Pop turns political in Kiev
by
21 May 2005, Agence
France-Presse
KIEV The Eurovision song contest, an annual extravaganza of Euro-pop kitsch, has taken a decidedly political turn for its 50th edition this Saturday in Ukraine.
One of President Viktor Yushchenko's first moves after taking office in January was to state his commitment to playing host to the event and to acknowledge that it would be a showcase that could help the new Ukraine move closer to its aim of joining the European Union. "Eurovision-2005 is the first such event of this scale for Ukraine and will be an opportunity to let Europeans discover the country," said the weekly magazine Korrespondent ahead of the event in Kiev's Palace of Sports that will pull in hopefuls from 39 countries. Ukraine, the largest country in Europe but best known before the "orange revolution" that brought Yushchenko to power for the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, in 1986, has been hoping that the competition will let it show off its best side to the estimated 120 million television viewers expected to tune in. But the organization of the contest has hit trouble, including the choice of the group Greenjolly's "Razom Nas Bahato" ("Together We Are Many"), the hymn sung by demonstrators against former President Leonid Kuchma's regime in Kiev's Independence Square, as Ukraine's competition entry. The surprise choice of Greenjolly, a group largely unknown before the revolution and added to the list of entries at the last moment, unleashed criticism of the new government, which was accused of manipulating the vote that picked the group. The criticism was all the more intense because Greenjolly was running against a local pop star, Ani Lorak, who backed the pro-Moscow former prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, in the voting that eventually brought Yushchenko to power. Yushchenko's disputed election defeat by Yanukovich, Kuchma's choice, triggered huge protests in Independence Square and eventually was overturned. On Thursday, there were scuffles between the police and opposition protesters who tried to approach the Palace of Sports, where about 4,000 police officers are set to watch over the contest.Greenjolly has been obliged to modify its lyrics to remove mention of the current president's name.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/20/news/song.php
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