Serbia wins Eurovision Song Contest

HELSINKI, Finland - Serbia's Marija Serifovic sang a heart-wrenching power ballad to win the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest early Sunday — an annual extravaganza of pop, rock and circus acts featuring bare flesh and fiery pyrotechnics.

Serifovic's ballad "Molitva," or "A Prayer," beat a glitzy drag show act from Ukraine and a Russian girl band to win the annual event. Voters from an estimated television viewing audience of 100 million across the continent picked their favorite performance by phone and text message.

"All my life I have been singing and tonight this (victory) makes me very proud," said Serifovic, 22, who sang about love and pain in Serbo-Croat, flanked by five other women dressed in black suits and ties.

It was Serbia's first appearance in the competition as an independent nation after Serbia-Montenegro split last year. Eastern European countries took 14 of the top 16 spots in the finals.

This talent show (featuring professional acts) is a big annual event in Europe. There is a huge viewing audience mixed with lots of national pride, emotion and eye-candy.

The quality differs considerably. The winner was excellent; the drag queen from Denmark and the vampire act from Switzerland were (in my opinion) awful.

If interested, you can catch the showhere

There is no doupt in my mind that there is no coincidence that now, when Serbia is entering the European Community and participating for the first time in the Eurovision contest that they win and will host the event next year. It just helped that the song was ok and the scene was well performed (Nice outfits to say the least).

Maybe it will be some sort of compensation for loosing their cultural heartland, Kosovo, wich propably will happen soon, now that the democratic parties have formed a government. Maybe they won fair and square, maybe some politics was in it also, as it will help the EU if Serbia will look more favorable to European identity and European cooperation. The political Elite in Europe has done worse things to advance their goals of a Unified Europeland.

I can assure you, that the same will happen when Belarus, the last dictatorship in Europe will have political awakening, just like what happened in Ukraine. But although these nations have been escaping from undemocratic regimes, the EU is no better, with their unclear and undemocratic decision system and ever more concentration of power in Brussels away from the democratic nations.

Although not vote rigging, it has come clear that some changes are needed, I would prefer the old system of the bottom nations having to abstain from the competition for one year, to this system of pre-competition two nights before. My nation, in wich this competition has been popular (actually a good excusion to party), is loosing interest because there is absolutely no change for a Western European Country to get into the final night when the Eastern Block votes just for each other.

Here is our entrant, Eiríkur Rauði (Erik the Red):

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