BY SAMI KOHEN
MILLIYET- Columnist Sami Kohen comments on Turkey’s winning this year’s Eurovision Song Contest and the secrets of success in the international arena. A summary of his column is as follows:
For many years Turkey has over emphasized the Eurovision Song Contest. Our media trumpeted news about the contest on the front pages and columnists often attributed political meaning to it. And now Turkey finally managed to capture the contest. Sertap Erener’s winning performance on Saturday night caused a great deal of enthusiasm in Turkey and the media made this news its top story.
This is Turkey’s first-ever win in Eurovision since first competing in 1975, and its enthusiasm about this success stems from its years-long desire for international distinction in areas like sports, movies, literature, business and even beauty contests. Turkey has been showing its creativity and dynamism beyond our borders and scoring some notable successes of late. This development is also a result of Turkey’s opening up, its determination and efforts to live up to international standards and its competition with developed countries.
Turkey’s success in Eurovision and in other fields shows the following: * The way to do well in international contests is to follow accepted norms and also present quality work. This is true for all fields, including art, letters, technology and movies. Music critics attribute Sertab’s success to the quality of her work, her abilities and the choreography of her performance that evening. * We might ask ourselves, must we make Europe like us in order to win? This is a matter of ideas and mentality. If we want to be successful on international platforms, including Europe, we have to play the game according to the rules. In addition, we can still put our national distinctiveness into our works while staying within universal norms. Certain people wrote that the politics plays a role in Eurovision and that’s why Turkey has been ignored in previous years. Of course this has an element of truth. All the participants do so, including Turkey. This time Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration gave high points to Turkey, and politics played a part in this. From now on, it should be accepted that a friendly approach will yield the best results.
Finally, this incident shows that efforts made free of anger and spite but instead with determination and patience will sooner or later result in success. This is equally true for Turkey’s European Union membership bid.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION