Video Commemorating 1989 Revolutions Creates Controversy

The European Community has produced a short (if slightly saccharine) video to commemorate the fall of communism across Eastern Europe in 1989. The video, just under three minutes in length and entitled ‘1989-2009: 20 Years of Liberty’ begins by showing images of oppression in communist Eastern Europe: the crushing of the 1956 revolution in Hungary,  the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia and the 1981 declaration of Martial Law by General Jaruzelski in Poland. The video then shifts focus to 1989, covering anti-communist demonstrations in the Baltics and Romania before showing the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Footage of the wall crumbling is interspersed with the birth of a baby, representative of the birth of a ‘free Europe’. The rest of the video covers important landmarks in post-communist Eastern Europe:  the last Soviet troops are shown leaving Hungary in 1991 along with the first democratic elections in independent Lithuania, and the removal of internal border controls in the EU in 1995. As the child grows, he is presented with birthday cakes marking pivotal years in the twenty year period since 1989 and for one birthday he receives a camera, which he then uses to record other momentous developments, such as the enlargement of the EU in May 2004, when the slogan ‘Europe Reunited’ and the number ‘25’ is flashed up on screen alongside images of celebrations in some of the countries joining the EU. The video ends in the present day, when the boy born in 1989 (now grown to adulthood), snaps a photograph of the Brandenburg gate in a (now united) Berlin – at very same the place where US President Ronald Reagan famously entreated Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall!’ in 1987 – before celebrating with friends.

The EC Website had this to say about their short video:

“The Fall of the Berlin Wall was a unique event that mobilised public opinion across Europe. It inspired strong emotions, including optimism for change. The 20th Anniversary of this event marks the coming of age of a generation, which has grown up in a Europe that is whole and free. This is also the 5th anniversary of EU-10 Enlargement, and with this enlargement, Europe became truly re-united in peace and security”.

However, the video has provoked something of a backlash in  some former communist states. In Poland, the video has been roundly criticised for its lack of focus on events there in 1989 with no mention of the Polish round table talks and the election of the first non-communist government in the Eastern bloc, or any reference to Polish-born Pope John Paul II who inspired opposition to communism. In addition, footage purporting to show a Polish demonstration against Martial Law in 1981 has been revealed to actually be a clip taken from a reconstruction of the original demonstration which was filmed in 1993, organised by the Civic Responsibility Foundation in Warsaw, with students acting the parts of both the demonstrators and the riot police.

Jan Tombinski, the Polish ambassador to the EU, has written a strongly worded letter to Margot Wallstrom, the EU communication policy chief, demanding changes to the video and alleging that the ‘simplistic image’ of 1989 presented in the video could ‘introduce needless controversies during the European Parliamentary elections this June’, while Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the Chair of the Polish Committee for European Integration, has stated that the video’s lack of focus on the role played by Solidarity in the events of 1989 is ‘like showing France’s history with no mention of the French Revolution’. Controversy over the video’s content has even reached the upper echelons of Polish politics, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk describing the video’s inaccurate portrayal of events in Poland as a ’stupid blunder’ by the European Commission.

Bulgaria are also unhappy, as they are the only EU member from the former East Bloc not included in the video, which lacks any reference to either events in Bulgaria in 1989, or the most recent EU enlargement including Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.

An EC spokesman responded to criticism of the video with the claim that it is an ‘artistic video’, adding that ‘this is not a historical programme, this is not a documentary’ – which seems rather a naive view, given the historical weight and meaning that the events of 1989 still hold for many across Central and Eastern Europe today.

Sunday 31 May – UPDATE

The European Commission have now edited the original video, making a number of changes to the content in response to some of the criticisms raised. Bulgaria still isn’t featured at all, but the clip showing the re-construction of Martial Law era demonstrations has now been replaced with genuine clips from the original 1981 protests, while some footage related to the Solidarity movement has also now been added, so that ‘Solidarnosc’ banners are prominent. The title of the video has also been changed to reflect the primary focus on events in Germany, and so the film is now called “1989 – 2009 The Berlin Wall: Symbol of a Divided Europe”.

