Eurovision 2012 - The Aftermath

The winner! Sweden's Loreen, in Euphoria, like her song's title

Not nursing as big a hangover as expected, but nevertheless, a great show last night. A big congratulations to Sweden's Loreen for winning the competition with a much improved and convincing performance. I had made the prediction that she would come 5th before the finale. This somewhat lower position was mainly due to the messiness of her performance in the semi-final and due to news that she had managed to rather visibly swallow and then spit out some of the fake snow that was falling on her during the jury final the night before the TV final. However, her performance on Saturday's big bash was excellent as her vocals were spot on, she engaged the camera (and therefore the audience), which was unlike in the semi-final, making the performance appear more professional and tight. A clear winner from about the fifth jury, but very deserving. Already I am making plans to go to Sweden next year for the big event!

As for my other predictions, I was almost correct with second and third, just that I had them the other way around. Very proud that Udmurtia's Buranovskie babushki of Russia came second, though not surprisingly they were not getting the highest scores, but they managed to get points from every country except Switzerland. It was a proud day for Udmurtia, and for their efforts for introducing the world to Udmurtia, every member of the Buranovskie babushki folkloric collective have been awarded with the prestigious title of 'People's Artist'. This means they will be receiving a pension bonus, and along with their now legendary status, and with fans worldwide, they should now be able to capitalise on this to get the funds to construct the church for Buranovo they so dearly want. I should also add that thanks to the publicity, Udmurtian travel agencies are now offering tours to Buranovo so that fans can meet the babushki themselves, and hopefully learn more about Udmurt culture and traditions. Who says that they are a novelty act??

Take a bow, our newly-awarded People's Artists of Udmurtia - Russia's Buranovskie babushki, cooking up a storm

Very surprised to see that Azerbaijan made it to a very respectful 4th place. I'm more surprised that the vile bit of overacted, overly pretentious and utterly pompous Albanian song made it to 5th place. This song elicited the most laughter at our house. I do suspect that over officious 'music experts' in some European countries also think in Albanian terms that quantity equates artistic quality. The facial expressions Rona pulled while singing, and her questionable styling, would lead many to question the sanity of those who thought this 'song', which sounded like the wail of a wounded boar, has some merit. Considering that I was also successfully predicting the top votes of most of the countries before they were announced, I detected here that diaspora voting played it role, so we can thank the widespread and blindly nationalistic Kosovar diaspora (Rona Nishliu is from Kosovo, not Albania) for playing their part in getting Rona over the line. I just hope that this does not signal a future Eurovision singing trend for tasteless and questionable excess.

Obviously, being over the top music-wise seemed to be popular among Eurovision juries and viewers. Estonia's Ott Lepland, who was always going for the high note, even though there isn't one, made it to 6th place. Honestly, haven't these singers, and their devotees, ever heard of the maxim 'less is more'?

I had predicted that Turkey would make 9th place, which was much higher than was predicted by many other Eurovision blogs. In the end, it was 7th place, and that was thanks to the usual mix of Turkish allies, the Balkans and Turkish diaspora. Honestly, I thought the performance was dismal, and so was Can Bonomo's singing. It definitely wasn't as good as MaNga's performance at Eurovision 2010, or the class of Mor ve Ötesi's Deli in 2008. Germany, on the other hand, was a quiet achiever. I put it down to Roman Lob's good looks and the Enrique Iglesias tea-cosy hat more than anything else.

With more make-up than an Avon lady, the Turkish boys camp it up

I had predicted that Spain would win the event. Alas, it came tenth. I also predicted 6th place for Italy, however Nina Zilli's performance just didn't have enough oomph to it, but still quite respectable to come in the top 10. As for my predictions that the Hump would be top 10, well, the UK media are going on and on that being first on was the death knell. Of course, the real reason was that the song was too boring to have any impact. As for Ireland's Jedward, their lacklustre performance truly deserved its 19th place. Looks like they won't be coming back to Eurovision next year (hooray).

