Eurovision and Azerbaijan
I wholeheartedly love Eurovision. Its great fun: a huge overblown festival of camp nonsense with dancing, singing, silly outfits and flashing lights. What’s not to like?
It also presents a window on global geopolitical relationships. No, seriously it does, bear with me here. For years accusations of corruption and biased voting have circulated freely. It is indeed true to say countries award top points to their friends and neighbours. Sweden votes for Norway; Cyprus votes for Greece; Switzerland votes for France; anyone who used to be owned by the Russians votes for Russia.
Britain never does very well, which is no surprise, considering our lack of international friends. Although the recent policy of entering pop and rock has-beens with dull songs is not helping. Nonetheless it’s great fun, and this year was no exception.
The financial crisis has left it’s mark too. Many countries have pulled out, citing finances as the problem. This year saw no entries from troubled nations such as Portugal, Bosnia, and Slovakia. The Turkish also refused to participate, blaming lack of viewer influence on the voting.
The Scandinavian entries were all pretty strong and Denmark won, deservedly so. I look forward to next year. Copenhagen is a great city and the Danes love a big event, they’ll do a great job of hosting with just the right amounts of enthusiasm, satire and Carlsberg in equal parts. More tellingly they can afford it.
However despite this year’s good show, the voting rumours and allegations of corruption will not go away. If anything this year a more significant storm is brewing. This year the Euro-gossip websites are buzzing even two weeks later with the story of blatant Azerbaijani vote rigging. This tells us more about Azerbaijan than it does about Eurovision.
Azerbaijan absolutely loves Eurovision. It loves anything on a world-stage. It is quite possibly the least self aware, modest or subtle nation on earth. They are like one of those needy children that want desperately to be firmly and loudly at the centre of anything. In fact if there was a world stage for throwing poo then Azerbaijan would spend millions and enter a team of highly trained specialists. Since the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea made them significantly wealthy, the ruling Azeri elite have thrown their hats in for anything and everything. Bids have been made for the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games. A joint effort with the Georgians was put forward for the Football Euros in 2020. A huge ski resort is under construction and no doubt a ridiculous bid for a Winter Games will follow. There is even a Tour d’Azerbaijan and a Formula 1 track is under construction. Now that Azerbaijan is rich it wants to famous, and uber-famous at that.
The problem is they just don’t quite get it. The modern Azeri elite are a brash, garishly novo riche dictatorship that lurches clumsily from one corruption scandal to another. They are un-PR-able, if such a thing is possible.
Eurovision is one of their pet projects. Since discovering their lust for the international stage, the Azeri government have spent millions on a assembling their acts every year, seemingly without noticing Eurovision’s camp and ironic charms. Since their debut in 2008 they’ve made it into the top ten each year, which is something of a record. Finally the inevitable happened and in 2011 in Germany, they won, with Running Scared sung by Ell and Nikki. I was actually right there in Düsseldorf and it was, in all fairness, a good song. The rain of fire light show was very impressive.
What happened over the next year was truly astonishing. The Azeri elite ordered the total clearance and violent forcible eviction of hundreds, possibly thousands, of native Bakuvians from their homes in the harbour area of Baku. A €140 million Crystal Hall was constructed, designed to hold 25,000 people, especially for Eurovision. Utter madness. In the run up to the 2012 contest countless public gatherings and protests were brutally broken up by the Azeri army and police. Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, blatant lack of democracy, control of the media, corruption and civil repression were generally glossed over. Even the BBC maintained a look-the-other-way attitude throughout their presenting. The show itself went well and Euroland breathed a sigh of relief as Sweden won.
But Azerbaijan just won’t let it go. This year the standard voting controversy took a darker twist as Azerbaijan’s decidedly ordinary song, ‘Hold Me’ by Farid Mammadov, was consistently highly voted for and sailed home in second place. Whilst little Farid would genuinely win a prefect-teeth contest, Denmark rightly won with a pleasant enough effort. Everybody else routinely did their fair share of voting for their pals. Now two weeks on, some rather odd stories have surfaced on the various euro-gossip web sites. Apparently a group of Latvians filmed themselves in negotiation with a mysterious individual known as Sergei. The Latvians were offered Euros and mobile phones in exchange for their phone votes in favour of Azerbaijan by Sergei. Apparently the same happened in Switzerland, Croatia, Belarus and the rest of the Baltics. This is rather silly, are we really saying the Azerbaijanis attempted to bribe their way across Europe to rig Eurovision of all things? It would appear we are.
Meanwhile in another bizarre turn of events the Azeri Foreign Minister (yes really, their Foreign Minister) has ordered a full official enquiry into why the Azeri jury did not give Russia any points. He claimed this is a matter of international significance and a national embarrassment. I’d be fairly sure now that Vladimir Putin himself doesn’t really give two hoots. Whilst all this is mildly amusing for the rest of us, it does make the Azerbaijani’s look rather foolish at best, down right bonkers at worst. Until the Azeri conscious starts to register how much of a laughing stock this needy desperation makes them, nothing will change.
When I was in Baku I saw this first hand. I spent considerable time wandering round trying to find the train station. I eventually found the temporary facility in a basement of tunnels and offices. The real main station was under construction hoardings being refurbished. I was disappointed I couldn’t see it. I’d seen pictures of the beautiful old art deco station built in the 1900s after the original oil boom. A couple of months after I got back I remembered it and looked it up. The building is no longer a train station at all, the construction site I saw is now something else entirely. It’s a KFC. Not just any old KFC but the biggest KFC in the world. And you know what they did? They celebrated the opening of the world’s largest KFC with a blasting drum and bass and light show for an audience of thousands, complete with fireworks and 10ft high projections of Colonel Saunders.
