Sunday, May 27, 2012

Eurovision Or Euro Crap In Azerbaijan

Kay Sage

Last night we did end up watching the Eurovision Song competition, it was truly horrible and had nothing to do with a song contest.

There was very little that you could categorise as singing, it was all about glitzy costumes and as many spectacular special effects, such as wind machines, dry ice, as they could cram into each performance.

It's amazing to think that Azerbaijan built this obscenely huge venue, which they call the Crystal Hall purely for this competition.

It was nauseating to see the big show that they were making of the fact that they have huge oil revenues.

Which the president uses to enrich himself and his family, as well as small circle of hangers on, who are happy to arse lick in return for their affluent lifestyles.                     .
The army are another section of Azerbaijan who get paid well in order to keep the population in line, by utmost brutality.

What is disgusting is the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of people in the country are  poor and totally subjugated.

Apparently the oil workers are paid low wages and work in extremly dangerous conditions, protests are not allowed, they are smashed.

Of course there is no such thing as trade unions in the country; recently I saw a peaceful demonstration by a couple hundred people.

They weren't doing anything apart from standing to make their protest known, they were brutally beaten to the ground by their paramilitary police, I believe some may have died.

Watching it last night and knowing about the brutal repression was sick making. 

Apparently the large majority of the venue was empty so they handed out tickets and it was made compulsory for everyone to be there so it would be full for the TV shows.

Watching what used to be hilarious cheesy event now seems to be all about nationalism, political manoeuvring, money and corruption.



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