Brian SmallFrom Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age (1999)
Most of the South Korean oppositionists believed President Carter's human rights diplomacy was at work and had great expectations for it. They interpreted the upsurge of anti-Americanism in Iran after the revolution as the outcome of the administration's miscalculated support for the Shah...... the citizens of South Korea, like people in similar straits in the Philippines and Indonesia, quickly learned that President Carter had no desire to offend a friendly military dictator at the height of the Cold War. Early in the morning of May 27, the 20th Division of the Korean Army invaded the city center of Kwangju and crushed a ragtag army of young students and workers who had taken up arms against the military and decided to fight to the end. As the press flashed images of dead and shackled rebels being dragged through the streets of Kwangju, Carter's military and security advisers, led by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Holbrooke, coldly explained they had instructed U.S. commanders to release the Korean troops from the U.S.-Korean joint command to restore "stability" in South Korea and "maintain the national interests of the United States" in East Asia. Their words conveyed the message, well understood in Korea since the 1940s, that American officials viewed the Korean peninsula as a problem child of U.S. foreign policy, its people and their democratic notions an annoyance at times of global tension.The tone was set on June 1,1980, by President Carter himself in a nationally televised interview on CNN. After admitting that "there is no doubt....democratization has been given a setback" in Korea, he was asked by journalist Daniel Schorr if U.S. policy in Korea reflected the conflict between human rights and national security then raging within his administration. "There is no incompatibility" between the two concepts, Carter snapped. In his judgment, he told Schorr, South Korea in 1980 typified a situation where "the maintenance of a nation's security from Communist subversion or aggression is a prerequisite to the honoring of human rights and the establishment of democratic processes." While he of course preferred to see "every nation on earth democratic," the United States "can't sever our relationships with our allies and friends and trading partners and turn them all over to Soviet influence, and perhaps even subversion and takeover, simply because they don't measure up to our standards of human rights."... #KwangjuDiary #JaeEuiLee #KapSuseol #NickMamatas #TimShorrock #BruceCumings #Korea #SouthKorea #NorthKorea #Carter #PresidentCarter #Holbrooke #RichardHolbrooke #AntiAmericanism
Via Artis KonsortAn interesting blog from Bibliolore about Edgar Allan Poe and Joseph Holbrooke, another long forgotten British composer:
https://bibliolore.org/2023/02/02/poes-concertina/
@classicalmusic
#holbrooke #classicalmusic
#forgottencomposers #poe #bibliolore
Martijn Vromans#nowlistening This magnificent #piano #concerto by Joseph #Holbrooke is a combination of film music, Strauss and Rachmaninov. It’s not a master piece by any means, but an incredibly enjoyable listen.
Many samples here: https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67127#
Holbrooke & Wood (H): Piano Concertos
<p>These two English piano concertos in the grand romantic tradition were written at almost the same time (Holbrooke 1908, Wood 1909) and were undoubtedly inspired by the great concertos of the previous few decades such as those of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.</p> <p>The Holbrooke piece, like so much of his music, has a literary inspiration, in the form of the poem 'The Song of Gwyn ap Nudd' which the score follows closely. Indeed the composer originally described the work as a symphonic poem though he later changed his mind and settled on Piano Concerto No 1 when he revised the work in 1923—the version recorded here. (Incidentally, we have it on good Welsh authority that 'Nudd' is pronounced 'Neeth').</p> <p>Though Haydn Wood later made his name writing shorter pieces of light music his early concerto is in full blown romantic style complete with first movement cadenza and 'big tune' grand finale. Its emotional heart, though, is in the simple but moving slow movement. This is the work's first recording and it appears not to have been played since 1951.</p>