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In something of a boon for innocuous, tossed-off ‘political comment’, Björk’s innocuous, tossed-off political comments have been taken to heart by a second target in three days.
What’s more, this time it’s not just the organisers of a festival at some fortress in Serbia who have taken offence. It’s the Chinese government.
The Icelandic singer has taken to hollering out the names of oppressed states during performances of recent single ‘Declare Independence’ at live shows on her current world tour. So, we had “Kosovo, Kosovo” in Tokyo and her subsequent departure from the bill of Serbia’s EXIT Festival, then we had “Tibet, Tibet” in Shanghai and a subsequent clamp down on foreign artists playing on the Chinese mainland.
Yeah, nice one Björk.
The singer’s comments "broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings" said the country’s culture ministry. It’s not clear if this was before or after acknowledging the hurt caused to the people of Tibet after almost 60 years of continuous, fatal oppression but one thing that is certain is that someone at the Chinese culture ministry needs to MAN THE FUCK UP.
No? No.
"We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future,” concluded the statement.
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