It's easy to scoff at Eurovision. It's gimmicky, kitsch, with substandard singers performing mindless pop. It's a refuge for the never-have-beens and never-will-be's.
But the contest actually says a lot about Europe and Europeans, warts and all. For, despite the flag swapping and the bonhomie, and the three-language choruses calling for armies to lay down their guns, the contest has always been petty, provincial, and even mean-spirited. And what could be more European than that?
Take the phenomenon of "neighborly voting." Countries have the chance -- either by jury or televote -- to vote for each other's songs. The results are unsurprising. Countries tend to vote for countries like themselves: they might share a language, a religion, or a disdain for the Germans or the British.
Greece and Cyprus regularly give each other the highest marks, and Balkan and Scandinavian audiences do the same among themselves. The voting also gives smaller countries, still perhaps smarting from CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) inequalities or restrictive immigration policies, a chance to bloody the noses of Europe's big boys.
Then there's the sniping and the provincialism. Set up in 1956 to unite a war-ravaged Europe, the competition sometimes has the opposite effect.
After the United Kingdom's entry bombed out with zero points in 2003, the duo's dressing room was vandalized. There were plenty of suggestions in Britain ("remember, we gave the world The Beatles") that the snub might have been due less to a wobbly performance than to the United Kingdom's role in the Iraq war.
This year, Armenia and first-timers Azerbaijan, who fought a war over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s, are already at each other's throats. A group of Azerbaijanis has launched a campaign on youTube claiming that Armenia's entry is based on three well-known Azerbaijani folk songs.
A French academic, Philippe Le Guern, has studied the song contest and has likened it to a kind of "war substitute." Just like corporate paintball, it's supposed to be teambuilding, but really it's an excuse to splat your most annoying colleagues with dire Europop.
And then there's the more recent phenomenon: enlargement fatigue. In recent years, the contest has expanded to include countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Since 2001, "New Europe" had triumphed with victories from Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Ukraine, Serbia, and now Russia. That has prompted grumblings from some Old Europeans. Veteran broadcaster Terry Wogan, who hosts the Eurovision show every year in Britain, said recently that a new "Iron Curtain" has descended on the contest.
"Eurovision was intended to bring us all together but instead it makes it manifestly clear how far apart we all are, " Wogan told Britain's "Daily Telegraph" newspaper this week. He fears that the "eastern stranglehold" might mean Britain (gasp!) will never win the contest again.
Conspiracy theories aside, that might have more to do with the caliber of entrants. For Old Europe, Eurovision is not supposed to be taken seriously. It's a running joke, something to be enjoyed with tongue firmly in cheek.
But for many of the smaller countries, Eurovision is important -- not just in showcasing their national cultures, but also in attracting potential tourists. New entrants often send their top acts. Compare that with Euro-weary Ireland, which this year sent a purple-beaked glove puppet called Dustin the Turkey.
Ultimately, Eurovision is a success because it reveals how different we Europeans think we are, when in reality the opposite is true. The delusion of diversity and the reality of commonality. After all, we're all sitting down watching it together on a Saturday night.
Freud called it the narcissism of minor differences: the idea that, as human beings, our most virulent hatred is reserved for those who are only slightly different. Those Azerbaijanis outraged by the "theft" of their folk songs should take note.
The author is editor in chief of RFE/RL's English-language website
Larisa Dorogova
Kambakhsh supporters protest in Kabul after his death sentence was announced in January
"As a human being, a Muslim, and a descendant of the family of the Prophet Muhammad, I will never allow myself to insult my ancestor or my religion," Kambakhsh told the court, according to RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan. "These are things of which I have been unfairly accused. This accusation is unlawful and I don't know why they did this to me."
The hearing was adjourned until May 25 to allow 24-year-old Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh to consult with an attorney and prepare a written defense.
Kambakhsh was condemned to death by a court in Balkh Province in January at a summary trial for blasphemy at which he had no legal representation.
He had been detained in October and spent months in a cell for suspected "national security" threats and then a local jail before his case was transferred to the capital, Kabul.
A source close to the case suggested to RFE/RL in the weeks following the verdict that it was proving difficult to find an attorney to represent Kambakhsh. The source speculated that "maybe they are under pressure or are frightened of the case because of the power of mullahs."
Kevin Olivier, who works on Asian issues for Reporters Without Borders, said last week that Afghan authorities still had not provided the young man's lawyer with the file for the case, thus preventing him from preparing his appeal.
