Rodman in 'controversial' trip to North Korea
Published: 2013 February 26 21:27:55 (5228 Views)
Flamboyant basketball star Dennis Rodman and some of the Harlem Globetrotters arrived Tuesday in the isolated country of North Korea, in a filmed trip billed as “basketball diplomacy.”
Bringing the pierced and provocative Rodman into regimented North Korea is aimed at “finding common ground on the basketball court,” said Shane Smith, the founder of a Brooklyn-based media company, Vice, which is filming the unusual delegation for an upcoming HBO special.
“These channels of cultural communication might appear untraditional, and perhaps they are, but we think it’s important just to keep the lines open,” Smith said in a statement Tuesday.
“And if Washington isn’t going to send their Generals then we’ll send our Globetrotters.”
Fans will recognize that as a double-entendre, since the Washington Generals are the opposing team who exist solely to get defeated by the Globetrotters night after night.
The towering “basketball diplomats” plan to stop by national monuments, visit an animation studio and run a basketball camp for North Korean children, according to Vice.
The company said it coordinated the weeklong trip with “DPRK representatives” (referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and hinted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might even attend a scrimmage.
The U.S. State Department had not been contacted about the trip, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.
Rodman and his fellow basketball stars are the latest American figures to make a foray into the impoverished and repressive country known as the Hermit Kingdom, following in the footsteps of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Google executive Eric Schmidt.
Whether such trips are a good idea is sharply debated.
The State Department warned Schmidt and Robinson that their January visit would be “unhelpful,” sending the wrong signal to the country after a provocative December missile launch.
Some feared the visit could be misunderstood as an official gesture by the United States.
- LATimes
Bringing the pierced and provocative Rodman into regimented North Korea is aimed at “finding common ground on the basketball court,” said Shane Smith, the founder of a Brooklyn-based media company, Vice, which is filming the unusual delegation for an upcoming HBO special.
“These channels of cultural communication might appear untraditional, and perhaps they are, but we think it’s important just to keep the lines open,” Smith said in a statement Tuesday.
“And if Washington isn’t going to send their Generals then we’ll send our Globetrotters.”
Fans will recognize that as a double-entendre, since the Washington Generals are the opposing team who exist solely to get defeated by the Globetrotters night after night.
The towering “basketball diplomats” plan to stop by national monuments, visit an animation studio and run a basketball camp for North Korean children, according to Vice.
The company said it coordinated the weeklong trip with “DPRK representatives” (referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and hinted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might even attend a scrimmage.
The U.S. State Department had not been contacted about the trip, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.
Rodman and his fellow basketball stars are the latest American figures to make a foray into the impoverished and repressive country known as the Hermit Kingdom, following in the footsteps of former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Google executive Eric Schmidt.
Whether such trips are a good idea is sharply debated.
The State Department warned Schmidt and Robinson that their January visit would be “unhelpful,” sending the wrong signal to the country after a provocative December missile launch.
Some feared the visit could be misunderstood as an official gesture by the United States.
- LATimes
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