My darling Kaliopi of Macedonia, who I predicted would come in the top 10, in the end made it to joint 12th place. She did a great performance, but just like other Macedonian entries, it failed to attract any attention apart from ex-Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Slavic-speaking countries. If Macedonia wants to get higher positions in future, it must break away from the usual mould and go for something with wider appeal. Unfortunately, also Kaliopi had to deal with provocations from Greek journalists who rather rudely attacked and lectured to her about the use of the name 'Macedonia'. As the clip shows, Kaliopi tried her best to be diplomatic and respond with love and respect. The 'journalist' hit back with hate, which clearly shows the narrow-mindedness and fascism of mainstream Greek mentality - their isolated hypernationalism is a poison to the world that should be stopped. Well done to Kaliopi who stood up to such pettiness, and to the rest of the world where most people rightfully do not use the 'FYR' when referring to Macedonia.

Macedonian diva, the gorgeous Kaliopi, puts rock back into Eurovision

Ukraine was rather disappointing to come 15th place. At our house, Gaytana's hi-energy number got the place dancing. I do believe that the staging and Gaytana's rather peculiar frock could have something to do with this. Moldova was yet another solid performance, while Romania did what it did. Lithuania was surprising at 14th, even though Donny Montell doesn't do metaphor but also does father-of-the-bride dancing. Fellow George Michael sound-a-likes Hungary, who did they nationalist posturing during the voting, ended near the bottom of the table. Joining them was Denmark, which is surprise if you went by the Eurovision fan polls, but not so when having seen the rather forgettable performance. Norway was last this year, which though not surprising for me, is a shame when considering it had tied with Bulgaria at 10th place in the second semi-final with Bulgaria's Sofi Marinova, only for Bulgaria not to make it to the final on account that one more country in that semi-final voted for Norway.

Iceland proved to be more fanwank than substance. Bosnia's Maya Sar can thank the Bosnian diaspora for getting to 18th place, otherwise she would have been bottom. Very glad that Greece and Cyprus got 17th and 16th places, which going by their performances on Saturday were quite generous. Malta is also lucky just to be there, even if some Eurovision fans thought he could have made it to top 5 (yeah right). And not even Anggun's amazing dress bellowing thanks to the ubiquitous wind machine (though a bad case of camel toe) or the buff topless gymnasts with their 'hello boys' routines could have saved what was a below par song for France.

France's Anggun in her made-for-Eurovision-wind-machine dress, along with the buff boys impressing the boys

So what of the predictions I made a year ago about what could go possibly wrong at the Azerbaijan-hosted Eurovision? Well, big money was spent on this Eurovision - the most expensive to date, especially when including the cost involved of the construction of a brand new venue, the Crystal Hall, in the 8 months just before the event. Somehow, the hundreds of millions spent didn't really translate into anything of greater wow factor compared to previous Eurovisions at lesser budgets. So as I predicted, money was not a problem for this Eurovision.

I mentioned that Azerbaijan could have a problem with Eurovision's core gay fan base. Not long after Azerbaijan won last year's event, the issue of the lack of gay rights in Azerbaijan was quickly highlighted by LGBT groups and proposals of a boycott of this year's Eurovision were made. Azerbaijan's authorities and media quickly tried to address these issues, as I wrote about 12 months ago. There was talk of staging a gay pride parade, however Azerbaijan's small LGBT community asked for this type of activism not to happen on account that the authorities and other elements of Azeri society would quickly cause trouble for those who become publicly involved in anything like a gay pride event in Azerbaijan once Eurovision is over and western media attention on Azerbaijan returns to usual near-silence. In the end, the high cost of getting to Azerbaijan proved to be the main reason why so many gay fans did not get to go to Baku this year. The crowd at the semis and the finale had an overwhelming majority local audience, which has not exactly been the case of recent Eurovisions.

Iran wanted to 'save' Azerbaijan from this apparent 'horror'. Looks like fun to me!

