By B. R. MYERS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA February 21, 2008 In defending the New York Philharmonic's upcoming performance in Pyongyang, conductor Lorin Maazel argues -- primarily on the basis of his experience in the old Soviet bloc -- that "bringing peoples and their cultures together" can lead to "roots of peaceful interchange." (See "Why We'll Play Pyongyang," – Feb. 20) Judging from similar remarks made in the past few weeks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill shares this optimism. There is evidently no disabusing some people of the notion that North Korea is a Marxist-Leninist state, and thus one that can be expected to show some positive response, as our Cold War adversaries did, to bold gestures of goodwill and conciliation.
It is time America realized that Kim Jong Il derives his regime's legitimacy not from communism, but from crude, race-based nationalism. According to Pyongyang's domestic propaganda, North Koreans are the world's most pure-blooded and virtuous people, and the mongrel Americans an inherently evil race that can never be trusted. The Dear Leader routinely blames his country's many woes on the Yankee "jackals." When statist economic policies caused a famine in the mid-1990s that killed a million people, Kim claimed that the American threat had forced him to concentrate on military matters. (Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was in fact sending the North massive aid at the time.) The North also claims that the only thing preventing Korean reunification is the U.S. troop presence in the South.
Not that the North shows any more goodwill toward its main aid provider in Seoul. Propaganda acknowledges the South's material affluence while asserting that the North is the only Korea the world fears and respects. The South Korean government is condemned for allowing miscegenation and other contaminations of racial purity.
The implications are obvious. Were Kim to normalize relations with America, his all-purpose scapegoat, the North Korean people would expect the prompt unification of the peninsula -- under his rule, of course -- and a quantum leap in their standard of living, neither of which has a chance of actually happening. The regime would never survive the public disillusionment that would ensue, and Kim knows it. Having long ago abandoned any pretence of Marxism-Leninism, he has nothing left to justify his rule but confrontational anti-Americanism.
Domestic propaganda thus makes very clear that nothing is to be expected from ongoing negotiations with the Americans, whose eschewal of a military solution to the nuclear standoff is attributed not to a desire for peace but to cowardice. "As the jackal cannot become a lamb," runs an expression known to every schoolchild, "the Yankees cannot change their rapacious nature." Just last December the party monthly Chollima called for a "blood reckoning" with America, quoting Kim Jong Il himself as saying that the U.S. imperialists and the North Korean people "can never live under the same sky." One finds nothing in the official media to support Mr. Hill's assertion that "there has been a shift in how they view us." The North Koreans do know, however, that if they want to keep the Bush administration in futile negotiation mode for the rest of its term, they must feign the occasional change of heart. The invitation to the orchestra serves this end.
It was not such a bold invitation to make, either. Though Mr. Maazel seems to believe there is something groundbreaking about playing Dvorak and Gershwin in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il has never objected to light classical music. Even if average North Koreans were allowed to attend the concert -- Mr. Maazel is dreaming if he thinks anyone but the elite will be there -- they would encounter nothing to make them doubt the party line. They know from movies and magazines to be especially on their guard when the "jackals" are smiling.
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?
平壌はどう西洋をプレーするか。 B.R.マイアーズで THE WALL STREET JOURNALアジア 2008年2月21日 平壌でニューヨーク・フィルハーモニック管弦楽団の今度の性能を防御する際に、主として古いソビエト圏の彼の経験に基づいて導体ローリン・マーゼルは、「民族と彼らの文化を集めます」が「平和な置き換えのルーツ」に通じることができると主張します。 (–2月、「私たちはなぜ平壌をプレーするつもりですか」と見てください、20) 過去数週間で作られた同様の所見から判断すると、国務次官補のクリストファー・ヒルはこの楽天主義を共有します。 明らかに北朝鮮がマルクスレーニン主義者状態であるという概念から何人かの人々の迷いを覚まさないで、その結果何らかの積極的な応答を示すのを期待することができるのがあります、私たちの冷戦敵が好意と懐柔の大胆なジェスチャーにしたように。
