I was going to post a comment about the NY Philharmonic’s impending appearance in Pyongyang but then just read that fellow blogger Steve Smith is going there…
Wow, that’s intense.
I’m conflicted on the propriety of the concert. I can certainly understand the argument for cultural engagement, as Lorin Maazel made it here. I also think there’s the danger of handing Kim Jong Il a whitewash opportunity. This is a regime that thrives on creepy pageantry. Maybe not such a great idea to plan a pageant there.
Maazel himself seems a little confused about the whole thing. On one hand he insists the event “must be totally apolitical, nonpartisan and free of issue-specific agendas.” On the other hand he blurted this out the other day:
Is our standing as a country — the United States — is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated?
This was a gift to the North Korean regime, and colossally disrespectful toward the regime’s victims. Maazel was very wise to clarify the statement.
This seems a good time to add that I was very happy with Barack Obama’s comments on Cuba during the most recent debate. Engage the Cuban leadership, yes, he said, but put the human rights issue at the top of the agenda. In other words, engagement doesn’t have to mean backslapping.
Political engagement, that is. As for Maazel’s apolitical, artistic engagement in the North Korean nightmare state — we’ll see how it goes.
[Update: Steve Smith’s first dispatch from North Korea is here.]
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