Bob Dylan and the Communists

Last week Bob Dylan played in China for the first time. His set-list was censored, and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd ripped him for it.

The idea that the raspy troubadour of ’60s freedom anthems would go to a dictatorship and not sing those anthems is a whole new kind of sellout — even worse than Beyoncé, Mariah and Usher collecting millions to croon to Qaddafi’s family, or Elton John raking in a fortune to serenade gay-bashers at Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding.

Before Dylan was allowed to have his first concert in China on Wednesday at the Worker’s Gymnasium in Beijing, he ignored his own warning in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” — “Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose” — and let the government pre-approve his set.

Iconic songs of revolution like “The Times They Are a-Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” wouldn’t have been an appropriate soundtrack for the 2,000 Chinese apparatchiks in the audience taking a relaxing break from repression.

Spooked by the surge of democracy sweeping the Middle East, China is conducting the harshest crackdown on artists, lawyers, writers and dissidents in a decade. It is censoring (or “harmonizing,” as it euphemizes) the Internet and dispatching the secret police to arrest willy-nilly, including Ai Weiwei, the famous artist and architect of the Bird’s Nest, Beijing’s Olympic stadium.

But as Dowd herself points out, Dylan has shunned the role of protest singer since the very moment he was anointed.

I don't know what to think. Sure, it would've been sweet to see Dylan spit in the face of China's repressive government, especially in the light of what's happened with the jailing of Ai Weiwei, an artist sometimes referred to as "China's Andy Warhol."

On the other hand, the idea that Dylan, a crusty shadow of his young, iconoclastic self more interested in Christmas songs, could stir China's pot in some meaningful way is almost laughable. I love the man. He's one of my few heros. But I also refuse to see him in this state. Dylan's like a boxer past his prime who doesn't know anything but life in the ring. That inspiring young man exists in my ideal vision, and reality would taint it...

Also, isn't Dylan's mere presence in China a step in the right direction? Politics, after-all, are often piecemeal. Had he shown up and flipped the bird, isn't it fair to believe that the act could have instead set back the cause?

I'm not sure. Help me out here.

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Source: http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2011/04/14/bob-dylan-and-the-communists

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