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The Australian
May 25, 2012 Friday
1 - All-round Country Edition
Even when the music stops, the batons take up the beat
by JAMES JEFFREY
Is Eurovision an unwitting cover for human rights abusers?
IN Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror,
murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love.
They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?
The cuckoo clock.
IF only The Third Man had been made seven years later, Orson Welles's
Harry Lime could have added Eurovision to Switzerland's CV, though
whether as an endorsement or indictment would depend on which side of
the irony curtain he was on. For those who don't recoil from this orgy
of kitsch, there are two main approaches: (a) with a tongue in cheek
and a drinking game in mind, or (b) genuine, rapturous love.
Why do they come? It can't be for the output. Yes, Eurovision gave the
world ABBA. But that was in 1974 and it's coughed up few winners of
note since, unless you want to aid the case for the prosecution by
mentioning Celine Dion. (She won for Switzerland; one more for Lime's
charge sheet, though he might let it slide on the grounds that
Switzerland's entrant in 1979 was a bloke coaxing music out of a
watering can.) The Eurovision effect can perhaps be best gauged by
Britain. A country renowned for the richness of its pop and rock
culture, its Eurovision champions have included Brotherhood of Man and
Bucks Fizz. It's a bit like the way socialism harnessed the German
genius for automotive engineering to crank out Trabants. (That said,
it's suggested Cliff Richard would have won in 1968 if General Franco
hadn't rigged it.) But why complain the edam doesn't taste like
chocolate? Eurovision is something else, to be measured by the
indicators peculiar to Euro pop: kitsch outfits, quasi-national
costumes and splendidly flimsy lyrics mixed with a dash of mild
nationalism and a dollop of cheese, all adding up to a gleefully,
fantastically camp parallel universe that feels like being smashed
over the head with a mirror ball stuffed with fairy floss. And, of
course, viewers cast votes.
This weekend the Azerbaijani capital of Baku will deliver that in
spades, and it will all be delightful and hilarious. Then, when it's
all over, the Azerbaijani government will presumably go back to being
hideous to its own people, or at least those who fail to see eye to
eye with it.
With human rights protesters being beaten and arrested in Baku as
recently as Monday, it's as good a time as any to ponder how far
Eurovision has drifted from its original purpose. When the song
contest started out in Lugano in 1956, it was meant -- in the words of
SBS documentary The Secret History of Eurovision -- to ``symbolise the
fun and freedom of the West''. Not an unreasonable aim, given the
alternative was demonstrated a few months later when Soviet tanks
smashed Budapest.
But now, with the Iron Curtain long gone, Eurovision is being embraced
in places where the freedom element is patchy at best, and where such
unrestrained campery provokes what could be diplomatically described
as a mixed reaction. When Moscow so lavishly hosted Eurovision in
2009, one of the most memorable aspects turned out to be police
roughing up gay rights activists outside the venue. As Norwegian
winner Alexander Rybak (who won with a tune called Fairytale) asked at
the time, ``Why did they spend all their energy stopping the gays in
Moscow when the biggest gay parade was in here tonight?''
And if it wasn't the Moscow police that year, it was the Eurovision
organisers, the European Broadcasters Union, snuffing out Georgia's
original entry, We Don't Wanna Put In, an unsubtle kick at Vladimir
Putin's regime for its recent invasion of South Ossetia. But with rare
exceptions -- Israel's transsexual winner in 1998, and a Bosnian band
fleeing the siege of Sarajevo to perform in 1993 -- Eurovision shies
away from anything that might give the event a spine or, as the EBU
prefers to term it, bring the competition into disrepute. Georgia had
to rethink its entry; neutrality is the name of the game.
As it is again this year in host nation Azerbaijan, whose regime is
less than happy about being known as being an enthusiastic violator of
human rights, endowed with a mindset that hasn't evolved much since
its days as a Soviet republic. A dozen prisoners of conscience
languish in jail, protesters are routinely harassed and journalists
arrested and-or beaten.
As if to vary the program, the sex life of one problematic journalist
was even covertly filmed, then not so covertly posted online. Out of
179 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press-freedom index,
Azerbaijan came in at No 162 last year. The government in turn blames
anti-Azerbaijani propaganda and lambasts the likes of Amnesty
International.
Even closer to home on the Eurovision front, there have been claims in
previous years of Azeris hauled in for questioning after using their
phones to vote for neighbouring Armenia. (Armenia is pointedly not
attending this year.) Then there are allegations people were still
living inside the apartments when the bulldozers arrived to knock them
down to make way for the venue, the $134 million Crystal Hall, a vast
edifice that looks a cross between a shellfish and a handcuff.
