Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Eurovision More Than Meets The Eye

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Eurovision More Than Meets The Eye

    EUROVISION MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
    by Anna Malpas

    Agence France Presse
    June 1 2012

    Eye witness

    Always an odd event, Eurovision had an extra layer of weirdness this
    year from being hosted by Azerbaijan. It would be carping to say the
    event was anything but magnificently organized and journalists were
    lulled with all the 'goodie bags' and free food they could wish for.

    But there was another side to the story.

    Across town in an area of shoddy old Soviet blocks, we sat in a room
    with hunger strikers. They were calling for the release of political
    prisoners who were their friends and relatives, and telling us that
    as international journalists, we were their only hope.

    >From the plush press center of the Crystal Hall venue, it was just a
    short taxi ride to a peaceful protest on the seafront, where police
    ran through the strollers, detaining people including a man identified
    by locals as a photographer for an opposition newspaper.

    But probably unlike almost any other country in the contest, Azerbaijan
    was happy to spend big money on the fun frills -- the light shows
    playing on skyscrapers; the bushes sculpted into the Eurovision 2012
    logo and the complimentary paperweights handed out to journalists
    with drops of crude oil inside.

    The Heidar Aliyev foundation headed by first lady Mehriban Aliyeva,
    also shelled out on glossy books promoting Azeri culture from cuisine
    to carpets, which were scattered around the press center as freebies.

    The contestants got similar red-carpet treatment, put up in the
    city's swankiest hotel, the Hilton, which is topped by a revolving
    restaurant. Delegations including that of Britain's entry Engelbert
    Humperdinck occupied entire floors.

    Arguably this Eurovision was compromised from the start, as the
    organizers -- and journalists -- agreed with Azerbaijan's entry
    rules for foreigners clearly based on politics, despite the contest's
    apolitical nature.

    Azerbaijan does not allow entry to those who have visited "without its
    permission" the Nagorny Karabakh region, which Armenian separatists
    backed by Yerevan seized in a bloody war in the 1990s.

    That immediately disqualified our nearest AFP correspondent in
    Tbilisi. Later, our Armenian-surnamed but Russian national video
    correspondent was mysteriously denied accreditation, the only one of
    us not to get it.

    But those who made it in were given a warm welcome at the airport,
    with English-speaking volunteers explaining the visa paperwork and free
    taxis into town. And the route from the airport was a showpiece with
    people clipping the borders and spectacular new buildings including a
    Trump Tower under construction, and an arts center named after Heidar
    Aliyev designed by Zaha Hadid.

    Especially if you were staying in the center, in the romantic Old City
    or in the brand-new blue-glass Hilton, it was easy to get sucked in by
    this seductive vision of up-and-coming Azerbaijan, without addressing
    the darker side.

    While particularly British media was out in force at protests, as well
    as local independent journalists, many of the around 1,500 accredited
    journalists seemed to haunt the Crystal Hall's media center. Over
    the run-up to the final, it took on a cozy almost war-room feel with
    national flags on tables and a conga-line when Turkey's Eurovision
    entry was performing.

    And some journalists seemed to stick to recording the minutiae of
    Eurovision, still taken pretty seriously in some parts. I asked one
    journalist if she was going to a protest as we got taxis from Crystal
    Hall, thinking of sharing one. "No," she snapped.

    The AFP team had a slightly grittier daily reality as our hotel
    was well out of the center, thanks to a last-minute change by the
    organizers, who block-booked hotels in advance. Our street had homely
    barbers who hung their wet towels out to dry on the street, anarchic
    traffic and apartment blocks where people had turned their balconies
    into mid-air extensions.

    We had no hardships, though. The worst I heard was a horror story from
    one journalist that she was allocated a hotel with cockroaches in the
    bathroom. She was moved to a luxury hotel after she complained, though.

    Every day we drove to the center past the Heydar Aliyev Prospect
    Street with its elaborate stone facades on what looked like Soviet
    prefabs. The late president's name also cropped up in quotes over the
    entrances to the ludicrously shiny and luxurious pedestrian underpasses
    in the city center -- some of which even had open-air escalators.

    With its unassailable location at the end of a pier sticking out into
    the Caspian Sea, the Crystal Hall might as well have had a drawbridge
    and moat. Police boats were posted around it, and a helicopter circled
    on the evening of the final.

    After ID checks, special buses took journalists to the press center
    from the pier head. Then we went through more airport-style security
    checks including a bag scan and a scan of our photo IDs.

    Once inside, though, there were honeyed Paklava pastries, tea with
    thyme and local milk drinks - all free - as well as occasional kebabs
    smoked up on the deck.

    The only glitch I noticed was after the second semi-final. After a
    journalist badgered Swedish contestant Loreen - without results --
    to comment on her meeting with opposition activists, the moderator
    upbraided the journalist for spoiling the "great mood". About the
    same time, an unmistakable stench flowed through the room. The crowd
    booed the moderator for trying to censor the reporter, but by then
    the journalists were fleeing the press center to escape what could
    only have been a dramatic plumbing disaster.

Working...
X