Sting might be thinking of one of his most famous lyrics as he considers new photos of him “laughing it up with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2008.” (This photo comes from the Daily Mail.)
The combination of rock star and dictator offers little surprise to Abe Greenwald of Commentary.
In terms of lifestyle, dictators and rock stars occupy the same stratum. Consider only a fraction of what they share: palace residences, obsessively broadcast concern for the poor, appearances before strange crowds who chant their names, flattery from identical media sycophants, protection from hired flunkies who allow their eccentricities full expression, an ever-ready foul word for Israel, and another for the United States. Experientially, rock stardom is dictatorship without death squads and the pretense of governance. …
… it’s easy to imagine they’re trading stories of bumbling private-jet stewards or the headaches of polo-court installation or condemning rapacious capitalists (present company celebrated, of course) or whatever else the dictator-rock star class gets up to when not dictating or rock starring.
Sting’s second career is self-righteous pontification. He has irritated on the matters of trees, earthquakes, and the poor. He has served since 1981 as “ambassador” for Israel-bashing Amnesty International. He is the unparalleled rock-star activist self-parody. Which, of course, is why his flirtations with human-rights abusers are so delectable. Yes, flirtations—plural. Sting is one of those human-rights promoting singers who take big money to sing for human-rights abusers (while opposing the evil regime of George W. Bush, naturally.)
In 2010, he played a concert in Uzbekistan organized by the regime of Islam Karimov. Accused of boiling his opposition alive, Karimov nevertheless pays well. One night’s work earned Sting £2million.
The story throws in sharp relief the odd case in which a rock star hangs out with better company.