A development that came about from the gay tie to Eurovision was how the Iranian government tried to build opposition to the event, and ultimately to the Aliyev regime, by tapping into local homophobic fears by spreading rumours and making incendiary speeches that a gay pride parade will be staged in Baku during Eurovision, and called upon pious Azeris to stop this gay-Zionist plot to turn Azerbaijan into Sodom and Gomorrah. There were fears that this Iranian ploy would result in a terrorist attack staged by local Islamic fundamentalists unhappy about this polluting, evil Western gay agenda, or due to Azerbaijan's close friend Israel's participation (many Azeris express solidarity with their Turkish brothers over the Mavi Marmara incident). This threat prompted intense security at all Eurovision-related events in Baku. Fortunately none of these terrorist threats eventuated in real life, though a large number of Eurovision websites were cyber-attacked just days before this year's Eurovision started, including the iconic esctoday website. Iranian-back elements are believed to be behind these attacks.

The question of Azerbaijan's human rights situation was raised quite often in the lead up to Eurovision this year. The BBC Panorama programme did an investigation into the situation, highlighting the limitations placed on opponents to the Aliyev regime. So my prediction that the influx of journalists into Azerbaijan would give local activists much needed foreign publicity proved to be true. Anti-government protests had been organised, with one having been officially sanctioned by the government, but this was cynically (but not so obviously) dismissed as a ploy to present a false picture of a fully functioning open society in Azerbaijan. Still, there was no hiding that the Azeri authorities wanted things to go to their plan. A minder was at hand who would redirect focus from journalist questions about Azerbaijan's human rights abuses at Eurovision media conferences, along with a huge army of people who would loudly cheer whenever the minder would try to take politics out of the concert. In any case, as I have said before, it was unfair to load the responsibility of making moral judgments on Azerbaijan's human rights record on the performers when this should be done by Western governments. Loreen, Sweden's winning entrant, was the only one to have had some involvement with regime opponents, attending an open society seminar, but all other Eurovision entrants chose to be apolitical.

I don't remember seeing this in the Eurovision postcards. Azeri demonstrator arrested by plain clothes police

I also mentioned that there could be problems with Internet restrictions and the ability for Eurovision bloggers and journalists to report from Baku. There didn't seem to be much interference there, though I was taken aback that many of the so-called 'journalists' and many bloggers were easily seduced by the Azeri authorities hospitality. In one case of utter sycophancy, or perhaps out of suspicion that accredited blogs were being monitored, one blogger thanked President Aliyev for the wonderful hosting of this year's Eurovision. In any case, as I hoped a year ago, contacts have been made between Azeris and foreigners.

One sore point from this Eurovision is that it has not been spared the nepotism, croneyism and high-level corruption endemic in Azerbaijan. Not long after winning the competition, it was announced that the president's wife, the ever-smiling plastic fantastic, Mehriban Aliyeva, was to chair the organising committee. Not long after that the decision was made that a new 20 000 seat venue would be constructed. Seeing that La Aliyeva's family have considerable interests in Azerbaijan's construction industry, I suspected that they would stand to profit from this construction. Rather publicly it was announced that a German company would be responsible for building the Crystal Hall. What was not made that public was that this German company would then heavily rely on construction industry sub-contractors consisting of companies owned by La Aliyeva's family! Added to this was that Azercell, Azerbaijan's largest mobile telephone service provider and owned by the president's daughters Leyla and Arzu, and SOCAR, the state oil and gas company that the president used to chair before becoming president, and known to be a personal slush fund for the Aliyev family, were designated the main sponsors of this year's Eurovision. So, in reality, the Aliyevs and relatives substantially profited from hosting the Eurovision. But the nepotism does not stop there. As I predicted last year, the president's son-in-law, wannabe pop star Emin, did end up being the centrepiece of this year's half-time entertainment. The EBU, the organising umbrella body for the Eurovision, did go into damage control and tried to assert some sort of moral power over the growing corruption they were allowing to happen with the Eurovision being held in Azerbaijan, by publicly announcing that despite Emin announcing on his website that he will be performing at Eurovision, no accreditation had been given for him... yet. Eventually it was granted, so the EBU had relented and was seen in some quarters as not being true to its principles of transparency and openness. I think the EBU now is breathing a sigh of deep relief that the contest will be held in Sweden next year, which in terms of corruption, transparency and human rights is diametrically opposed to Azerbaijan. Back to the Aliyev family - even though the family was heavily involved in organising this year's Eurovision, surprisingly no mention or camera shots were made of the Aliyevs, or were they even mentioned in any of the broadcasts, which is strange not only for Azeri standards (where the Aliyevs are constantly praised in the local media), but also considering how vane Mehriban Aliyeva is.