You can view the edited and updated EC video here:

And, if you are interested in comparing this with the original video, which created the initial controversy, it is still available here (with some independent commentary added at the beginning):

Eurovision 2009.

Saturday evening was an evening of guilty pleasures for me. At 20.00 GMT, I settled down in front of the television, armed with a nice bottle of Shiraz, to watch the 54th annual Eurovision song contest. Nibbles? Check. Alcohol? Check. An eager expectance of an abundance of comically poor pop performances supplemented with ridiculously camp dance routines? Check!

The Ghost of Eurovision Past

For me, Eurovision always conjours up a strange sense of childhood nostalgia as when I was young, back when the Berlin Wall was still in place and Eurovision was vey much a ‘western’ thing, there were only two annual occasions where I was generally allowed to stay up late, past my allocated bedtime. One was New Years Eve. The other was Eurovision. This was obviously a VERY BIG DEAL. I am too young to remember Bucks Fizz’s winning entry with ‘Making Your Mind Up’ in 1981 (with THAT skirt-ripping dance!) but an older cousin introduced me to them  later in the 1980s and I can still remember the two of us dancing around her bedroom to it like a lunatic.  So, judge me if you will, but  Eurovision holds a bit of a special place in my heart.  And it appears I am not alone – between one million and six million people tune in annually to watch Eurovision according to recent statistics.  It’s one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world and in recent years, the internet has enabled Eurovision to reach an even wider international audience.

Eastward Expansion

The contest has undergone a number of changes since it’s formation in 1956,  most recently it’s expansion from 1994 to allow  formerly communist countries across Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union to enter (prior to this, Yugoslavia was the only East Bloc country to compete in Eurovision, from 1961, and of course during the 1990s the single ‘Yugoslavian’ entry was replaced by numerous individual efforts by many successor states).  A total of 42 countries participated in Saturday’s contest, and the total would have been 43 had Georgia not withdrawn in protest against attempts to censor their politically suspect anti-Rusian lyrics (“We don’t want to PUT IN” as they cheerfully sang!). This expansion has led to the introduction of two semi-finals, meaning that not all states participating are assured of even making it to the final, though the ‘big four’ consisting of France, Germany, Spain and the UK are assured a place, along with the winner of last years contest, who also host the following years competition.

The eastwards expansion of Eurovision however, has also led to increased allegations of political ‘block voting’ and this, coupled with greater migration within Europe has led to some notable shifts in voting patterns in recent years which have caused grumblings of discontent among some of the older participants who, used to doing reasonably well, are suddenly finding themselves languishing at the bottom of a voting table dominated by the ‘new Europeans’.

Wikipedia’s entry on Eurovision has this to say:

“The Contest has long been perceived as politically influenced, where judges—and now televoters—allocate points based on their nation’s relationship to the other countries, rather than on the musical merits of the songs. According to one study of Eurovision voting patterns, certain countries do tend to form “clusters” or “cliques” by frequently voting in the same way”

The Politics Behind the Music?

Political voting has always been part of Eurovision, and (at least for me) part of the fun has always been predicting the obvious cases of which states will award which scores to one another. A number of long-running examples can be used to support this theory: Greece and Cyprus historically award each other top marks every year,while Greece and Turkey rarely rate each others efforts at all due to their historical hostilities. The UK are also used to receiving top marks from Malta and France and Germany frequently award each other high scores. In recent years however, eastward expansion has made this more of an issue with states in the Baltics, Balkans and former Soviet sphere consistently awarding each other substantial scores.

In 2008, when the UK entry came in with the lowest overall score, UK commentator Terry Wogan who was famed for his trademark sarcastic comments quit after 38 years, publicly citing an increase in political block voting among former communist states as the reason. Speaking just ahead of this years contest he even (rather dramatically) predicted that:

“If we (the UK) don’t do well this time, a new musical iron curtain will fall down past the Danube”.

