>
> On May 25, 1:19 am, Vladimir Makarenko popmail.med.nyu.edu>
> wrote:

>> Just for comparison only:
>>
>> Op-Ed Contributor
>> The Politics of Eurovision
>>
>> By DUNCAN J. WATTS
>> Published: May 22, 2007
>>
>> ONE of the unexpected pleasures of spending a sabbatical in Britain has
>> been the chance to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, held the Saturday
>> before last in Helsinki. For those not familiar with this quirkiest of
>> European traditions (which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary),
>> the contest involves 42 "European" countries - Israel and Turkey are
>> included, for example - each of which submits a song to be sung by a
>> band of that nationality.
>>
>> The rules governing the contest are a little strange, and so is the
>> singing, which appears to emphasize camp over more conventional notions
>> of quality. Britain's entrant, Scooch, put on a saucy,
>> flight-attendant-inspired act that would have made Abba (the 1974
>> winner) proud, while Verka Serduchka, a Ukrainian drag queen, came out
>> looking like a silver-foil version of Mrs. Doubtfire. The Greeks,
>> meanwhile, were doing their best Ricky Martin, Belarus looked fresh out
>> of a James Bond trailer and Hungary apparently had ditched the whole
>> Euro thing and opted for what sounded suspiciously like country.
>>
>> In short, it's a great show, but the best part is the voting, which is
>> done "American Idol"-style via text messaging. Anyone can vote as many
>> times as he likes, the one restriction being that he can't vote for his
>> own country. The votes are tallied nationally, and breathless
>> representatives call in the results to Helsinki, allocating 12 points to
>> their country's top choice, 10 to second place, 8 to third, and so on
>> down to 1 point for 10th.
>>
>> Now, I don't know much about contemporary music, but as they say, I know
>> what I like. And watching the 24 acts in the final (a preliminary round
>> removes the other 18), I felt Sweden and Britain were clear standouts,
>> given the silliness of the whole thing. I also had the overwhelming
>> feeling that the Serbian entry, a turgid ballad called "Molitva," or
>> "Prayer," didn't stand a chance.
>>
>> So imagine my surprise when Serbia not only won, but crushed the
>> opposition, beating second-place Ukraine (yes, the drag queen) by 268
>> points to 235. Britain, with a paltry 19 points, narrowly edged out
>> Ireland to avoid last place; and Sweden scraped together a meager 51
>> points, coming in 18th out of 24. What was going on? Two words that were
>> shouted across the British dailies the next day: "Bloc Voting."
>>
>> I had heard about this practice, of course, whereby geographical and
>> cultural neighbors tend to vote for each other, and nobody votes for
>> Britain (well, except for Malta). But it was startling to see just how
>> flagrant it was. The Scandinavians all voted for one another; Lithuania
>> gave 10 points to Latvia (whose entry, bizarrely, sang in Italian);
>> former Warsaw Pact countries voted for Russia; and almost nobody voted
>> for Britain (surprisingly, Ireland did - and, of course, Malta).
>>
>> But Serbia was the overwhelming beneficiary of the system, receiving the
>> top score of 12 points from every other member of the former Yugoslavia
>> - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia -
>> suggesting that memories of war and ethnic cleansing can be set aside
>> with surprising ease when it comes to the serious business of winning a
>> singing contest. It's hard to say whether the 60 points that the former
>> Yugoslavia effectively gave to itself altered the final result, but an
>> enterprising Irishman suggested that if all the Irish counties were
>> allowed to secede, they would be unstoppable.
>>
>> Does it matter? Probably not. It's just a game, after all, and the
>> outrageous bias in the voting is as entertaining as the songs
>> themselves. But it does offer an unexpected glimpse of how ordinary
>> Europeans perceive one another. More than anything, it seems, blood is
>> thicker than water, and not just in the Balkans. That Germany gave 12
>> points to Turkey, for example, probably reflects the large number of
>> Turks living in Germany more than it does a German predilection for
>> scantily clad dancers (of which there were plenty of choices).
>>
>> But it was also obvious how little love Eastern Europe feels for the
>> West. Although the "big four" - Britain, France, Germany and Spain
>> (Italy does not participate) - basically pay for the contest, none of
>> them made it into the top 16; and Turkey, which you might have expected
>> to be playing nice, given its pending European Union membership
>> application, awarded not a single point to any big four or Scandinavian
>> nation.
>>
>> This pointed rejection of Western Europe might even be seen as a
>> poignant metaphor for contemporary Europe as a whole. The large,
>> industrialized nations magnanimously invite their poorer but more
>> numerous eastern cousins to join their party, and offer to pay the bill,
>> only to discover themselves locked out in the garden while their new
>> friends complain about the quality of the liquor and the arrogance of
>> the hosts.
>>
>> The hosts, meanwhile, can't get along either - the big four collectively
>> awarded one another a grand total of just 12 points. So although it was
>> more than a little odd that the countries that actually tried to help in
>> Bosnia are substantially less popular there than the country that
>> instigated ethnic cleansing, it was equally odd that the Balkans, of all
>> places, was effectively handing the western countries a lesson in
>> cooperation.
>>
>> The annual chance to score yourself in the eyes of your fellow Europeans
>> might not be a bad thing, however: the Serbs and their neighbors are now
>> going through an outpouring of pride and brotherly love. It's hard not
>> to think that's somehow more useful than crowning the successor to Abba.
>> Last week in Britain, meanwhile, for all the cries of foul play, there
>> was a hint of - I wouldn't say soul-searching - but perhaps
>> head-scratching over what might be done to reverse the tide of
>> resentment from traditional allies and newly minted European states
>> alike. If nothing else, that seems like a good conversation to start.
>>
>> Now, apparently, NBC has the rights to bring a version of Eurovision to
>> the United States, with all 50 states competing. I hope they do it, but
>> only if they keep the same voting system. It may not tell us much about
>> the music we produce or like; but in a patchwork quilt of a country,
>> with red versus blue states, North versus South, East Coast versus West
>> Coast, the Midwest versus everyone - and who-knows-what going on in
>> Texas - it may tell us a lot about what we really think of one another.
>>
>> Duncan J. Watts is a professor of sociology at Columbia.

>
> It's OK, now the level of point counting is just on the same level
> with songs himself