The Aliyev gals, magazine editor Leyla, mama Mehriban, and phone company owner Arzu, enjoying the limelight, though not at Eurovision

Rather surprisingly, Azerbaijan did not go to town with Eurovision to emphasise its angle on Nagornyy Karabakh, the Armenian-populated Azerbaijani territory that has been in Armenian hands now for over 20 years. There was only one reference to it, and it was in one of the postcards, which is something I predicted a year ago. I also said that you wouldn't miss it, however the postcard about Karabakh was too subtle most casual viewers. Essentially, this postcard was a continuation of the ongoing tit-for-tat Eurovision-platform war between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Karabakh, using the same insider-knowledge references characteristic of this feud. This time, the postcard, which was titled with a slightly different spelling of Karabakh - Garabagh, showed Karabakh elements that form part of Azerbaijan's cultural claim to the region, namely Garabagh horses (the Azeris, being partly of Turkic origin, have a strong connection to horses) and images of child mugham performers, which was a reference to the Karabakh city of Şuşa, which Azeris claim as an important historical Azeri cultural centre. Any Armenians watching the show would have been fuming at these images, much like how Azeris were equally appalled when Armenian pop singer, 2008 entrant, Sirusho, read out the Armenian results from a ledger that she deliberately brought into camera shot that had a picture of an Armenian monument found in Karabakh. Interesting there was no other Karabakh references in any other part of the live broadcasts. Related to this conflict, I predicted that the plight of Azerbaijan's 1 million displaced people from Karabakh and the country's western areas would be mentioned, either to the refugee's benefit by the Western media, or in exploitation by the Azeris to discredit the Armenians. In the end, nothing was said of them, though I can see why as the poverty they live in would have brought into question the supposed abundant Azerbaijani wealth the postcards were presenting with all those fancy white elephant buildings (constructed by La Aliyeva's family, of course).

Of couse, I did predict (correctly) that Armenia would not participate at this year's Eurovision. Despite many half-hearted promises that the Azeris would love to have them in Baku, and my correct prediction that Armenians would only consider being at Baku only if they could win the event outright, in the end the Armenians pulled out late last year citing security concerns. I expect to see them back in the competition next year, desperate to win so as to be even with their nemesis.

The forgotten Azeris - refugees from Karabakh. Construction of the Crystal Hall improved their living standard... erm?

The time zone issue apparently was not much of a factor. The shows did start at midnight Baku time, however this late start probably contributed to the record speed that the semi-finals finished in - just under 2 hours each. I'm sure everyone just wanted to get out as quick as possible and go to sleep. Pity the Russian babushki having to be up until 3am!

If there is one thing that Eurovision in Baku has done is that it has brought proper attention to Azerbaijan - both good and bad. As the EBU said when faced with media allegations of supporting a less than open, free and transparent government in Azerbaijan, the media would not have even bothered reporting about Azerbaijan had it not been for the Eurovision. The rest of Europe has now been exposed, even if it has been in the distorted image projected by the Azeri authorities, of a country that is no cultural backwater. Just like how the Buranovskie babushki have brought attention to Udmurtia, this Eurovision has firmly put Azerbaijan on the map. It is now up to us not to forget Azerbaijan and its wonderful people and culture, nor ignore its need to further progress and tackle its problems of transparency, corruption, nepotism and open society. For if we choose to forget and ignore, then no one would have gained from this Eurovision. Happy Eurovision everyone, and I hope you remember Azerbaijan - I sure won't!