low-grade and ungraded cultural relics. There are 750 places that have reached a relatively serious situation, of which 84% are "low-guarantee" and ungraded immovable cultural relics at the municipal and county levels.
The vast majority of "high-guarantee" ancient buildings in Shanxi have borne this rain disaster, but the "low-guarantee" ancient buildings have not been so lucky. Among these "low-guarantee" or ungraded cultural relics, many of them have a history of hundreds of years, or even longer, why have cultural relics with such a rich historical and cultural heritage not been effectively protected? It is understood that the level of cultural relics protection is generally divided into national, provincial, municipal and county levels, thus forming a pyramid-style hierarchical structure responsible for cultural relics protection. Local financial resources are relatively limited, and the financial security is gradually decreasing from the state to the province to the city to the county. Insufficient funding is a common practical problem faced by grass-roots cultural relics protection departments.
As a precious non-renewable resource, the protection and repair of cultural relics requires not only certain financial support, but also professional restoration qualifications and technical means. According to article 20 of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics, the repair, relocation and reconstruction of cultural relics protection units shall be undertaken by the units that have obtained the qualification certificate of cultural relics protection projects. In the face of the heavy task of cultural relics protection and the actual needs of expanding utilization, it is far from enough to rely on the input of governments at all levels. Since 2017, Shanxi Province has launched the "Civilized Watch Project" to encourage more social forces to participate in the adoption of cultural relics and let more people participate in the protection of cultural relics. Yongtai County, Fujian Province, made full use of the power of the people and set up a council in the ancient village to be responsible for the maintenance, operation and management of the ancient houses in zhuangzhai. There are also places that explore tourism to promote protection, create ancient characteristic homestays, and focus on immersive living experiences, attracting many tourists and basically achieving a balance of revenue.
In this incident, there are views that although there are strict procedures for the grading of cultural relics, organized by a special cultural protection management agency, and approved by experts and approved by the state cultural relics management department, the classification can be classified, but for Shanxi, a large province for the protection of cultural relics, should it be considered to give cultural relics more inclination and protection in terms of policy and economy according to local conditions? It is understood that because Shanxi is very rich in cultural relics, in the process of declaring the grading of cultural relics, there are indeed some good ancient buildings that have not been listed in the "high guarantee", but they cannot be treated extensively because the protection level of these cultural relics is low or not graded. The author believes that the relevant departments should step up the re-grading of ungraded cultural relics, and at the same time, strengthen the repair and maintenance of graded cultural relics, and use daily repairs to replace or reduce the number of "major repairs" so that cultural relics can maintain their original cultural heritage.
These seemingly inconspicuous ancient buildings not only carry historical information for thousands of years, but also carry the cultural memory of a region. As an important legal supervision organ, while continuing to crack down on cultural relics violations and crimes, procuratorial organs should also give full play to the procuratorial functions of public interest litigation and strengthen the protection of cultural relics. In addition to carrying out the protection of cultural relics that have now been graded, it is also necessary to take the initiative to discover those cultural relics that have been forgotten or are in danger of destruction, actively expand the scope of public interest litigation, and promote the administrative organs with the responsibility of supervising the protection of cultural relics to fully perform their duties in accordance with the law, so as to contribute to the procuratorial force for the protection of cultural relics in the new era.
(Source: Procuratorial Daily Author: Zhao Xiaoming)