The New York Philharmonic led by ROK Drop certified Useful Idiot Lorin Maazel yesterday finished their highly anticipated concert in North Korea:
The claims before the concert were that this concert is a sign of North Korea opening up and could be a step towards more friendly relations because the concert that was going to be broadcast across North Korea on state TV. Ask yourself who in North Korea was watching the concert after seeing this image?:
The regime elite in Pyongyang watched this concert which Kim Jong-il couldn’t even be bothered to attend. I haven’t seen anything to suggest this concert did any more then what B.R. Myers warned it would:
We can of course expect Mr. Maazel to return home claiming to have found cultural “common ground” with his hosts. We will also hear a lot of patriotic hooey about the spine-tingling effects of playing the Star-Spangled Banner in Kim Jong Il’s front yard. Meanwhile North Korean propaganda — not the glossy-papered, English-language kind, but the gray-papered stuff the locals get — will set about misrepresenting the performance as a tributary visit, the paper tiger’s latest effort to curry favor from the iron-willed “General.”
The timing is fortuitous, since the months from February to April mark the annual highpoint of the North’s personality cult ritual. And two or three years from now, the regime will almost certainly publish a new installment of Immortal Leadership, a series of novels celebrating the main triumphs of the Dear Leader’s rule. The story will be simple: Kim tests nuke, Washington protests, Kim hangs tough, Washington sends musicians to entertain him. And isn’t that a fairly accurate version of events? [Wall Street Journal]
Reports have come out however that Lorin Maazel ate the best food available in North Korea, outside what the Dear Leader is eating of course (HT: reader):
North Korea is already lining up their next entertainer to reinforce Kim Jong-il’s cult of personality with a request for Eric Clapton to play in the isolated country. The day these musicians due a multi-day tour across the country is the day change is coming to North Korea; a short concert for the regime elite in Pyongyang changes nothing.
You can read more over at the Marmot’s Hole.
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7:04 am on February 28th, 2008 1
“Patriotic hooey” as described in the WSJ notwithstanding, me and the guys in my office were mighty proud to be Americans when we heard the SSB and saw Old Glory standing on a stage in P-Yang on the news reports. I was truly moved.
CRUSH CHONGER!
9:14 am on February 28th, 2008 2
GI, it was a ass-kissing fest. More details are emerging from the event, and I have to say human rights were not one of them. Elites were eating, drinking and being merry while people in the countryside starve and people in the gulags die.
Any money paid goes into the pocket of the regime and nobody seems to care. You said what needed to be said, but I think I am going to add some commentary as well. Marcus Noland had some choice words too.
1:32 pm on February 28th, 2008 3
If Kim Jong Il happened to listen to NPR and watch PBS, as I did, he’d have seen that his ploy was a smashing success.
When I read the the band is going to play in Seoul next, I thought they should be forced to watch a command performance of Yoduk Story.
The world is a fairly pathetic place….
6:10 pm on February 28th, 2008 4
Such Anger
It was a cultural exchange
Lighten up people
2:42 am on February 29th, 2008 5
Cultural exchange my ass. It was a public relations stunt. The North Koreans have no interest in exchanging culture. They are interested in preserving their corrupt regime. Period.
6:22 am on February 29th, 2008 6
Not to mention lining the pockets of the regime.
6:57 am on February 29th, 2008 7
Wow cant you see we are opening doors with such events as this
I think the NKs are trying to join the rest of the international community. I would not be surprised if they decided to send troops to Iraq in support of the war on terrorism
2:37 pm on February 29th, 2008 8
[...] so if you have not seen the other blogs (which I am sure you already have), make sure to read ROK Drop and Marmots. NKEconWatch has some good links to follow as well to get some more [...]
3:35 pm on February 29th, 2008 9
[...] in DPRK the night the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played (TMH’s sly derision, ROK Drop’s matter-of-fact outrage, Joshua’s total outrage). But, if not only a way to dupe those foolish American liberals, it was a [...]
7:57 am on August 21st, 2008 10
[...] would funnel even more millions of dollars to the North Korean regime and of course he is using the farce of the New York Philharmonic trip to Pyongyang as rationale for giving millions to Kim [...]