China to Bjork: You Hurt Our Feelings

It’s official: Bjork “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” when she shouted “Tibet! Tibet!” at the end of a recent concert in Shanghai. That’s the word from the Ministry of Culture. The outburst came following the Icelandic singer’s performance of her song “Declare Independence.” Reports Reuters: “The performance ‘not only broke Chinese laws and regulations and hurt the feelings of Chinese people, but also went against the professional code of an artist,’ the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.”

 

The ministry announced it would tighten restrictions on foreign performers as a result.

Bjork posted a statement about the song and incident on her Web site: “this song was written more with the personal in mind but the fact that it has translated to its broadest meaning, the struggle of a suppressed nation, gives me much pleasure . i would like to wish all individuals and nations good luck in their battle for independence.”

(Bjork has apparently declared her independence from capitalizing first words of sentences, too.)

As we noted last week, Foreign Policy observed that Bjork “appears to use the song as a neo-Wilsonian Mad-Lib. Last month, she dedicated it to Kosovo, and in the video for it, she wears an outfit bearing the flags of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both Danish territory.”

But really, who doesn’t have a song they like to use as a neo-Wilsonian Mad-Lib?

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