Last spring apprehension gripped the citizens of this small country. The long ruling Socialists had just been voted out of power leaving the untested center-right New Democracy party to face the incredible challenge of hosting the first Olympics to be held in Greece for 108 years.
The Greeks are famously ill-organized procrastinators whose saving grace is their pride. The country was fearful that the last-minute way of doing things was not going to be good enough this time. As we walked through the construction site that our city had been for so long and we saw how much remained to be done on this day last year, we despaired. We compared the whole enterprise to a slow motion train wreck and feared the worst.
And then the gods of Olympus intervened.
It began with football. The last major football meet that Greece went to was the World Cup in the United States. We lost our group level games with a total score of 10-0 (4-0, 4-0, 2-0). So we were not entirely confident that our national team would not disgrace us again in Portugal last June for the Euro Cup.
The gods protected our goalmouth (ask the Czechs) as the Cinderella story unfolded. Greece beat the hosts, saw off the Spaniards, kicked French ass, survived the Czechs and beat the hosts again to become the most unlikely Cup winners ever. You really should have been in Athens that Fourth of July.
Then the much feared Olympics, with an added billion euros in security spending on top of everything else because of US-UK paranoia. I remember counting 3 blimps (two security) and about 6 to 12 helicopters and airplanes flying at ALL times in the days before the games. The games were bloodless and even security-alert-free (unlike Atlanta) and a great success.
Tonight, Greece won its first ever Eurovision song contest, the very same contest that gave Abba to the world. Yes, I know it is sad, inane and boring. In the national morale stakes however, it is a wonderful tonic and caps off a truly magical year, which followed a long time during which national esteem was bumping along the dirt road.
Perhaps what you should take from this is that just as things can deteriorate rapidly, so too can magical seeming events happen suddenly, unexpectedly and swiftly. The gods or God (if you prefer) move in mysterious ways. Alternatively, streaks happen.
I don’t give a flying fig about the Eurovision contest and yet, that felt good.
Not nearly as good as beating the French last year though.
Crossposted a dKos.
I watched for the first time ever, and while over here we are all still bitter about Iceland’s early ejection, I still had fun. People here get into it, with all sorts of Eurovision parties and the like. I have to admit, I was rooting for Moldova and their grandmamma (how could you not love her!?) but congratulations nonetheless š At least my guys got 6th in their first showing ever.. I’d say that’s a good showing!
I was actually thinking of what you were saying earlier.. you guys got a very successful Olympics, the World Cup and Eurovision all in one year. Not bad at all!
after the Euro Cup win. (Some people were chanting “Bring on Brazil”! If we make it to the World Cup finals next summer, it may even happen.) You would have thought that a war had been won or something.
(Other people were chanting really unprintable things and people generally were simply ecstatic.)
Actually one the things I’ve never been able to figure out about this country is that they celebrate the beginnings of wars and not their ends. October 28 is the great WWII holiday, when the then Greek dictator said NO to Mussolini and started the war, not VE Day or the day the Germans pulled out.
Sorry about Iceland and great for Moldova.
All hail the Eurotrash Champions! No, really. The snub ‘eurotrash,’ so popular with the US euro-bashing right, has always puzzled me, being directed at the continent of Plato, Dante, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Mozart, and Goethe from that of Elvis, Liberace, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Ron Jeremy, Jerry Springer, and Howard Stern. But at least once a year there really is such a thing as ‘Eurotrash,’ and it’s a championship with a billion viewers. I hope it doesn’t air anywhere in the US.
Since the music involved mostly varies between the dull and the frankly insufferable, and the stage shows between various degrees of the latter, I take more of an interest in the voting. And actually, I think it bodes rather well for Europe’s future:
Everyone votes for the neighboring countries. This is a time-tested pattern of Eurosong. Cyprus and Greece unfailingly give each other 12 out of 12 points, irrespective of quality or lack thereof (all of Europe mutters the inevitable ‘Chypre/La Grèce, douze points’ in unison). Norway this year received 8 points from Sweden and a full dozen from Denmark, Iceland, and Finland. Eastern European countries have an even stronger tendency to rub each other’s backs. But the pattern may have been even more pronounced this year than usual. Sensationally, for instance, Turkey gave 12 points to its traditional arch-enemy Greece, signaling that NATO is not the only thing keeping them from each other’s throats. Who knows, maybe one of these years, Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro will give each other 12? If so, then the barometer points to peace.
Chirac and his ilk try to pretend that a ‘no’ to the EU constitution is a recipe for war on the continent. But in light of the scoreboard, I can’t really see that coming. It’s your neighbors you are likely to invade, after all; and then you don’t rush to the telephone to pay for voting their clueless drag performers up the list.
Oh, and another thing. Four countries qualify for the final directly, ostensibly justified by their size: the UK, Germany, Spain, and France. These four ended up last! So, although EU institutions aren’t quite as egalitarian than those of Eurosong, might this indicate that the smaller nations can stick together and beat the privileges that the high and mighty arrogate to themselves? Not the worst message to be extraced from for the Eurotrash Championship.
Did I say congratulations to Athenian? Nonetheless, these guys should have won IMHO:
Norwegian glam rockers Wigwam with their motto, “Sex, milk, and rock & roll,” finished 9th but are surely the moral winners of Eurotrash 2005!
Why are we awake at all? I’ll reply more substantively to your excellent comment tomorrow. For now, thanks.
My cousin voted for them, and we certainly had your backs covered over here š
Our local “Eurovision expert” who lives in Norway is actually good friends with the band, and had an interesting comment (which turned out not to be very true).. “I think people will either give them 12 points or 0 points, purely because nobody really knows for sure if they’re joking or not.” As I mentioned, I was siding with “grandmamma,” but I was very happy to see Wig Wam put in a very good showing as well. I love seeing the guys who can mantain a good sense of humor! Out of curiosity.. how in the world did Norway end up picking them?
Don’t really know, but they have been close to winning before. Last year they were beaten by a serious dude in black cloths performing some straight song. And despite being one of the least intolerable Eurosong contestants from a musical point of view, he finished last with something like 3 points (from Sweden). So maybe people thought, what the hell, if Europe wants a porno show, we’ll give it to them. And if nothing else, I’m sure they got the gay vote…
There was another Norwegian contestant in this year’s Eurovision, namely the representative of Finland – a serious dude in black clothes, etc. He actually had a nice song and a great voice, but was beaten out in the semi-final. So it does pay to eschew the serious dude!
That, I guess, is the essence of camp. If it’s clearly serious, it’s kitch; if clearly not, it becomes satire. Successful camp preserves the ambiguity.
Very well said.. should be even more interesting next year, when all the other countries decide the successful model is to copy what Norway did š You know it’ll happen!
Can’t wait…
Thanks Sirrocco, somebody else noticed that 12 points from Turkey to Greece. Another interesting one was the 3(?) points from Russia to Ukraine. While you could expect some voting purely due to geograpical proximity, it produces some interesting possibilities for the future of Russian politics.
The reason those four countries get a by into the final is not because they are the biggest but because they are the biggest contributers to contest.
Athenian, while I am happy for you about the contest, the costs of the Olympics are a real burden for your country and are not good news for some of the most vulnerable in Greek society. I saw a piece in the last week on a project for former patients in mental institutions to live and work outside in the community. The organisation doing it is in danger of going under because they have not received the payments they are due from the government. This is because of the Olympics debts and the restrictions on lending imposed by the European Union’s stability mechanism.
Eurovision History
1988
» And the winner is … Switzerland! And no less a person than now international star Celine Dion made it possible with “Ne partez pas sans moi”.
Well, I’m glad she didn’t represent Canada.