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May 24, 2012 Thursday 11:18 AM EST
Eurovision Song Contest: 'It's soft politics, but it's politics'
By Tim Hume, for CNN
LONDON (CNN)
LONDON (CNN) -- With the recent headlines emerging from Azerbaijan,
you could be forgiven for assuming something more dramatic than a
singing competition was about to descend on the country.
In recent weeks, the Eurovision Song Contest finals, which take place
Saturday, have inspired clashes on the streets of the capital, Baku,
between Azerbaijani police and opposition activists, and accusations
by state-controlled media in Azerbaijan that a German "conspiracy" was
waging an "information war" against the hosts.
That followed a boycott of the contest announced by neighboring
Armenia in March, after the shooting of a soldier on their shared
border.
It's all a far cry from American Idol. But Eurovision has always
carried higher stakes than its sequins and songs in made-up languages
would suggest.
A forum for geopolitics
A frothy, kitsch spectacle to some, Eurovision has long been a forum
for heated geopolitical grandstanding, with allegations of bloc voting
and political skulduggery dogging the contest for years.
Documentarian Montse Fernandez Villa has alleged that, as early as
1968, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco orchestrated a campaign of
vote-buying that handed victory -- and an important public relations
coup -- to Spain, over the favorite, British entry, Cliff Richard.
Despite the organizers' efforts to keep the contest apolitical -- the
rules state that "no lyrics, speeches, or gestures of a political or
similar nature shall be permitted" -- European political tensions have
often been played out on its stage, says Eurovision researcher Dr
Karen Fricker.
"How can it not be? It's a competition of nations,"said Fricker, a
contemporary theater lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London,
and co-director of the Eurovision Research Network. "If it was just a
song pageant, it would have disappeared after a few years. But the
notion there's something being worked out there that's bigger than
song is what gives the contest its interest."
Armenia's withdrawal from this year's competition is the result of
tensions that have festered since a war with Azerbaijan over the
disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, which left between
20,000 and 30,000 people dead. But it is not the first boycott to hit
the contest.
Eurovision's rules hold that the country the winning artist represents
has the option of hosting the following year's contest, and the year
after Franco is alleged to have snatched victory from Cliff Richard,
Austria refused to compete in Madrid as a protest against his regime.
More recently, Lebanon pulled out of its scheduled Eurovision debut in
2005 in a spat over its refusal to broadcast the Israeli performance.
Lebanese TV channel, Tele Liban, told the European Broadcasting Union,
which broadcasts Eurovision, that Lebanon's legislation made it almost
impossible to broadcast Israeli content, putting Tele-liban in breach
of contest rules.
And in 2009, a year after Russian-Georgian tensions had reached a
flashpoint in South Ossetia, Georgia withdrew its entry for the Moscow
contest, when their arguments that their entry "We Don't Wanna Put In"
had nothing to do with the Russian premier fell flat with the
organizers.
A stage to 'perform 'European-ness'
Why do states care about a contest that, even in the eyes of its
admirers, is of dubious musical merit?
Fricker says that, much like the avowedly apolitical Olympic Games,
the contest has become an important political forum because of its
competitive nature, and the huge television audience it commands.
"It is a unique moment of 'live-ness,' where everybody in Europe is
doing the same thing at the same time," she said. "There's a really
compelling sense of a shared television space. It's a conduit for
unity, but also a way to play out European tensions."
The lure of winning a little of that limelight has seen the contest
expand, even as some of Eurovision's founding Western European nations
question its relevance.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the number of participating
countries has almost doubled to 42, with former Eastern bloc nations
joining the fray and, on many occasions, winning. Since 2001, wins for
Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia and Azerbaijan have
seen the "New Europe" dominate the contest.
Their success, says Warwick University's Dr Milija Gluhovic,
co-director of the Eurovision Research Network, was largely down to
the fact that they took it fairly seriously; as an opportunity to
demonstrate their credentials as modern, independent European states
to the rest of the continent.
"They started to realize they can use the contest as a platform to
reclaim their European heritage, and show themselves in the best
possible light," he said.
Eurovision victory brought not only a moment of prestige, but more
importantly, a rare opportunity to showcase their country to a huge
audience when they hosted the following year, said Fricker.
Host nations typically use the intermission between performances and
the results announcement as an opportunity to "perform their
'European-ness' to one of the biggest television audiences of the
year," she added.
Fricker cited popular 2001 winner Estonia as an example of a country
that used its win, and subsequent host status, to project a positive
image and engender goodwill ahead of joining the European Union in
2004. "It's soft politics, but it's politics," she said.
The emergence of voting blocs
The new arrivals have not been welcomed by everybody. Their success
has fueled suspicion among Eurovision's old guard that the contest has
become plagued with tactical "bloc voting" -- where groups of
countries vote tactically, essentially rigging the voting.
In 2008, British broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan quit his Eurovision
duties after 35 years, saying the event was "no longer a music
contest."
Research published by a British academic in 2006 would appear to
support his position.
Dr Derek Gatherer's analysis of Eurovision voting patterns between
1999 and 2005 concluded that bloc voting in the contest had increased.
