history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as ____

[intertribal]

The New York Philharmonic has performed in Pyongyang, North Korea.  They played "New World", "Candide", "Arirang", and "American in Paris".  At the press conference they compared it to the New York Philharmonic visiting Soviet Russia in 1959: "It showed Soviet citizens that they could have relations with foreign organizations and these organizations could come in the country freely.  But what the Soviets didn’t realize was, this was a two-edged sword.  By allowing interactions between people from outside the country with people inside, eventually the people found themselves out of power.”  The director, Lorin Maazel, quickly backtracked, not wanting to scare North Korea.

I realized in discussion the other day how similar the Rwandan genocide was to the 1965-66 anti-communist killings in Indonesia: widespread participation by average men, though most of the killings were done by paramilitary-political boy gangs; in-group hierarchy dynamics, resulting in peer pressure and fear; the security risk - they'll kill us if we don't kill them; the constant presence of at least one military or government officer; each attack spearheaded by a local elite; brought about by the murder of a huge figure in politics, as revenge; national and international stress on "they are killing each other - no one group has the upper hand". 



 

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

"By allowing interactions between people from outside the country with people inside, eventually the people found themselves out of power."

What does this mean?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

that Lorin Maazel doesn't know how to craft sentences. I think what he means is "By allowing interactions between people from outside the country with people inside, eventually the leaders of Soviet Russia found themselves out of power."

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

okay, that makes more sense