The eastward expansion of the European Union and subsequent increased migration within the Eurozone is also alleged to have had an impact on Eurovision voting patterns in the last few years. Wikipedia also notes that:

“Another influential factor is the high proportion of expatriates living in certain countries, often due to recent political upheaval. Since residents of a country cannot vote for their own entry, countries where a large minority of the population are ethnically tied to a neighbouring country and vote for their entrant can distort the vote considerably. This has been cited as the reason for apparent bloc voting in the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia”.

So, in recent years the Spanish award of 12 points to Romania has been explained by the high proportion of ethnic Romanians living and working in Spain (estimated to be as high as 800,000 in total), while similarly the growth of migrants from the Baltic region in Ireland is seen to have influenced Ireland’s decision to award top scores to Latvia and Lithuania in recent years. Last year Russia’s victory in the contest was explained by some due to the high scores given by other post-Soviet states who have retained close political ties with Moscow, although it was also claimed that Russia’s success was due to their artist, Dima Bilan’s pre-existing popularity across the former Soviet sphere (and if I’m honest, it was the ice skating that impressed me!). This argument is also mentioned in Wikipedia:

“Defenders of the contest argue that the reason certain countries allocate disproportionately high points to others is because the people of those countries share similar musical tastes and cultures and speak similar languages, and are therefore more likely to appreciate each other’s music: for example, the explanation for Greece and Cyprus’s unfailing exchange of 12 points (every single time since popular voting was introduced in 1998) is because those countries share the same music industry and language, and artists who are popular in one country are popular in the other. A further counterexample to the criticism is the high score that is often exchanged between Ukraine and Russia, even when they are ruled by political parties that are hostile to each other”.

As a result of antagonisms caused by perceived ‘political bloc voting’ however the voting process was re-vamped for this years contest, meaning that telephone voting still counted for 50% of a country’s scores, with the other 50% coming from a professional judging panel.

Eurovision 2009

The official Eurovision Logo. The 54th annual contest was held in Moscow on Saturday 16th May.

Russia’s victory in 2008 meant that Eurovision 2009 was hosted in Moscow. News that the Moscow police had clashed with gay rights protesters earlier in the day, forcibly breaking up organised protests against the Russian state’s (certainly authoritarian, often draconian) attitude towards homosexuality (the Mayor of Moscow had previously described gay rights protesters as ‘Satanic’ ), designed to coincide with Eurovision did not appear to have dampened the spirits of those taking part, and at 20.00 GMT millions of viewers settled down to watch what kind of spectacle Moscow would provide. A spectacle it certainly was, with a fantastic opening sequence by members of Cirque de Soleil.  Some of my own personal favourite performances  included:

Moldova – not so much the song as watching the crazy dancers that appeared to be trying to combine Cossack moves with Irish Riverdance. Interesting result!

Denmark – The song was written by Ireland’s Ronan Keating. The song was an Irish style ballad sung by a Dane who looked like Ronan Keating and sounded like Ronan Keating (he even had an Irish accent).  And Ireland? Ummm, yes, they had failed to qualify….

Albania – Kudos to whoever thought up the idea of  an act including bodypopping clowns! The blue/green figure in the bodystocking was just weird though.

Ukraine – I was left rather bemused as to why the Ukranian entry involved dancing Roman Gladiators!

Romania – The rules state that the song must be sung by someone on the main stage. Watching the Romanian performance it appeared as though the song was sung by a rather attractive lady in a sparkly dress who took centre stage. But no, she was miming. If you looked to the far right, in the shadowy corner of the stage, you could see the woman ACTUALLY singing the song.  I have NO IDEA why. A Romanian Yang Peyai perhaps?!

Norway – It was the bookies favourite. It was catchy. The singer was cute, likeable, sang AND played the fiddle. I liked it, especially the mixture of traditional folk music with a more modern singing style. A worthy winner overall.

The Results: Eurovision Gets Serious?