He identified three major voting blocs from which a winner was usually
produced: The Balkan Bloc (Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Greece,
Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania
and Romania), the Warsaw Pact (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland,
Georgia and Moldova) and the Viking Empire (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
By contrast, France, the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy -- the so-called
Big Five who make the biggest financial contributions to the contest,
and are given an automatic place in the final ---- did not belong to a
bloc, and so had not won since the UK's victory in 1997, according to
Gatherer.
At the time the paper was published, Gatherer successfully predicted
that Serbia would win in 2007. However since then, Big Five member
Germany has also been successful.
Many Eurovision pundits reject the notion that voting patterns are a
reflection of something untoward. Fricker says it is natural for
countries to vote for neighbors with whom they may share cultural
affinities, as the votes reflect public tastes.
"They like each other's music and in fact are a musical community in
terms of the artists and producers that circulate," she said.
John Kennedy O'Connor, author of "The Eurovision Song Contest: The
Official History" said he did not believe any organized tactical or
political voting occurred, as the contest's current judging format --
a mixture of public televoting and national judging panels -- made it
"virtually impossible" to rig results.
Sour grapes?
An Englishman based in the U.S., O'Connor said he saw the allegations
of tactical voting as sour grapes toward the successful newcomers. He
said in 2003, the first time a British entry had been awarded the
dreaded "nul points," one of the singers from the duo Jemini suggested
their low score could have been politically motivated in response to
the UK's involvement in the Iraq War.
The view was echoed by many in the UK media. But O'Connor said that,
viewing the performance today, he believed the singers were clearly
off key. "Nobody wants to put up their hand and say, 'Actually, that
was a rotten song, and it was horribly performed.'"
He said the reason the Big Five countries tended to fare less
successfully was because, from the viewing public through to the
organizers, they treated the contest "as a bit of a joke." "By
contrast, the impression I get is the former Eastern bloc countries
take it very seriously," he said.
But Gluhovic said this was only partly true, as it was "a bit of a
myth" that the average Eastern European was much more invested in the
competition than their Western European counterparts.
Gluhovic, who hails from Bosnia and Herzegovina, said it was clear
that organizers in New Europe were "serious about sending their best
acts."
But as for the viewers? In true spirit of the contest, viewers --
wherever they hailed from across the continent -- tended to share one
of three common responses to the show.
"Just like in the UK, some people love it, some people hate it and
some people love to hate it," he said. "In this respect, I don't think
we have any huge differences."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
May 24, 2012 Thursday 11:18 AM EST
Eurovision Song Contest: 'It's soft politics, but it's politics'
By Tim Hume, for CNN
LONDON (CNN)
LONDON (CNN) -- With the recent headlines emerging from Azerbaijan,
you could be forgiven for assuming something more dramatic than a
singing competition was about to descend on the country.
In recent weeks, the Eurovision Song Contest finals, which take place
Saturday, have inspired clashes on the streets of the capital, Baku,
between Azerbaijani police and opposition activists, and accusations
by state-controlled media in Azerbaijan that a German "conspiracy" was
waging an "information war" against the hosts.
That followed a boycott of the contest announced by neighboring
Armenia in March, after the shooting of a soldier on their shared
border.
It's all a far cry from American Idol. But Eurovision has always
carried higher stakes than its sequins and songs in made-up languages
would suggest.
A forum for geopolitics
A frothy, kitsch spectacle to some, Eurovision has long been a forum
for heated geopolitical grandstanding, with allegations of bloc voting
and political skulduggery dogging the contest for years.
Documentarian Montse Fernandez Villa has alleged that, as early as
1968, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco orchestrated a campaign of
vote-buying that handed victory -- and an important public relations
coup -- to Spain, over the favorite, British entry, Cliff Richard.
Despite the organizers' efforts to keep the contest apolitical -- the
rules state that "no lyrics, speeches, or gestures of a political or
similar nature shall be permitted" -- European political tensions have
often been played out on its stage, says Eurovision researcher Dr
Karen Fricker.
"How can it not be? It's a competition of nations,"said Fricker, a
contemporary theater lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London,
and co-director of the Eurovision Research Network. "If it was just a
song pageant, it would have disappeared after a few years. But the
notion there's something being worked out there that's bigger than
song is what gives the contest its interest."
Armenia's withdrawal from this year's competition is the result of
tensions that have festered since a war with Azerbaijan over the
disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, which left between
20,000 and 30,000 people dead. But it is not the first boycott to hit
the contest.
Eurovision's rules hold that the country the winning artist represents
has the option of hosting the following year's contest, and the year
after Franco is alleged to have snatched victory from Cliff Richard,
Austria refused to compete in Madrid as a protest against his regime.
More recently, Lebanon pulled out of its scheduled Eurovision debut in
2005 in a spat over its refusal to broadcast the Israeli performance.
Lebanese TV channel, Tele Liban, told the European Broadcasting Union,
which broadcasts Eurovision, that Lebanon's legislation made it almost
impossible to broadcast Israeli content, putting Tele-liban in breach
of contest rules.
