How to deal with a bloody dictatorship that has cult-like tendencies and a penchant for nuclear weapons testing? Why, send them an orchestra, of course.
The New York Philharmonic is back from its North Korean debut last week, and while I'm glad to hear they made it out alive, it's difficult to say what sort of mission they have accomplished.
Playing music in North Korea is like donating paintings to the Nazis or performing ballet for the Janjaweed.
At first, it sounded like a noble undertaking. After all, if we can play music behind the Bamboo Curtain, it's a step toward peace and disarmament, right? Art transcending borders.
Well, not exactly. The more I think about this, the more na've it seems in retrospect. It was the creative endeavor of a group that has seen far too many Disney movies - which they probably don't allow in North Korea.
As I read various news reports on the performance in Pyongyang, I was troubled by certain details. One article mentioned how the performers, who played in a luxurious concert hall, expressed some concern over the fact that people were living without food or electricity just down the street.
Other writers noted how the audience seemed for the most part unaffected by the music. The listeners, who were hand-selected by the North Korean government, sat stoically and avoided eye contact with American press, rarely so much as tapping a foot to the beat.
It is difficult, I imagine, to appreciate art under the barrel of a gun.
The musicians were allowed practically no interaction with actual citizens. Even when four American string players joined with four North Koreans for an octet by Mendelssohn, there was practically no dialogue. The Koreans left silently and promptly after they finished playing.
The cold silence which greeted the Philharmonic at so many turns was not merely the product of culture shock - it was a planned political tool. These people live under a regime that isolates them completely and controls all the information they hear.
And so a group of freedom-loving artists became fodder for a powerful propaganda machine. That's not to say they didn't have their own agendas, though.
When confronted about the fact that his group would be performing in a country that enslaves hundreds of thousands of its own people in Soviet-style labor camps, director Lorin Maazel said, "Is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated? ... If we can answer that question honestly, I think we can then stop being judgmental about the errors made by others."
In other words, the injustices of Guantanamo put our government on the same moral low ground as a raving lunatic who starves children, strangles dissent and maintains gulags. This is a disgustingly offensive insinuation, and it highlights the way in which this performance said, "It's OK. We'll forget about your crimes against humanity for tonight."