From Baku, With Love (And Intolerance)

The problem with Armenians was settled a bit more easily. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still in a state of war over Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijan's territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Armenians are now widely, and virulently, hated in Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan has been spending billions on its military for what appears to be an inevitable war to take back Karabakh from the Armenians. So there was the potential for some awkardness if Armenia's Eurovision competitors and fans came to Baku. But this crisis was averted by the Armenians themselves who, bowing to pressure from their own nationalists, dropped out of the contest. Prospects for better relations through song were dim, anyway: In 2009, Azerbaijani police actually called in for questioning locals who dared vote for Armenia's Eurovision entry, tracing the votes to their cell phone. (Azercell, the mobile-phone company implicated in that incident, is an official Eurovision sponsor this year.)

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