So, as the phonelines closed and the votes began to be announced, I waited to see whether the changes to the voting systems would translate into a change of voting patterns. In part yes. Some obviously ‘political’ influences on the voting remained: Belarus predictably gave high scores to Ukraine, Russia and Azerbaijan; Latvia and Lithuania scored Estonia highly; Andorra gave the maximum 12 points to Spain while Malta gave 10 points to the UK (with 12 going to the winners, Norway), Albania and Cyprus to Greece, and Azerbaijan to Turkey. Ukraine awarded 8 points to Russia while Russia only gave a token 2 points to Ukraine,  while the Balkan states all awarded the usual mutual high scores to their neighbours. However it did all seem more muted this year and, particularly among the low-mid range of the scores awarded, there seemed to be more of a neutral consensus. And the winning song, the Norwegian entry ‘Fairytale’ sung by Alexander Rybak did seem genuinely popular, gaining maximum points from many participants across the board and finishing with a massive total score of 387 points, the highest winning score in the history of Eurovision.

The UK certainly appeared to benefit, with singer Jade Ewan coming a respectable 5th place, after several years where the UK have finished around (or on) the bottom of the leaderboard. However I think this is less a result of the new voting system, than the fact that this year, for the first time in a long while, the UK took Eurovision more seriously, drafting in Andrew Lloyd Webber, the award winning musician and composer to both write the Eurovision entry, and accompany Jade on piano in Moscow. Traditionally, Eurovision has always been a bit of a novelty joke in the UK with no one taking it very seriously – until we started coming last with alarming regularity that is! This attitude was in marked contrast to the newer participants who, since 1991, have viewed their inclusion into Eurovision with serious enthusiasm, as a mark of status and inclusion into the post-Cold War European community, something which I’ve noted in conversations with friends and acquaintances from Central Europe and the Baltics in recent years. The introduction of the semi-final stage means that most countries are entering higher quality acts, wanting to get to the final, and it is against this more professional approach that the Eurovision ‘old guard’, such as Britain, France and Germany must now compete ….  or risk musical humiliation! Could this mean that we may have seen the end of the gloriously tacky Eurovision days of old?!

Communist Czechoslovakia Planned Construction of Underground Tunnel.

For decades, thousands of Czechs seeking a traditional summer holiday have left their landlocked central European country each year and travelled to the Adriatic coast, one of their favoured holiday destinations, in search of sun, sea and sand. Now, in a story that could have come straight from the pages of a Cold War spy novel, or from the plot of a James Bond movie, documents have come to light showing that thirty four years ago, officials in communist Czechoslovakia proposed the construction of an underground tunnel directly linking Czechoslovakia to the Adriatic coast, and the creation of an artificial island which would have enabled Czechoslovakia to acquire their very own coastline.

The route of the proposed underground tunnel, stretching 410 km (255 miles) from communist era Czechoslovakia to the Adriatic Coast. Map courtesy of the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk)

The plans for this project, drawn up by a team of engineers led by Professor Karel Zlabek at Prague Technical University in 1975, reveal detailed proposals for the construction of a 410 km (255 mile) long underground rail link in a tunnel stretching from the town of České Budějovice in southern Czechoslovakia (modern day Czech Republic), running underneath Austria and the former Yugoslavia, to the port of Koper (in modern day Slovenia). The tunnel would be used to transport both people (largely tourists) and goods exported between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia on high-speed trains with an estimated journey time of around two hours, considerably shorter than the traditional overland routes. In typical communist-style planning, nothing was to be wasted, with proposals that the earth excavated from the building of the tunnel could be used to construct an artificial island just off the North Adriatic Coast, belonging to Czechoslovakia and containing the first ever Czech port, to be named ‘Adriaport’.

Ultimately however, the project was considered to be ‘feasible but unrealistic’ partly due to the high expense involved, but largely because of the political divides that existed in cold war Europe, meaning it was unlikely that the Austrian authorities would allow their communist neighbours to construct a tunnel running underneath their country, which could prove a potential security risk.  Earlier this week, Jiri Svoboda, head of the underground construction department at Pragoprojekt (and an expert on tunnels) was interviewed on Radio Prague in relation to the tunnel project and was quoted as saying:

The men who designed it were thinking very realistically (but) it was terribly expensive. At that time there was the iron curtain and so the project also wasn’t realised for political reasons … it was utopian in terms of the political situation but in terms of ‘realisability’ it wasn’t.

