I was browsing through the picks and one question caught my attention the most, it was Ratdog's question: Do you think the voting is fixed or based on country's neighbours and politics?
I personally do believe that the neighboring countries vote for each other, however I think that it is inevitable for this to happen, not only because of language similarities. Its the culture in total that matters. For example, if you look at the scandinavian countries who vote for each other. They all have similar sounding languages which originated from the same branch. Also, generally speaking they seem to be interested in the same type of music: either hard rock, house/dance or swingy rock/pop. Sweden last year was represented by The Ark with their song The Worrying Kind which was in style similar to this year's song All Night Long by Simon Mathew, representing Denmark. Therefore it is unequivocal that countries with similar historical and cultural background will vote for each other. Scandinavia was one example, the Balkan countries are another.
You saw that Serbia got its votes mainly from surrounding countries with once again similar cultures.
Where politics come into this is my question. How is the Eurovision Song Contest linked to politics in any matter? If people are holding grudges against other countries due to political situations either in the past or the present and decide not to vote for them, is just plain ignorant. What is happening on the political scene should not affect the cultural scene in any matter. I honestly don't see a reason why you wouldn't vote for a country based on their politics. Eurovision is a SONG CONTEST, therefore you vote for the song if you like it, if you don't you don't. It's simple as that.
It is then pathetic to see that some people deal with this as political matter.
Eurovision Song Contest is a chance to unite Europe for one night. Yes, bordering countries will vote for each other, that is obvious, but they also vote for other countries. Also, before judging whether or not this is fair, think about yourself. When you watch Eurovision, don't you cast at least one vote for a neighboring or a very close country to your own?
One more idea that has come to my mind right now is how some people have negative attitudes to the fact that Russia won. Once again, you cannot HOLD POLITICAL GRUDGES forever! What happened, happened, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Luckily the results do show that Europe has evolved and even 'western' countries (if you want to get into the whole Cold War politics) vote for former communist countries like Russia.
To finish off this article, I'm going to use a quote from the song Living Darfur by Mattafix, because I believe one line can be applied to my article.
"Where others fail, you prevail in time.
You shall rise"
Don't let politics affect you in your choices.
Peace!
xxxxx
|
Join this Spot
Invite friend 
My country (Poland) earned only 14 points from UK and Ireland. If you know something about European situation you probably know that lots of Poles live there, so obviously we voted for ourselves and Ukraine or Russia and Germany didn't gave us any points.
I wish Poland saying "fuck it" and leaving the contest. That would be the last chance for saveing our... honour?
Sign In or join Fanpop to add your comment