By MELANIE KIRKPATRICK February 26, 2008; Page D6 Defenders of the New York Philharmonic's trip to Pyongyang this week like to chant the mantra, "It's about music, not politics." If only dictator Kim Jong Il saw it that way. In the context of a totalitarian regime, that's a naïve view, not to say a dangerous one.
In North Korea, the purpose of music, like that of all the arts, is to serve the state. Maestro Kim Jong Il -- who in his youth oversaw the transformation of North Korean cinema, opera and performing arts into "revolutionary" forms -- understands that mission full well. It remains to be seen how he'll use the Philharmonic's concern internally -- North Koreans were informed of the visit only on Friday. But performances of international arts groups are routinely portrayed as admiring vassals carrying tribute to the Great Leader, so there's little reason to think the Philharmonic will rate different treatment. His aim for external consumption is already clear: to give the impression that his barbarous regime is civilized. Look, we even appreciate great Western music played by one of the world's most eminent orchestras.
For a glimpse into the kind of music that North Koreans are accustomed to hearing, consider the concert that took place 10 days ago at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, the venue where the Philharmonic tonight will play Gershwin's "American in Paris" and Dvorak's "New World Symphony" under the baton of Lorin Maazel. The occasion was the national holiday celebrating Kim Jong Il's 66th birthday. Among the pieces performed by the State Symphony Orchestra was "The Sound of a Horse's Hooves on Mt. Paektu." Paektu is the sacred mountain that Kim hagiographers claim as his birthplace. (In fact he was born in Russia.) Also on the program was Kim's personal anthem, "No Motherland Without You." Its lyrics include:
Even if the world changes hundreds of times
People believe in you, Comrade Kim Jong Il!
We cannot live without you.
According to Kim Young-nam, a composer who escaped from the North 10 years ago, songs extolling Kim and his father, "Eternal Leader" Kim Il Sung, are performed far more often than "Aegukka," the national anthem the Philharmonic will play tonight along with "The Star Spangled Banner."
In a telephone call from Seoul, Kim Young-nam describes his training at a music college in a provincial city he prefers not to name for fear of endangering family members and former colleagues. "In every art form in North Korea," he says, "you have to emphasize the party line and national pride. There is this framework that you have to adhere to. . . . Everything we composed had the goal of extolling Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The end production of my work was to praise socialism. . . .The performing arts are merely a means to a political objective."
Kim Young-nam recalls two friends who were arrested and punished for playing illegal music. One, he says, was a guitarist caught singing a Korean-language version of Frank Sinatra's hit, "My Way." The other was a pianist who dared to play Irish music. Disco, tango and jazz, he says, "are banned because anything that would produce a capitalist mindset such as love or indulgence are prohibited."
Consider, too, the story of Kim Cheol-woong, First Pianist of the Pyongyang Philharmonic Orchestra until 2001, when he fled to China and then South Korea. "My motivation to escape was not hunger, like for most of the people," he tells me via email from Seoul, "but to be able to play freely the music of my choice."
Kim Cheol-woong was born in Pyongyang to a politically connected family. His father worked for the party and his mother was a professor. In 1981, at the age of 8, he was selected for a special program for young artists at the Pyongyang Music and Dance Institute. Many North Korean musicians study in Russia, and in 1995, the young pianist was dispatched to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
"The study in Russia changed my life," he says. "I was greatly impressed by the free harmonics in jazz music. I was so shocked when I first heard 'Autumn Leaves' by [French pianist] Richard Clayderman. I had never heard music like that before, and it gave me goose bumps all over my body. I was practicing hard [to learn the piece and] to be able to play it for my girlfriend back in North Korea; but somebody reported the fact to the National Security Agency, and I had to write 10 pages of apology. The fact that the pianist, just because of playing his music, was forced to apologize, caused a great sense of aversion in me, and I decided to seek a freedom of being able to play freely."
Kim Cheol-woong calls the music he heard in Russia "unrestricted" music. "In North Korea, 20th-century modern music among the classical music is forbidden because it is regarded as too liberal." Jazz, too, is barred "because it is seen as 'vicious' music that confuses people's minds. Wagner's music is also restricted because of Nazism; and Rachmaninoff's music is forbidden because he flew to the United States as an exile."
