Eurovision Nationality Contest 2010

Contrary to my expectations, Lena won the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. Congratulations!
That’s why I want to thank all voters of the contest who did not vote for the artists of their home country. You made it happen that many Germans are very happy now because they think they have won the contest.

I watched the finale in a group of 10 persons. The expectations about the result were manifold. Only very few could imagine to find Lena at the first rank finally. But they shared the thrill with Lena. Deep inside they hoped that she will win – sorry, they hoped that they will win (despite the East-European conspiracy).
But can you imagine, I was the only person who gave a vote? It is not possible to vote for the artists of the country you currently stay in. So my co watchers could not vote for Lena, that’s why many of them decided not to vote at all even though they had their favourites besides Lena. It wasn’t about the best performance or the best music, it was about the patriotic act to vote for their home country. How dopey! If all people would think like that, who would win the contest? Nobody, because nobody would vote?

Actually there would be a winner, because not only my co watchers shared the national attitude. Past votings showed that emigrants still feel connected with their former home country and hence vote for the representing artists. That’s the so called diaspora voting phenomenon. For example, when Belgium or the Netherlands could not send an artist to the contest, many Belgian and Dutch people did not watch the finale. But the immigrants of the respective countries did and voted. Germany in turn always gives points to Turkey and Greece.

An other phenomenon is called neighbourhood voting: countries which are culturally and historically strong connected gave points to each other. Usually these countries are neighbour countries like the countries of Ex-Yugoslavia, Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Ex-soviet countries…

However, some Germans still believe in the myth of the East-European unity against the Western states: not ethnic intermixture and cultural exchange that is historically higher in East-Europe but a nebulous East-Block solidarity against the Western nations would cause these countries to vote for each other.

Even though diaspora and neighbour voting never induced an artist to win the contest, the calculation of the points follows a mixed approach since a few years: to reduce the influence of these effects 50% of a countries voting points derives from the judgement of an independent jury.

And finally Germany Lena won the contest. How glad we all can be that there are enough persons who voted for the song/artist they like best or at least liked it that much that they gave their vote for it/them.
Maybe I should not give up hope that the contest is about music and not about nationality.

Sources:

[1] – http://eurovision.ndr.de
[2] – http://www.sueddeutsche.de
[3] – http://www.eurovision.tv

P.S.: I voted for the Spanish artists. Btw, the Spanish soccer team will win the soccer world cup 😉