No they don’t get it.
It also presents a window on global geopolitical relationships. No, seriously it does, bear with me here. For years accusations of corruption and biased voting have circulated freely. It is indeed true to say countries award top points to their friends and neighbours. Sweden votes for Norway; Cyprus votes for Greece; Switzerland votes for France; anyone who used to be owned by the Russians votes for Russia.
Britain never does very well, which is no surprise, considering our lack of international friends. Although the recent policy of entering pop and rock has-beens with dull songs is not helping. Nonetheless it’s great fun, and this year was no exception.
The financial crisis has left it’s mark too. Many countries have pulled out, citing finances as the problem. This year saw no entries from troubled nations such as Portugal, Bosnia, and Slovakia. The Turkish also refused to participate, blaming lack of viewer influence on the voting.
The Scandinavian entries were all pretty strong and Denmark won, deservedly so. I look forward to next year. Copenhagen is a great city and the Danes love a big event, they’ll do a great job of hosting with just the right amounts of enthusiasm, satire and Carlsberg in equal parts. More tellingly they can afford it.
However despite this year’s good show, the voting rumours and allegations of corruption will not go away. If anything this year a more significant storm is brewing. This year the Euro-gossip websites are buzzing even two weeks later with the story of blatant Azerbaijani vote rigging. This tells us more about Azerbaijan than it does about Eurovision.
Azerbaijan absolutely loves Eurovision. It loves anything on a world-stage. It is quite possibly the least self aware, modest or subtle nation on earth. They are like one of those needy children that want desperately to be firmly and loudly at the centre of anything. In fact if there was a world stage for throwing poo then Azerbaijan would spend millions and enter a team of highly trained specialists. Since the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea made them significantly wealthy, the ruling Azeri elite have thrown their hats in for anything and everything. Bids have been made for the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games. A joint effort with the Georgians was put forward for the Football Euros in 2020. A huge ski resort is under construction and no doubt a ridiculous bid for a Winter Games will follow. There is even a Tour d’Azerbaijan and a Formula 1 track is under construction. Now that Azerbaijan is rich it wants to famous, and uber-famous at that.
The problem is they just don’t quite get it. The modern Azeri elite are a brash, garishly novo riche dictatorship that lurches clumsily from one corruption scandal to another. They are un-PR-able, if such a thing is possible.
Eurovision is one of their pet projects. Since discovering their lust for the international stage, the Azeri government have spent millions on a assembling their acts every year, seemingly without noticing Eurovision’s camp and ironic charms. Since their debut in 2008 they’ve made it into the top ten each year, which is something of a record. Finally the inevitable happened and in 2011 in Germany, they won, with Running Scared sung by Ell and Nikki. I was actually right there in Düsseldorf and it was, in all fairness, a good song. The rain of fire light show was very impressive.
What happened over the next year was truly astonishing. The Azeri elite ordered the total clearance and violent forcible eviction of hundreds, possibly thousands, of native Bakuvians from their homes in the harbour area of Baku. A €140 million Crystal Hall was constructed, designed to hold 25,000 people, especially for Eurovision. Utter madness. In the run up to the 2012 contest countless public gatherings and protests were brutally broken up by the Azeri army and police. Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, blatant lack of democracy, control of the media, corruption and civil repression were generally glossed over. Even the BBC maintained a look-the-other-way attitude throughout their presenting. The show itself went well and Euroland breathed a sigh of relief as Sweden won.
But Azerbaijan just won’t let it go. This year the standard voting controversy took a darker twist as Azerbaijan’s decidedly ordinary song, ‘Hold Me’ by Farid Mammadov, was consistently highly voted for and sailed home in second place. Whilst little Farid would genuinely win a prefect-teeth contest, Denmark rightly won with a pleasant enough effort. Everybody else routinely did their fair share of voting for their pals. Now two weeks on, some rather odd stories have surfaced on the various euro-gossip web sites. Apparently a group of Latvians filmed themselves in negotiation with a mysterious individual known as Sergei. The Latvians were offered Euros and mobile phones in exchange for their phone votes in favour of Azerbaijan by Sergei. Apparently the same happened in Switzerland, Croatia, Belarus and the rest of the Baltics. This is rather silly, are we really saying the Azerbaijanis attempted to bribe their way across Europe to rig Eurovision of all things? It would appear we are.
Meanwhile in another bizarre turn of events the Azeri Foreign Minister (yes really, their Foreign Minister) has ordered a full official enquiry into why the Azeri jury did not give Russia any points. He claimed this is a matter of international significance and a national embarrassment. I’d be fairly sure now that Vladimir Putin himself doesn’t really give two hoots. Whilst all this is mildly amusing for the rest of us, it does make the Azerbaijani’s look rather foolish at best, down right bonkers at worst. Until the Azeri conscious starts to register how much of a laughing stock this needy desperation makes them, nothing will change.
When I was in Baku I saw this first hand. I spent considerable time wandering round trying to find the train station. I eventually found the temporary facility in a basement of tunnels and offices. The real main station was under construction hoardings being refurbished. I was disappointed I couldn’t see it. I’d seen pictures of the beautiful old art deco station built in the 1900s after the original oil boom. A couple of months after I got back I remembered it and looked it up. The building is no longer a train station at all, the construction site I saw is now something else entirely. It’s a KFC. Not just any old KFC but the biggest KFC in the world. And you know what they did? They celebrated the opening of the world’s largest KFC with a blasting drum and bass and light show for an audience of thousands, complete with fireworks and 10ft high projections of Colonel Saunders.
No they don’t get it.