Given the subsequent success of UK-French collaboration over the ‘Chunnel’ rail link running underneath the English Channel and the eradication of internal borders to encourage increasing fluidity of movement of goods and people within post-cold war Europe and particularly within the EU zone, is there now a possibility that this communist-era project could become a reality in the future?

Message in a Bottle.

Earlier this week a spokesman from the Auschwitz Museum announced a startling find -  a 65 year old note written and hidden by seven camp inmates which had remained undiscovered until now.  The note was only recently found by construction workers rennovating school buildings close to the site of the former camp.

The note, dated 9th September 1944, was short and simple. Scribbled in pencil, on a crumpled scrap of paper torn from a cement sack was a list containing the names, camp ID numbers and home towns of seven Auschwitz inmates, all aged between 18 and 20.  According to the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, the full note reads:

“KL Auschwitz 20.IX.44 AA shelter for T.W.L crew. Built by prisoners: No 121313 Jankowiak Bronislaw from Poznan, 130208 Dubla Stanislaw from Laskowice, Tarnow district, 131491 Jasik Jan from Radom neighbourhood, 145664 Sobczak Waclaw from Konin neighbourhood, 151090 Czekalski Karol from Lodz, 157582 Bialobrzeski Waldemar from Ostro-leka, 12063 Veissid Albert from Lyon (France). All 18-20 years old.”

The authenticity of the note has been confirmed by the Auschwitz museum, and it will go on display in the next few weeks. It appears that the first man listed, Bronislaw Jankowiak, may have written the note as the handwriting has been matched to that found in other correspondance of his, including diaries and letters.

Message in a Bottle: a note written by Auschwitz prisoners in 1944 was unearthed earlier this week.

The seven inmates were part of a labour programme working offsite, reinforcing buildings located a few hundred metres from the camp site that were used for storage by the Nazis to protect them from air raid attacks. The bottle was found sealed inside a concrete wall in one of the buildings (now a school cellar).

Six of the names listed were Polish, just one of the men named – Jan Albert Vessid -  was French. Mr. Vessid survived his time in Auschwitz, along with three other men mentioned in the note  – the aforementioned Bronislaw Jankowiak,  who subsequently moved to Sweden and died in 1997, Karol Czekalski and Waclaw Sobczak, both still resident in Poland. Today, Jan Albert Vessid, Karol Czekalski and Waclaw Sobczak are all in their mid to late eighties.

Mr. Vessid has been traced to his home in Marseilles and claimed to be ’surprised and a little bit troubled’ by the find, telling reporters  that he did not know anything about the message and could not remember the bottle, but confirming that he was the man mentioned on the paper.

“It is absolutely my name on the message and my registration number: 12063. I can’t forget that number because it’s on my arm. I’m surprised that these Poles put me in this bottle, I knew their faces, but didn’t remember the names.”

Mr Vessid remembers working with the Poles (who, he says, spoke simple French) to secure the buildings though,  and also remembers a kind of mutual solidarity that developed: he would hide bread, marmalade and other stolen provisions for them during the day so that they could be retrieved later at night. In exchange, the Poles bought him soup.  He believes that this solidarity may be the reason behind their inclusion of his name on their list, stating that:

“I imagine they did it out of recognition that by hiding (their supplies), I risked my life”.

Messages in bottles are generally associated with desperate, lost sailors, marooned on desert islands, isolated and cut off from the world aound them as they make a last desperate attempt to contact someone – anyone – to reveal their plight and document their existence in the hope of rescue. There is an obvious parallel with the experiences and fate of those imprisoned in Auschwitz during World War Two, where, if their attempt to communicate with the outside world had been discovered, the penalty would likely have been death for those named on the list. Museum spokesman Jarek Mensfelt described the authors of the note as ‘young people who were desperately trying to leave some trace of their existence behind them’.  Sixty-five years later, their message has finally been revealed to the world.