Keep The New York Philharmonic On The Road
WASHINGTON — Let us hope that the next president of the United States knows some history.And let us hope that the next president will know that the United States cannot call all the shots, or pick and choose which leader-dictator we will talk to or decide which countries can have unconventional weapons.
In other words, the U.S. should not rely totally on the arrogance of its formidable power in its foreign relations.
That is why the performance of the New York Philharmonic in the Stalinist-style closed society of North Korea is a remarkable breakthrough.
Music is the universal language. In the case of North Korea, the New York Philharmonic’s concert last week may be viewed years from now as the small step that eventually opened the way for more cultural contacts and understanding between two countries that have been at sword-point since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Overwhelmed by the warm reception in Pyongyang, North Korea, Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic’s music director, told reporters: “I think it’s going to do a great deal for Korean-U.S relations. We may have been instrumental in opening a little door.”
The White House did all it could to play down its significance.
“At the end of the day,” press secretary Dana Perino said, “we consider this concert to be a concert. And it’s not a diplomatic coup.”
How naive can you get?
Yes, it is a coup after years of hostility; the concert is already being hailed as “symphonic diplomacy.”
Personally, I wish the Philharmonic had played George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” instead of his “An American in Paris.” But it was a transforming event.
In another foreign policy putdown, President Bush used a news conference last week to splash cold water on any suggestion that, after 50 years, the U.S. might soften its policy toward Cuba.
“Sitting down at the table, having your picture with a tyrant such as Raul Castro — (Fidel Castro’s brother and successor) — for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him,” Bush said, explaining: “He (Raul Castro) gains a lot from it by saying, ‘Look at me, I’m now recognized by the president of the United States.”‘
Bush failed to add that any White House hospitality would raise a howl from the Cuban exiles in America.
The U.S. political and economic embargo against Cuba is vividly strange when you recall that we have talked to communist leaders from other countries for many years — especially in Moscow — and this talking has been all to the good.
In fact, we are talking to many leaders around the world — especially in the Middle East who are not exactly models of democracy. But we talk because they are our friends and allies.
Some past U.S. presidents understood the yearning for peace and acted accordingly.
When the Cold War was well underway in the 1950s with the former Soviet Union, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said he would go anywhere, any place, any time in pursuit of peace.
But then Bush is no Eisenhower.
Pax Americana may be what Bush hoped for with his bellicose foreign policy. But he would have been better advised if he had extended an olive branch.
He came into office, looking for war with Iraq and shunning negotiations with North Korea and Cuba, among others.
Egged on by neo-conservative advisers and supporters, Bush mostly took a hard-line approach to most leftist leaders, leaving little room for reconciliation.
His first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was undercut by the neo-cons and slapped down when he tried to pave the way for talks with Pyongyang.
A hawkish Bush somehow assumed everyone would roll over when he issued his non-negotiable threats.
So let’s keep talking to our adversaries and keep the Philharmonic on the road. The world is ready to listen.
Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com.
© 2008 Hearst Newspapers.
Their response to this event, IS NO SURPRISE, after all they consider “Deep in the Heart of Texas” the finest Classic ever written!
My favourite bit of Gershwin is neither Rhapsody in Blue nor An American in Paris. It’s his Piano Concerton in F major (1925) - like the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s no. 1 (especially when done by the the likes of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, with Martha Argerich as the soloist!), it’s got just the right blend of raw power and beauty, verging on the sublime!
Yes - and GREAT music really IS the bridge that ALL nations can cross to peace.
if you’re not shooting someone in the face it’s not culture. be it Iraqi’s or Iranians or that guy to your left.
It’s hard to hear the Music of the Spheres when all about us is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
This is the typical delusion of the Left: If we only get them to like us everything will be O.K.
I can still see Madeleine Albright wildly clapping as Kim Jong Il agrees to accept U.S. money, food and oil in exchange for halting his nuclear program. This was during the Clinton administration, and I was impressed that the “Dear Leader” was able to keep a straight face during the proceedings. We all know how that turned out.
The symphony conductor has referred to North Korea’s atrocities on its own people as “errors” and is indignant that the U.S., which imprisons its criminals, criticizes the North Korean administration for their crimes.
That the Left has no moral compass allows them to overlook these details.
After the 2000 coup and the Reichstag fire in ‘01, the self-proclaimed evangelists comfortably took a cue from the animal kingdom: The US Insurgents policy of sabre rattling, reckless posturing, nuclear one-up-manshp, and speeches delivered in the rambling spirit of an idiot bar room brawler, knuckle-dragging for a fight.
A little prepatory book work perhaps, and with a bit of humility, as Jeeezus recommended, was needed from the Worst Administration in US history. Engaging in a pissing contest with a Korean Gangster is a simple minded frat-boy approach. Music frequently calms and invigorates a higher level of thought, assisting in freeing an enslaved populace from the demogogary of dictators, here and there.
>This is the typical delusion of the Left: If we only get them to like us everything will be O.K.
Argh..
“Left” OR “Right”, perhaps an artistic exchange might help human beings relate to one another in a fundamental way, in a way which politics cannot? That is rather more the point of Helen’s extremely thoughtful essay. Troll.
Albright, Clinton, blah blah blah. Your premise is in error.
Why don’t they take Bush and Cheney with them? They could learn how to play a fiddle while DC burns down.
YOU are correct Helen, music is the universal language and nothing could be better to help initiate a decent relationship with nations who are at odds with one another. I’d also love to see Yanni’s Concert at the Accroppalos performed again, with the New York Philharmonic next time.
Accroppalos? ___ It was in Greece anyway.
Music is wonderful but PLAY is the thing. Groups in Isreal and Palestine are bringing children to play together, once they have met each other in play their anamosity decreases.
Isolation never decreases hostility it only increases it. perhaps our isolation is on purpose??!!
After their anamosity decreases, some adults kill them with a rocket or an AK-47 bullet.
Hi ~Dolby~ , good post and observation. You notice that there are a lot of trolls here lately? ___ There are.
Not too long ago, if an artile by Helen Thomas posted here, there would be 40 to 50 comments by now. With all of the new trolls here now, many of the intelligent, progressives have departed for other sites, which post far fewer articles daily and decent and inforamtive threads can be read and commented on.
“Sitting down at the table, having your picture with a tyrant…”
I wonder how many we could find with right now?
I have no idea why anyone thinks the New York Philharmonic touring the world will change anything. Playing music for elite, invitation-only, crowds of party apparatchiks may be fun for the musicians, but hardly amounts to “cultural diplomacy.” I would be more impressed if any orchestra members had refused to go.
The rest could watch it on TV. It was very good. Music is a universal language. It brings people of all nations together in peace. Helen is correct and she usually is.
I love Helen Thomas AND the NY Philharmonic.
But it’s pathetic for her to suggest the USA needs to conduct its diplomacy via symphony orchestras.
The people of the USA should first depose the entire, rotten, insane Bush/NeoCon government and put them in jail or mental institutions, where they belong.
A better way to prod the N. Koreans to boot their sociopathic rulers would be by us decisively booting our own. Then, yes, at that point by all means bring in the NY Philharmonic for a rousing rendition of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
Music is just a decent opening for better relations, just as ping pong was with China.
When folk get to know each other, they find that they have more in common than is different. We all love our children and want a better world for them. Bush and his ilk that think the price should be paid by somebody else.