Oh, the sweet, sweet sounds of the squeezebox. KOTJMF!

Serbia, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Armenia, Greece, Rumania and Bosnia-Hercegovina

The authentic list is:

Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Belarus, Greece, Armenia, Hungary and Moldavia

http://www.faz.net/s/RubCD175863466D41BB9A6A93D460B81174/Doc~E1AEE59BF08FB41BEBFDA560B63A0F77D~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Don’t forget the role this Eurovision win could play as a political factor for the good in Serbia (”the good” defined here as open to the world, to Europe and to diversity). The Serbian opposition already used it as a reference point when commenting on the stepping down of radical-nationalist parliament speaker Nikolic after only five days in office, saying “Mr Nikolic’s nationalist and anti-European stand no longer had a place - especially as Serbia had just won the Eurovision song contest” (according to the BBC website).

Looking at the past three contests, one finds that in each case, even were the non-FC/FO countries’ votes to have been the only ones counted, no further members of this “bloc” would have entered into the Top-10, let alone placed first (the one exception being Sweden this year, but only barely and as a result of neighbourhood voting from the rest of the Nordics, and an unexpected 7 from the U.K. Indeed, in 2005 it was the efforts of FC/FO countries that seems to have kept Switzerland *in* the top 10). Put simply: countries in western Europe just plain don’t vote for one another a whole lot, they mainly go for the FC/FO entries (and not always the same FC/FO countries as the actual FC/FO ones chose: both this year and the last the overall FC/FO “favorite” would have been Russia, despite respectable levels of support for the winners, and Moldova’s drumming grandmother came a very close second behind Greece the year before that, quite possibly only stopped from winning by a decisively cool interest in her in the non-FC/FO countries).

Why is this, then? Well, immigrant communities/naturalized citizens/minorities/etc. voting for the “Mother Country” probably play some part (Turkey is the model example, and Armenia seems to be up-and-coming in this regard. One also reckons that it may well have explained an otherwise quite peculiar 12 from Estonia to Russia, given present circumstances… Much as I’d like to think it was an olive branch, it’s more likely to have been a determined nationalist effort) and this of course includes countries in the Balkans (it’s telling that Bosnia-Herzegovina actually seems to have a penchant for doing *better* in the west than among the FC/FO countries…), but I still don’t think that is anywhere near the whole story, since clearly non-FC/FO countries do not just pour points into their local immigrants’ country of origin (Greek ex-pats somehow voting Helena Paparizou to first place may not be *entirerly* impossible, but there is no way in heck that Lordi’s victory last year was the work of the Finnish Diaspora), and sometimes do turn out a decent level of support for one another (often not as divergent from the FC/FO countries support for the same countries as one might have thought).

Rather, I think a lot comes down to the “wessies”, aside from usually neither trying as hard or with as much inspiration to win, just don’t have the kind of musical overlap/inegration, in terms of tastes and artists, as I hear told is the case in much of the FC/FO area. If so, it shows: this year’s non-FC/FO entires were, stylistically if not as much quality-wise, all over the map, and almost none of them were really known outisde of their home countries (if even there). Whereas much of the FC/FO ones appear to have stuck closer to a smaller number of formulas (Hungary aside, and Hungary was more popular in the non-FC/FO area, those who did diverge, such as the Czech entry, seem to have been punished for it, if indeed justly in that particular case…). To put it another way: the non-FC/FO countries can agree on what they like in the FC/FO countries’ music, but not what (if anything) that they like in their own. Producing entries that would be so “pan-western” (or better yet: pan-European!) in nature seems like a challenge none of them will meet in the short run. Only the Brits really seem to be able to stand a chance of pulling it off, and they ain’t going to be doing it any time soon, given their prickly* relationship with the contest.

So, in summary, the problem may well be primarily one of perception, but that can definitly be bad enough (certainly, the image of shifty and evil Eastern Europeans huddling together and squeezing out western songs, or western artists/TV producers/blog or message board commentors cussing the FC/FO countries out based on that image won’t be doing any *good* for the case of European unity, unless it is as a resurrection of the Cold War, or possibly the Great Schism…) and indeed, few countries are likely to remain interested in the long run in something they never stand a realsitic prospect of winning anything in, or even get to be let into in the first place (it’s just like with an EU memebership!), so it might just be that the contest has seen its best days (such as they were) already…

* (as in; behaving like a bunch of pricks about it)