Even Flow..

Just before I was going to sleep, I was reading my daily news sources and stumbled apon a small article about Gordon, a famous Dutch singer, who's competing in the Euro Vision Song contest, saying he's not going to sing at the EVS if some gay people in Moscow can't have a gay pride there during the song contest. Now I think this is such a stupid action that I had to sit behind my computer and write something about this.

First of all, don't get me wrong here. I'm totally cool with gay people. I have gay friends and I'm absolutely tolerant on the way people are (I'm not even going to defend myself on this one). But what bothers me is that some gay singer from a tiny country called the Netherlands thinks he's somebody internationally and trying to make a statement by not performing at the EVS. As if the Russians would care. This really shows that Gordon has absolutely no sense of the (in this case) Russian culture. Now, I've been to Russia a couple of times, and I'm no expert on Russian culture, but I have tasted a bit of Russian culture in general and from what I have experienced, I can say that it's so very different from Dutch culture. Here, people would be shocked if a celebrity would cancel a gig for an idealistic reason, but I'm afraid that Russia doesn't work that way. Of course there are gay people everywhere, even in Russia (although most straight Russians would disagree with me), but the general mentality isn't as tolerant and progressive as we have here in the Netherlands. I think we live in one of the most progressive and tolerant countries in the world (or at least I love to think I do), but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world works in the same way and that we should expect that people react the same way as we are used to. (I have the same feeling about forcing democracy on people that are not used to this, but that's something for a different post, I guess). Russians are proud people that have a strong opinion that they don't change for nothing, so why would they care if some gay singer from a tiny country is not going to sing at an already very gay contest? Of course I understand that Gordon wants to make a statement and that he wants to fight for gay emancipation worldwide, but as with many things I think that every culture needs its own way of dealing with issues. If you really want to change peoples views, use the right way. In my opinion, Gordon should perform and use the moment he's performing to make a statement. Do a speech in Russian and tell all Russian viewers what you want them to know. That will at least make the headlines.