Reporters Without Borders is one of a number of international rights and media organizations that have criticized the case and urged Kambakhsh's release.
Domestic pressure has also arisen on Kambakhsh's behalf to battle what some regard as entrenched religious elements who impede Western-style freedoms and thwart attempts to modernize a society heavily reliant on local tradition.
President Hamid Karzai responded to domestic and international pressure to intervene after the initial verdict with assurances that justice would be served but that the Afghan court system must be allowed to function.
AP reported that a transcript of those January proceedings read at the May 18 hearing asserted that Kambakhsh disrupted classes at Balkh University with questions about women's rights under Islam, distributed an article on the topic, and penned three additional paragraphs for the controversial piece.
In an interview with AP on May 17, Kambakhsh dismissed all three allegations and said he was being made "a scapegoat in some political game."
Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University and writing for a local newspaper at the time of his detention.
The article reportedly in question was written by an Iranian expatriate who lives in Germany.
Natalya Gorbanevskaya
The first issue of the 'Chronicle'
"There are almost no assessments there, just facts. And this composure, this outwardly serene perception of everything that happens, without hysterics, without emulating those who pressured this independent activity -- this was perhaps one of the most important features of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union," Cherkasov says. "Not to emulate the adversary, because otherwise you start resembling him." Memorial held an event marking the 40th anniversary of the "Chronicle" at its Moscow office on April 30, attended by Gorbanevskaya and other figures connected to the publication. Moscow Helsinki Group leader and noted human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva told the crowd of some 200 people about the role "The Chronicle Of Current Events" played in her life. "I have done a lot in the human rights movement," she said. "But I think perhaps the most important thing I did was that I typed out the first issue of the 'Chronicle.' It was an epoch-making thing."
RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report
Journalist Hrant Dink received a six-month suspended sentence for "insulting Turkishness." He was later killed by a militant nationalist
Under the changes, which must still be approved by the country’s president, insulting Turkishness would no longer be a crime, but insulting the Turkish nation could still land you in prison.
According to Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for "The Economist" magazine, the distinction between insulting Turkishness and insulting the Turkish nation isn’t any clearer in Turkish than it is in translation. That leaves many people wondering how to interpret the revision to Article 301.
"A lot of people are asking the same question, and the change seems to be more cosmetic than anything else," Zaman says. "Indeed, what is the difference? And equally, what do they mean by the 'Turkish nation'? Does it mean ethnic Turks? Does it encompass Kurds, as well? Nobody really understands what this means."
In recent years, thousands of people have been prosecuted in Turkey for “insulting Turkishness,” as set out in Article 301. They include academics, historians, journalists, and writers -- including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.
Dink Assassination
Pamuk was tried for stating, in an interview with a Swiss magazine, that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it." The charges against Pamuk were later dropped. But contrary to his claim, Pamuk was not the only person in Turkey discussing the Armenian issue -- and getting into trouble for it.
In 2006, the well-known Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was prosecuted under Article 301 for insulting Turkishness, and received a six-month suspended sentence. He was subsequently assassinated by a militant nationalist.
The European Union demanded that Turkey drop restrictions on free speech as a precondition to eventually joining the bloc. The government-sponsored amendment to Article 301 appears to be an attempt to satisfy the EU, as well as Turkish nationalists. And in Zaman’s assessment, it will probably do neither.
"I think that this was a sort of balancing act," Zaman says, "and I think in the process they fell off the tightrope, because neither the nationalists -- who they were trying to appease -- sound terribly happy, nor does the EU. In fact, we've heard many EU officials, at least in private, complain that this was just a cosmetic change and didn't go anywhere near addressing their concerns about free expression in Turkey."
If the amendment becomes law, much will depend on how Turkish prosecutors and judges choose to interpret what constitutes “insulting the Turkish nation.” The one concrete change from the amendment is that the maximum jail time for the offense will now be two years, rather than the previous three.
But Zaman is skeptical that the amended law will offer more protection to those who touch sensitive political and historical subjects.
"I think we will continue to see writers like Orhan Pamuk and others who dare to challenge the official history -- be it on the issue of the massacre of Armenians in 1915 or the fate of the Kurds," she says. "I think that such prosecutions will continue."
The EU presidency, currently held by Slovenia, has issued a statement calling the amendment to Article 301 "a constructive step forward in ensuring freedom of expression." But several human rights groups say the amendment does not go far enough. They are calling for a change to other laws that restrict expression, including Turkey's antiterror law and its laws on crimes against the country's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.