It has been some weeks now already since the finale of the Eurovision Song Contest has taken place. More than 122 millions of viewers witnessed how Norway got away with its fairytale character Alexander Rybak, who won, and Norway will thus be hosting next year’s edition. Nonetheless, despite the equally represented voting system - professional jury/televoters - the frustrated cries arose once again this year among some losers.

We have had our portion of Eurovision this year and, well, congratulations to Alexander Rybak. The 23-year-old Norwegian prince with Byelorussian roots seems to have charmed Europe. Not only was he declared winner by the televoters, but he also was the favourite among the professional jury.

Iceland surprisingly ended second with the insipid ballad ‘Is it true?’ by the blond Yohanna, followed by Azerbaijan, Turkey and United Kingdom. This only proves that the bookies are not that reliable, as they had predicted a higher spot in the ranking for Greece and Spain. They did prove to be right with the winner and with Turkey though. Hadise (Turkey) was happy with where she ended, but couldn’t hide Turkey was already mentally preparing to organize the 2010 edition. On the other hand, so did Spain, who where more than proud with ‘their’ Soraya. The disappointment and incomprehension was huge as they ended up penultimate. They did get the full twelve points once though… from Andorra. Big surprise. In that aspect Portugal was even disappointing, only giving Spain seven points.

The complaint on that so-called ‘neighbour- and diaspora voting’ was not really wrongful. Some correspondents did not make a secret of it either. Comments like ‘And the twelve points go to our beloved neighbours, of course’ were more then once uttered. On the other hand, that is how it works nowadays. And if every country would react by cowardly renouncing to participate, there would be no Eurovision Song Contest left to organize. The best thing seems to take a defeat with grace and to try again next year. The EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, and NRK already announced the festival would take place in Oslo on May 25, 27 and 29.

‘HOMOPHOBIA IS A SHAME!’
Next to the celebration of this gay festival, another gay demonstration took place in Moscow. The gay right movement under leadership of Nikolai Alexeyev, founder of GayRussia.ru, sounded assembly on the Pushkin Square. Those that did have the nerves to show up were opposed by intimidating forces of order and a bunch of fascist and ultra orthodox thugs. Demonstrators were called all sorts of names like ‘degenerates’ and ‘pidor’, a corruption of ‘pederast’ and arms have been painfully dislocated, eyewitnesses told. Though homosexuality is no longer illegal in Russia since 1993, the mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov, suppresses ‘satanic’ gay demonstrations systematically. Eurovision participants were called to boycott this year’s edition, saying Russia was using the festival to show a progress made since the nineties, but failing to say progress in Human Rights has been minimalistic. Inside the Olympiyski Indoor Arena the artists seemed too preoccupied with their chances to win though. Only Alexander Rybak, precisely, mentioned having problems with the measures undertaken against the gay demonstrators and the problems gays are faced with in Russia. ‘I do not understand the timing of the demonstration, though,’ he stated, ‘hasn’t the biggest gay parade in the world taken place already tonight?’. We have to grant him that, but Eurovision, gay as it is, does not fight for Human Rights. |