And in 2009, a year after Russian-Georgian tensions had reached a
flashpoint in South Ossetia, Georgia withdrew its entry for the Moscow
contest, when their arguments that their entry "We Don't Wanna Put In"
had nothing to do with the Russian premier fell flat with the
organizers.
A stage to 'perform 'European-ness'
Why do states care about a contest that, even in the eyes of its
admirers, is of dubious musical merit?
Fricker says that, much like the avowedly apolitical Olympic Games,
the contest has become an important political forum because of its
competitive nature, and the huge television audience it commands.
"It is a unique moment of 'live-ness,' where everybody in Europe is
doing the same thing at the same time," she said. "There's a really
compelling sense of a shared television space. It's a conduit for
unity, but also a way to play out European tensions."
The lure of winning a little of that limelight has seen the contest
expand, even as some of Eurovision's founding Western European nations
question its relevance.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the number of participating
countries has almost doubled to 42, with former Eastern bloc nations
joining the fray and, on many occasions, winning. Since 2001, wins for
Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Ukraine, Serbia, Russia and Azerbaijan have
seen the "New Europe" dominate the contest.
Their success, says Warwick University's Dr Milija Gluhovic,
co-director of the Eurovision Research Network, was largely down to
the fact that they took it fairly seriously; as an opportunity to
demonstrate their credentials as modern, independent European states
to the rest of the continent.
"They started to realize they can use the contest as a platform to
reclaim their European heritage, and show themselves in the best
possible light," he said.
Eurovision victory brought not only a moment of prestige, but more
importantly, a rare opportunity to showcase their country to a huge
audience when they hosted the following year, said Fricker.
Host nations typically use the intermission between performances and
the results announcement as an opportunity to "perform their
'European-ness' to one of the biggest television audiences of the
year," she added.
Fricker cited popular 2001 winner Estonia as an example of a country
that used its win, and subsequent host status, to project a positive
image and engender goodwill ahead of joining the European Union in
2004. "It's soft politics, but it's politics," she said.
The emergence of voting blocs
The new arrivals have not been welcomed by everybody. Their success
has fueled suspicion among Eurovision's old guard that the contest has
become plagued with tactical "bloc voting" -- where groups of
countries vote tactically, essentially rigging the voting.
In 2008, British broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan quit his Eurovision
duties after 35 years, saying the event was "no longer a music
contest."
Research published by a British academic in 2006 would appear to
support his position.
Dr Derek Gatherer's analysis of Eurovision voting patterns between
1999 and 2005 concluded that bloc voting in the contest had increased.
He identified three major voting blocs from which a winner was usually
produced: The Balkan Bloc (Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Greece,
Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania
and Romania), the Warsaw Pact (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland,
Georgia and Moldova) and the Viking Empire (Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
By contrast, France, the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy -- the so-called
Big Five who make the biggest financial contributions to the contest,
and are given an automatic place in the final ---- did not belong to a
bloc, and so had not won since the UK's victory in 1997, according to
Gatherer.
At the time the paper was published, Gatherer successfully predicted
that Serbia would win in 2007. However since then, Big Five member
Germany has also been successful.
Many Eurovision pundits reject the notion that voting patterns are a
reflection of something untoward. Fricker says it is natural for
countries to vote for neighbors with whom they may share cultural
affinities, as the votes reflect public tastes.
"They like each other's music and in fact are a musical community in
terms of the artists and producers that circulate," she said.
John Kennedy O'Connor, author of "The Eurovision Song Contest: The
Official History" said he did not believe any organized tactical or
political voting occurred, as the contest's current judging format --
a mixture of public televoting and national judging panels -- made it
"virtually impossible" to rig results.
Sour grapes?
An Englishman based in the U.S., O'Connor said he saw the allegations
of tactical voting as sour grapes toward the successful newcomers. He
said in 2003, the first time a British entry had been awarded the
dreaded "nul points," one of the singers from the duo Jemini suggested
their low score could have been politically motivated in response to
the UK's involvement in the Iraq War.
The view was echoed by many in the UK media. But O'Connor said that,
viewing the performance today, he believed the singers were clearly
off key. "Nobody wants to put up their hand and say, 'Actually, that
was a rotten song, and it was horribly performed.'"
He said the reason the Big Five countries tended to fare less
successfully was because, from the viewing public through to the
organizers, they treated the contest "as a bit of a joke." "By
contrast, the impression I get is the former Eastern bloc countries
take it very seriously," he said.
But Gluhovic said this was only partly true, as it was "a bit of a
myth" that the average Eastern European was much more invested in the
competition than their Western European counterparts.
Gluhovic, who hails from Bosnia and Herzegovina, said it was clear
that organizers in New Europe were "serious about sending their best
acts."
But as for the viewers? In true spirit of the contest, viewers --
wherever they hailed from across the continent -- tended to share one
of three common responses to the show.
"Just like in the UK, some people love it, some people hate it and
some people love to hate it," he said. "In this respect, I don't think
we have any huge differences."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress