Shut your big mouth, Stefan Raab. Stella Mwangi is as Norwegian as any.
This year’s winning song from Germany, which we all know will be performed on home turf by reigning Eurovision Queen Lena, is co-written by a Norwegian. Not that we’d put too much emphasis on this since nowadays people collaborate in teams across national boundaries and great distances all the time. It’s easy to hook up through the Internet and writing material together is just as easy when you’re located half across the world than as if you lived just across the street from eachother. This opens up new opportunities, creates greater diversity and ultimately leads to even better songs for us as an audience to enjoy and listen to. A classical win-win situation. We like Lena’s new song and we congratulate Monica Birkenes in beating roughly 600 other submitted entries, well done!
So that’s why we have such a hard time trying to understand Stefan Raab’s stupid comments during the broadcast of the Unser Song für Deutschland final on Friday. During a run-through of the selected Eurovision entries so far he managed to trash Switzerland, The Netherlands, Romania and Norway. Which is fine, you don’t have to pretend that you like something when you basically think it’s crap, and this is after all a competition. What is not so fine is that we kind of have to take into consideration what role he will have during the Eurovision events in Düsseldorf. And what he said about the Norwegian entry is not so fine either, stating that there’s nothing Norwegian about Stella’s song and performance and that it would be an easy match for Germany to beat this bongo-bongo music. What exactly is he trying to accomplish? To prove that he’s a complete and utter dork? That he’s a racist? This man is one of the hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. Not very polite, nor wise to insult your guests, is it? We didn’t exactly see Haddy N’jie or Erik Solbakken cracking jokes and ridiculing any of the participants in Oslo did we?
Let’s make this perfectly clear to you, Stefan Raab, you are wrong. Norway’s entry this year is very much Norwegian. It shows Europe that we are a modern, multicultural nation who embrace new cultural expressions. We are so much more than the worn-out cliches of trolls and fjords and all that other boring stuff. After all, 11 per cent of the Norwegian population has a multicultural background. Guess the percentage of people enjoying traditional Norwegian folk music is a lot lower. We are proud that the Norwegian voters chose Stella to represent us. She is modern, cool and beautiful – just like Lena and her mockney accent.
So shut your big mouth Stefan Raab, don’t you dare tell us what’s Norwegian and what’s not. Stella herself is wise enough not to get caught up in all this nonsense and to focus on representing Norway in the best possible way. Cause after all her sweetest revenge could come up on that stage in Düsseldorf in a few months. Perhaps she’ll even beat Germany.