Britain's entrant, Engelbert Humperdinck -- whose breakout song was
1967's Release Me -- was displeased this week when a BBC journalist
had the temerity to seek his view on Azerbaijan's human rights record.
For good measure, the singer was given a T-shirt bearing the message
``Please release them''.
EBU head Ingrid Deltenre reiterated Eurovision's neutrality during an
interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, before administering a hearty
pat on the EBU's back: ``We have the Eurovision Song Contest to thank
for the fact that we are now doing this interview and that you are
interested in human rights in Azerbaijan and in the EBU.''
What lurks in the back of some minds is the possibility of Eurovision
being won by Belarus, the bleakest corner of European democracy's
badlands. This year, the former Soviet republic has sent Litesound,
whose presence in Baku is thanks in no small part to authoritarian
President Alexander Lukashenko, who personally investigated fraud in
the national televote that initially put Litesound in second place.
Anyone wanting to guess how Eurovision's roving gay fanbase would go
in Minsk could take as a guide this declaration from Lukashenko in
March: ``It's better to be a dictator than to be gay.'' Even Putin has
expressed reservations about him.
Back to Der Spiegel:
Spiegel: ``So the Eurovision Song Contest can then take place in any
country, regardless of its political system?''
Deltenre: ``Yes. In any member country.''
Spiegel: ``Even in Belarus.''
Deltenre: ``This is definitely the Union's position today.''
German politician Volker Beck has taken a contrasting stance, telling
Radio Free Europe in Baku, ``We cannot tolerate that journalists and
bloggers are pressured, that political prisoners sit in jail, that
protesters are beaten up, while we keep silent and simply applaud the
musicians.''
But many will. Yes, there will be fun tonight and over the weekend.
There'll be glitz, there'll be cheese, there'll be glee. There'll be a
troupe of singing babushkas from Russia and Austrian group
Trackshittaz delivering ``tractor gangster party rap''.
But it will be fleeting. The Eurovision caravan will move on, eyes
buried in its sequined cloak of neutrality, perhaps hoping as it moves
ever further from the cuckoo clocks that it's entering the realm of
the modern Borgias.
______________________________
>> Eurovision semi-finals screen on SBS1 tonight and Saturday, and the final on Sunday.
From: Baghdasarian
May 25, 2012 Friday
1 - All-round Country Edition
Even when the music stops, the batons take up the beat
by JAMES JEFFREY
Is Eurovision an unwitting cover for human rights abusers?
IN Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror,
murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love.
They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?
The cuckoo clock.
IF only The Third Man had been made seven years later, Orson Welles's
Harry Lime could have added Eurovision to Switzerland's CV, though
whether as an endorsement or indictment would depend on which side of
the irony curtain he was on. For those who don't recoil from this orgy
of kitsch, there are two main approaches: (a) with a tongue in cheek
and a drinking game in mind, or (b) genuine, rapturous love.
Why do they come? It can't be for the output. Yes, Eurovision gave the
world ABBA. But that was in 1974 and it's coughed up few winners of
note since, unless you want to aid the case for the prosecution by
mentioning Celine Dion. (She won for Switzerland; one more for Lime's
charge sheet, though he might let it slide on the grounds that
Switzerland's entrant in 1979 was a bloke coaxing music out of a
watering can.) The Eurovision effect can perhaps be best gauged by
Britain. A country renowned for the richness of its pop and rock
culture, its Eurovision champions have included Brotherhood of Man and
Bucks Fizz. It's a bit like the way socialism harnessed the German
genius for automotive engineering to crank out Trabants. (That said,
it's suggested Cliff Richard would have won in 1968 if General Franco
hadn't rigged it.) But why complain the edam doesn't taste like
chocolate? Eurovision is something else, to be measured by the
indicators peculiar to Euro pop: kitsch outfits, quasi-national
costumes and splendidly flimsy lyrics mixed with a dash of mild
nationalism and a dollop of cheese, all adding up to a gleefully,
fantastically camp parallel universe that feels like being smashed
over the head with a mirror ball stuffed with fairy floss. And, of
course, viewers cast votes.
This weekend the Azerbaijani capital of Baku will deliver that in
spades, and it will all be delightful and hilarious. Then, when it's
all over, the Azerbaijani government will presumably go back to being
hideous to its own people, or at least those who fail to see eye to
eye with it.
