Uzbekistan

Listened to the fantastic radio play by David Hare, based upon the memoirs of Craig Murray, ex-British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. It stars David Tennant, and is a wonderfully engaging, absorbing, horrifying sort of play.

I'd recently signed a petition against the prosecution of a photographer who is accused of the foul crime of showing the country in a deliberately negative light, so I knew that all was not well with the country. What I learned in the course of the play about Uzbekistan and the UK, horrified me.

When I visited Craig Murray's site, I was appalled to find that Sting had played an expensive concert there at the behest of the torturing regime in power... and tried to cover his embarrassment at having given support to the insupportable by claiming it was a Unicef gig (it wasn't) and that cultural boycotts don't work (oh no?).

The wikipedia entry for Sting draws heavily on Craig's page, but is none the worse for that. I am appalled, and I am boycotting Sting for the foreseeable future, removing his music from my itunes and spotify. His website contains a reverent thought for the day from Sting, which on the occasion of my visit said: "I want my children to do something that feeds their souls. It's not about success or power or money. It's about satisfaction."

I see. So the concert in Uzbekistan wasn't for money? That's strange. Wikipedia seems to think the tickets cost $250. I'm assuming Sting got paid handsomely for the concert. Shame on him. Really. I thought he had principles....come to that I thought this country had principles. I'm beginning to wonder what sort of principles those might be.