Michael Jackson is being remembered all over the world this month after his untimely death at the age of 50. His musical highs, his personal lows, his face, his ethnicity and his place in popular culture and entertainment history are being daily mulled over by the musical intellectual elite, the tabloids, his fanatical followers all over the globe, and the man on the street. Jackson’s commercial success speaks for itself: 750 million records sold; the best selling album of all time; 13 Grammy awards; the biggest grossing world tour of all time - the list, shall we say, could go on.

Jackson live in Bucharest

What really struck about his death, however, was the mark it made internationally. From Washington to Warsaw, from Melbourne to Mumbai, from the Bridge (where I first heard the news) to Bangalore Jackson’s death was big news. It took over people’s conversations, national TV channels, newspapers, and DJ’s decks all across the planet in an unprecedented manner. Gordon Brown and David Cameron offered their condolences to his fans and family, Hugo Chavez called the death ‘lamentable news’, the South Korean President referred to him as ‘a hero of the world’, and the Philippines first lady, Imelda Marcos, said that she had cried. How was it that the man, his music and his death had come to take on such multi-national dimension?

Michael Jackson clearly became far more than just an American entertainer. His story, to some extent, is very much one of our times and it provides fascinating material for anybody interested in the globalisation of world culture, the extension of the capitalist franchise to the former eastern bloc, and the identification with and adulation of American-style freedoms among those freed from Communism.

As most already know Michael Jackson was born into poverty, one of a nine children in the grim industrial town of Gary, Indiana. Under the watchful eye of their disciplinarian father the Jackson boys were able to develop their act and move their family to the more comfortable surroundings of California. Jackson did well with his brothers but it was only his split from them in 1979 that allowed his true creative talents to come to the fore with 3 top class albums in Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad arriving over the course of the 1980s. These releases made him a superstar in the US, the standard bearer for the monster that was the American recording industry, and a megastar in Western Europe, Japan and Australia.

But there were still pockets of the world in which his talents were not known, his presence not felt, and his albums unsold. It was the Dangerous record released in 1991 and the world tour launched to promote it that opened new avenues for Jackson and his publicity machine. Communism was falling in the east; Poland, Hungary, Romania and their neighbours were united in their boundless thirst for all things western. McDonalds opened in Moscow to winding cues, Pizza Hut sprung up in cities the average American had never heard of and cable TV became all the rage as the children of communism embraced western novelties with boundless enthusiasm.

It was upon the Dangerous Tour reaching Europe that Jackson and his team made a last minute decision to play Bucharest, Romania, at the antiquated Communist National Stadium on October 1st, 1992. The two Boeing 747s transporting stage equipment were diverted to the east, the trucks and tour buses carrying the engineers, technicians, lighting crew and dancers rolled over the west/east border, and Jackson himself arrived characteristically behind schedule by private jet. The move was bold, the eastern franchise was an unknown quantity and no artist of real significance had effectively dared to see what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.

The gamble proved to be an unprecedented success. Not only did Jackson play to 70,000 Romanian fans, he also broke all TV viewing records for a live concert when he sold the rights to HBO, an American cable network. He was treated like a global statesman by his hosts, an ambassador of the United States and capitalist freedoms, and by all accounts played up to the part. He met with Romanian President Ion Iliescu, visited the parliament buildings and held a major press conference for his Heal the World foundation. He pledged millions of dollars to local charitable causes and installed an American built jungle-gym at a Bucharest orphanage, among other notable visits.

Jackson was the only artist who dared to venture behind the iron curtain

Natalie Long, a resident of Bucharest at the time, recalls the years after the 1989 revolution. ‘I was 11 years old, and my school friends and I were enjoying the heady delights of the first Pizza Hut in the country, Saved By The Bell on satellite TV and making friendship bracelets... When Michael arrived in the city that October (1992), it felt like the world had come to a standstill for a day. His songs played endlessly on the radio, my Walkman and in my head. School and dinner seemed like an unnecessary intrusions’. The trip generated huge amount of excitement in the east and left a significant legacy that enabled later giants of the western music industry to successfully visit Romania, such as George Michael and Elton John. Jackson’s brief visit to Eastern Europe gave direct evidence that the appetite of ordinary people for a lifestyle of American style consumer choice in the early 1990s was healthy.

The second leg of the Dangerous tour was to take on a more far-eastern emphasis with Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan acting as his hosts, but Jackson and his management were not to forget the success they had had in Romania. When it came to the launch of the HIStory album and the subsequent tour Jackson had no hesitation about launching the project from Letna Park, Prague, to a staggering 127,000 fans almost a decade after the anti-communist demonstrations that at the same spot. From Prague the tour moved to Hungary, Bucharest again, Moscow and then Poland, before jetting off for Australia. Jackson was to return again during the second leg, however, as in late summer 1997 he performed to 75,000 in Tallinn.

What is most interesting about Jackson’s visits to the east were not the concerts themselves (the HIStory concerts were heavily choreographed and varied little from country to country) but rather the protocol and procedure of engagements surrounding them. For example, upon leaving his plane on arrival in Poland Jackson was greeted by children dancing in traditional dress, was presented with flowers and then whisked into a waiting helicopter as if a visiting world leader. He met with Aleksander Kwasniewski, then president, as well as the former president and leader of the Solidarity movement Lech Walesa. Later he was to travel to the capital to discuss the possible erection of a theme park with the Warsaw city authorities. Similar scenes were on show in Hungary whereby Jackson brought Budapest to a standstill filming a self-congratulatory mini-film which included hundreds of stage soldiers on the city’s main bridge over the Danube. On his arm as he later visited hospitals, clinics and orphanages was Lisa-Marie Presley, the daughter of the King of Rock n’ Roll and an apparent modern day Jackie Kennedy to the hordes or flashing cameras.

Of course, Jackson himself was not responsible for the westernisation of eastern bloc culture singlehandedly, but his influence and willingness to engage with unfashionable nations in the 1990s and bring the biggest show on earth to their doorsteps did have a significant impact. Before talk of EU and NATO membership figures like Jackson embodied the West to the average Romanian or Hungarian. He practically personified its excitement, its wealth, its innovation along with its eccentricities, oddities and adulation of celebrity.

Jackson was not a man of outstanding intellect beyond the bounds of musical composition and showmanship, nor was he a politician or global statesman who could claim to represent anybody except himself, but in him and through him people expressed their desire to live as freely as he and his countrymen did. They came in unsurpassed numbers to see what western creativity and spectacle had to offer, and in so doing Jackson paved the way for others of his profession to follow him to the east and showed those enjoying new freedoms that their destiny, like his, lay in their own hands. Jackson was no Alexey Stakhnov, the Soviet state-sponsored mining hero, he was a new idol for new times in the east, a poor black boy who had used his talents to raise his family from poverty to prosperity and conquer the entertainment world, and for that reason he will always be remembered in the old eastern bloc.