Thursday, May 22, 2008
The BBC has a story saying a Eurovision-style song contest might be licensed for the Middle East. I thought technically countries like Lebanon, Israel and Morocco qualified for the Eurovision contest? I always fancied writing a PhD on the politics of Eurovision voting procedures. It would be interesting to see which countries the Middle East votes for: Egypt could win, by mere population numbers, although most people are so poor they couldn't vote. I doubt anyone will vote for Syria or Iran, except maybe their own citizens and Hizbullah. Oman won't participate. Saudi Arabia will probably participate but ban it from national TV. Anyway, I'll only watch if Terry Wogan assumes his formidable role as cynical and drunken commentator.
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In principle, all EBU members can participate in the Eurovision Song Festival. This would include countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Morokko, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan or Tunisia.
The only constant participant of this group is Israel and that's most likely the reason why other countries stay away.
Lebanon announced it would participate in 2005 via Aline Lahoud with the song "Quant tout s'enfuit", written by Jad Rahbani. However, Lebanon withdrew the entry.
Morokko was the only other Arab country that ever participated: in 1980 via Samira Ben Saïd singing "Bitakat Hob". She finished 18th.
BTW, if there ever will be an Arab Vision Songfestival, Egypt would not be necessarily winning since you cannot vote for your own country.
Also, size doesn't matter since all votes are translated into points, so each country gives the same amount of points.
Thanks for filling me in! You're quite the knowledge bank on this subject! I actually remembered now that you can't vote for your own country- if that was the case, Britain wouldn't constantly be embarrased at the polls! :)
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