The New York Philaharmonic in Pyongyang

Ping-pong diplomacy it ain't! But it will do very well, thank you very much. Tomorrow evening [26 February 2008] in Pyongyang and on the television screens of public television in the US, viewers will be witnessing history in the making. For the first time since the armistice which put war in Korea on a hold in 1953, the presence of a world class American orchestra will play in North Korea. Zubin Mehta, interviewed by the BBC reporter who is part of a bevy of 50 journalists who came with the New York Philaharmonic, has gracefully dismissed the political import of the event. We play music, not politics. That is the alpha and the omega of his words. We will hold workshops with North Korean musicians. Music is an international language which speaks above and beyond politics. And yet, his words belie the obvious. Tight negotiations have worked out a strictly American like programme. It is bruited that the Starspangled Banner, the American national anthem will be played along with the North Korea's. Dvorak's 'New World Symphony' followed by Gershwin's 'American in Paris', ending with a distinctly un American note of Wagner's 'Lohengrin'. Kim Jong il will attend but will he be in the vast auditorium for American's national hymn?
Plain as the nose on one's face, the orchestra's physical presence in the North Korean capitol says something of how far diplomatic negotiations are in Washington's quest to silence Pyongyang's nuclearn programme, and Pyongyang's desire to renew ties and diplomatic recognition by Washington.
Are we to believe secretary of state Condelezza Rice's dismissive comment that playing Dvorak will not lead anywhere. It might, and probably shall. Will she turn up in Pyongyang for the concert?
Protracted, face to face negotiations have made a good deal with North Korea by that country's leader Kim Jong il willingness to shut down Yongban, the site of its nuclear industry and where a nuclear device was exploded! And yet, Washington is reluctant to go a step further in pursuing a denouement of the crisis by a political solution which will put an end to the state of war between the US, South Korea, China, and North Korea, and extending diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. Herr Bush decisive in his public utterings is a timid in resolution of the Korean problem. Whatever transpires hereafter, the ice has been broken, and like Humpty Dumpty the war factions in Herr Bush's circle can never put a broken policy together nor can they turn the clock back.