BLACKLISTED?

“After one of the most exciting votings ever, Serbia won…”, Eurovision's official site reads. For me, nibbling on a late salad in front of a large tv screen somewhere on the Dutch-Belgian-German border, the excitement seemed somewhat lacking. My local friends have gone to bed, saying it was too painful for them to witness a once favourite Western-European pop-comp they had grown up with taken over by the consolidated Eastern Block with their folk dances. I stayed. After all, incomprehensible to some, the Russian, Ukrainian and Serbian folk songs make perfect sense to me, and even a Georgian ballade brings back memories.

And that's how I made an interesting discovery.

Eurovision, long complained about for being a show of political support for the neighbouring countries, who only vote for one another no matter what comes out of the contestants' mouths, has turned into a nostalgia show for the emigrants!

It is we, the bygone, the left-our-homeland-once-and-forever that watch this live broadcast featuring the least complex samples of the cultures we have abandoned. It is we (although I exclude myself from this “we”) who sms and dial the numbers that connect us with the races and communities we don't want to completely break our bonds with. It is our newly conquered territory and we are enthusiastic about it. We have not even noticed that our once biggest and strongest rivals, the first countries to create Eurovision, have lost interest and are either dragging lazily behind, in the very end of our victorious parade, just because they have to (they are the founding fathers!) or have given up altogether. Italy , the very home of music, has even stopped sending any participants.

Serbia , Ukraine , Russia , Turkey , Bulgaria , Belarus , Greece , Armenia , Hungary , Moldova , Bosnia , Georgia , Romania … In unity we march. The refugees, the exported wives, the exiles. Because in fact, this is the list of the countries with the largest diasporas abroad, i.e. the countries most preferred to be left behind. And for the past couple of years, my country is in the top three.