06 05 22 - What! Ten points for Armenia?

What! Ten points for Armenia?
21 May 2006, Sunday
JTW Ankara

This week was such a mess and yesterday night was the crème of the whole week. Eurovision song contest 2006 was a near-tragedy for Turkey. Honestly, it was a tragedy. But there is a good news and a bad one. Good news is we just gave 4 points to Greece and they gave a miserable 3 points to us. That means we are still enemies, so my columnist career can survive.

Bad news is, and it is really bad, we gave 10 points to Armenia. Read it: Turkey has given 10 points to Armenia. What is happening? You lazy Turkish viewers, learn something from the holy Armenians, don’t you! No points to Turkey. That is the enemy spirit. Well done boys!

So how come Turks have given 10 points to their troublemaker neighbors? Before analyzing that, I will try to find out the reasons.

First theory is, there are lots of Armenians living in Turkey, but there are no Turks living in Armenia. In the past, two Turks to save Armenian allegations have visited Armenia. One of them attacked, the other one jailed. Actually they were secret Turkish agents to manipulate the voting in Armenia. Our grand national strategy was to accommodate them in Yerivan and let them vote for Turkey during this year’s Eurovision final. But our plan has been disrupted by clever and drunk Armenians.

Second one is, Armenian cell phone users can use Turkish mobile operators, but Turkish cell phone users can not use Armenian operators. Hmm, I have no idea about this theory, but this is the beauty of being a journalist. If you have a reliable source, it becomes news, if you do not have, it becomes newsiction (news+fiction)

The third and the least likely one is, we love Armenians but they hate us. Actually this is the opposite. Armenians need their compassionate love for Turks to unite in the Diasporas or to brainwash their kids with their unilateral view of the history. But we do not need Armenians for defining our national identity. But, they love us such that they build monuments around the world with both our nations name on it: “Armenians & Turks”…. Not reaaally a love…. we only have problems with the verbs on these monuments!

So, what made Turks vote for Armenia! If this was a question in the Turkish secondary schools entrance exam, the likely answers will be : 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 3rd, none of them, all of them. The answer is none of them.

Before writing some more nonsense about the Armenian entry, I would like to say a few words about our song. “Superstar”, the Turkish entry, was not really bad. But it was missing what Sebnem Paker and Sertab Erener’s songs achieved. And that is something about Turkish culture!. I do not expect doner&kebap and baklava there, but at least there should be something related to Turkish music culture. We have a rich culture and we should have made the best out of it.

Now back to subject. This year’s Armenian song and last year’s Greek song were having more Anatolian sounds than the Turkish songs of these years. Last year, the Greek song was popular in Turkey even months after the Eurovision final. Don’t get surprised, if Armenian song repeats that.

Nevertheless, there may be a political voting effect as well. In the last three years (or more) Turkey has given at least one of its big points to Orthodox world. The other one has gone to culturally close friends. (Like Bosnia this year-12 points). But the Anatolian-familiar sound was the dominant effect, I guess.

It is this familiar sound and Turkish people’s good intention -which I lack because I was sleeping during the contest- that awarded 10 points to Armenia. Now reverse the previous sentence and it explains the 0 points that Armenia generously gave to Turkey.

As a result, I am proud of my fellow citizens and not very proud but fine with the Turkish song. Turks has something that most of the world needs now. As (lazy) Turkish viewers demonstrated last night, Turks have the positive attitude and constructive efforts that is nearly extinct in this world. Maybe Turks are not good song writers or performers, but still Turkish people have better intentions to build a peaceful future for the next generations. That is what I was proud of, this morning.


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