21 Mar 2009
Putin or Put Up With?
It’s time for GAY POWER in Eurovision. Or at least on the fringes. Which is where we are usually to be found, if we are living in Russia.
This year, Russia hosts the Eurovision Song Contest, with the welcoming city of Moscow playing host. Russia is known far and wide for its excellent human rights record and will undoubtedly go to the greatest of lengths to protect the hysteria induced eurofans descending like lemmings on the unsuspecting Russian public in May......
As if. However, as I write, brave gay activists in Moscow and Minsk, Belarus are putting the finishing touches to the first Pan Slavic Pride to be held in Moscow on May 16th, the day of the Eurovision Song Contest final. Should they even bother? If counting on the support of their "western brethern", better known to you and me as "fans" they might just forget that idea. Eurovision comes first and anything else a distant second.
Lovely Mayor Luzhkov
Moscow’s Mayor Luzhkov, who has banned Gay Pride marches since the first attempt in 2006 has proclaimed himself to be diametrically opposed to Moscow Pride. His police chief Mr Vladimir Pronin has made some interesting and disturbing comments about the whole kerfuffle in recent days. Firstly he categorically states that “it’s unacceptable – gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed”. That tells us. Worryingly, he goes on to claim that “I positively agree with the Church, with the Patriarch, politicians and especially with Mayor Luzkhov, who believe that man and woman should love each other. That is established by God and nature”. Need I continue?
3G sans Stephane Putin
Obviously, this year I won’t be travelling to Moscow. Unfortunately, neither will the Georgian artistes Stephane and 3G who were due to perform their Disco Inferno inspired We don’t wanna put in in Moscow, until the powers that be had it disqualified. It was a cheeky little pop at the man who ordered the troops into Georgia last summer, but the lyrics themselves are nonsensical and completely innocent. When the press-secretary for the Russian vice prime minister calls the Georgian actions “mere hooliganism”, you know that a song’s days are numbered. The EBU queried the lyrics and now, We don’t wanna put in is consigned to a big ex-Soviet musical graveyard with 17.03.09 marking the gravestone. A pity.
Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJXm6fFeUDE
And yet, we could subversively make this song ours. We could ask for it in clubs. We could talk about it. We could make it a hit. That is something that Mr Putin and his cohorts will never be able to stop.
Is anyone up for a bit of troublemaking?