Kim Cheol-woong supports the Philharmonic's visit and favors more cultural exchanges with the North. "I'm sure there will be educational sessions . . . [on] the triumph of Kim Jong Il's political leadership, which resulted in the fact that even the American artistic group is coming to knock their foreheads on the floor in front of General Kim." But "despite such propaganda, there will be many listening to the live broadcast of the concert who will have a feeling that the education they received is wrong."
Kim Seong-min, an exile who runs Free North Korea Radio in Seoul, makes a similar point. The North Korean government "will use the concert as propaganda," he says in a phone call from Seoul. People are "brainwashed" into thinking of North Korean orchestras as the best in the world. But maybe, just maybe, he says, a few listeners will hear the Philharmonic and realize that they have been lied to.
Kim Cheol-woong sees a few small signs of musical opening in North Korea. In a speech last month in London he cited a recent refugee's information that "rock and rap are played and sung in the country these days." He notes, too, that South Korean folk songs that used to be banned are now permitted "as a result of strong public demand." Kim Young-nam, the exiled composer, says he has heard of love songs being performed in North Korea, something that would not have been permitted a few years ago.
Rock, rap, love songs -- and now Gershwin and Dvorak, courtesy of the New York Philharmonic. That's not music known for launching revolutions. But then again, who knows? Kim Jong Il may want to read his Plato, who in the Fourth Book of "The Republic," writes, "For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions."
Here's hoping.
Ms. Kirkpatrick is a deputy editor of the Journal's Editorial Page.
By Arshad Mohammed Reuters Tuesday, February 26, 2008; 2:37 AM BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged China on Tuesday to use its influence to press North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear programs so that a disarmament deal can move forward.
North Korea has promised to abandon all nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives under an agreement between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States reached in Beijing in 2005.
However, the deal has been stymied by Pyongyang's failure to meet an end-2007 deadline to disclose its nuclear programs.
"I'm expecting from China what I am expecting from others -- that we will use all influence possible with the North Koreans to convey to them it's time to move forward," Rice told reporters.
"We are (on) the cusp of something very special here," she said, citing North Korea's decision to initially shut down the Yongbyon reactor at the heart of its atomic program. "Now it's time to move on."
A senior U.S. official said Rice hoped her Asian trip would act as "a real catalyst to get over this bar of a good declaration" and she particularly wanted help from China, North Korea's major trading partner and traditional Communist ally.
"We continue to believe that if anyone is capable of convincing the North that this kind of transparency is the only way forward, it's the Chinese," said the official, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the diplomacy.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Beijing favored intensified diplomacy to overcome the latest setback in the long-running nuclear negotiations.
"The Chinese side hopes that the parties will treasure the results we have already produced, which have not come easily, and bear in mind the bigger picture and ... increase the dialogue and consultations among the parties...," Yang told reporters.
According to U.S. officials and analysts, the sticking point has been Pyongyang's reluctance to discuss any nuclear technology it may have transferred to other nations, notably Syria, as well as its suspected pursuit of uranium enrichment.
The United States has questions about any possible North Korean role in a suspected Syrian covert nuclear site that was bombed by Israel in September. Syria has denied having a nuclear program but the case remains murky.
RIGHTS DIALOGUE
In a concession possibly aimed defusing a barrage of international criticism surround China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics in August, Yang said China was willing to resume a human rights dialogue with the United States.
China broke off the dialogue in 2004 after Washington urged a U.N. watchdog to condemn what it called China's backsliding on rights.
Rice was due to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao following her meeting with Yang, for talks that are likely also to touch on efforts to get a third U.N. Security Council resolution passed imposing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program.
Rice, who attended South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration in Seoul on Monday, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday and flies to Tokyo on Wednesday.
She has no plans to visit Pyongyang, where the New York Philharmonic orchestra will play a concert featuring the works of Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin on Tuesday.
Rice also plans to discuss how the six nations that reached the agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions might monitor it, including tracking whether North Korea proliferates nuclear technology in the future.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie/Sugita Katyal)