With human rights protesters being beaten and arrested in Baku as
recently as Monday, it's as good a time as any to ponder how far
Eurovision has drifted from its original purpose. When the song
contest started out in Lugano in 1956, it was meant -- in the words of
SBS documentary The Secret History of Eurovision -- to ``symbolise the
fun and freedom of the West''. Not an unreasonable aim, given the
alternative was demonstrated a few months later when Soviet tanks
smashed Budapest.
But now, with the Iron Curtain long gone, Eurovision is being embraced
in places where the freedom element is patchy at best, and where such
unrestrained campery provokes what could be diplomatically described
as a mixed reaction. When Moscow so lavishly hosted Eurovision in
2009, one of the most memorable aspects turned out to be police
roughing up gay rights activists outside the venue. As Norwegian
winner Alexander Rybak (who won with a tune called Fairytale) asked at
the time, ``Why did they spend all their energy stopping the gays in
Moscow when the biggest gay parade was in here tonight?''
And if it wasn't the Moscow police that year, it was the Eurovision
organisers, the European Broadcasters Union, snuffing out Georgia's
original entry, We Don't Wanna Put In, an unsubtle kick at Vladimir
Putin's regime for its recent invasion of South Ossetia. But with rare
exceptions -- Israel's transsexual winner in 1998, and a Bosnian band
fleeing the siege of Sarajevo to perform in 1993 -- Eurovision shies
away from anything that might give the event a spine or, as the EBU
prefers to term it, bring the competition into disrepute. Georgia had
to rethink its entry; neutrality is the name of the game.
As it is again this year in host nation Azerbaijan, whose regime is
less than happy about being known as being an enthusiastic violator of
human rights, endowed with a mindset that hasn't evolved much since
its days as a Soviet republic. A dozen prisoners of conscience
languish in jail, protesters are routinely harassed and journalists
arrested and-or beaten.
As if to vary the program, the sex life of one problematic journalist
was even covertly filmed, then not so covertly posted online. Out of
179 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press-freedom index,
Azerbaijan came in at No 162 last year. The government in turn blames
anti-Azerbaijani propaganda and lambasts the likes of Amnesty
International.
Even closer to home on the Eurovision front, there have been claims in
previous years of Azeris hauled in for questioning after using their
phones to vote for neighbouring Armenia. (Armenia is pointedly not
attending this year.) Then there are allegations people were still
living inside the apartments when the bulldozers arrived to knock them
down to make way for the venue, the $134 million Crystal Hall, a vast
edifice that looks a cross between a shellfish and a handcuff.
Britain's entrant, Engelbert Humperdinck -- whose breakout song was
1967's Release Me -- was displeased this week when a BBC journalist
had the temerity to seek his view on Azerbaijan's human rights record.
For good measure, the singer was given a T-shirt bearing the message
``Please release them''.
EBU head Ingrid Deltenre reiterated Eurovision's neutrality during an
interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, before administering a hearty
pat on the EBU's back: ``We have the Eurovision Song Contest to thank
for the fact that we are now doing this interview and that you are
interested in human rights in Azerbaijan and in the EBU.''
What lurks in the back of some minds is the possibility of Eurovision
being won by Belarus, the bleakest corner of European democracy's
badlands. This year, the former Soviet republic has sent Litesound,
whose presence in Baku is thanks in no small part to authoritarian
President Alexander Lukashenko, who personally investigated fraud in
the national televote that initially put Litesound in second place.
Anyone wanting to guess how Eurovision's roving gay fanbase would go
in Minsk could take as a guide this declaration from Lukashenko in
March: ``It's better to be a dictator than to be gay.'' Even Putin has
expressed reservations about him.
Back to Der Spiegel:
Spiegel: ``So the Eurovision Song Contest can then take place in any
country, regardless of its political system?''
Deltenre: ``Yes. In any member country.''
Spiegel: ``Even in Belarus.''
Deltenre: ``This is definitely the Union's position today.''
German politician Volker Beck has taken a contrasting stance, telling
Radio Free Europe in Baku, ``We cannot tolerate that journalists and
bloggers are pressured, that political prisoners sit in jail, that
protesters are beaten up, while we keep silent and simply applaud the
musicians.''
But many will. Yes, there will be fun tonight and over the weekend.
There'll be glitz, there'll be cheese, there'll be glee. There'll be a
troupe of singing babushkas from Russia and Austrian group
Trackshittaz delivering ``tractor gangster party rap''.
But it will be fleeting. The Eurovision caravan will move on, eyes
buried in its sequined cloak of neutrality, perhaps hoping as it moves
ever further from the cuckoo clocks that it's entering the realm of
the modern Borgias.
______________________________
>> Eurovision semi-finals screen on SBS1 tonight and Saturday, and the final on Sunday.
From: Baghdasarian