An Iranian weightlifter came in 2nd in a competition in Poland recently. Standing on the winners' podium, he refused to shake the hand of the gold medalist, an Israeli, though he did remain standing while the Israeli anthem was played. Some folks thought his snub was highly improper. The Iranian authorities thought so too, from the opposite direction: he seems to have been banished for life from representing Iran, for the crime of competing against an Israeli in the first place.
and the video is still off limits for German viewers...
ReplyDeleteI am all for paying artists for their work, I've never believed that this all for free is a good path to choose but it is Israel's National Anthem that is played and there my partisanship for the copyrighters stops, there it becomes ridiculous.
I caught the video on Z-Word Blog while it was already blocked at EoZ and then a day later, when I wanted to show it to other Germans UMG's little robot or whatever had found it and blocked also.
I've heard a German company is trying to make it in the block-it software business, good luck to them, maybe that explains why we seem to be the currently most widely blocked country (Austrians and Dutch can see the thing)
But in this case I think the Israeli government should protest to UMG which according to Google seem to be these guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Music_Group
Silke
That poor shmuck looked immensely uncomfortable up there with Sergei. It also looked like he wanted to shake hands (he did greet him - sort of). What the hell, Sergei had a great time up there. Pity about the politics.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the Borat line about his movie...there was concern about anti-semitism in the film...but the censors looked at it and said there was enough!
ReplyDeleteFrom a mass of such little things come revolutions — I hope.
ReplyDeleteI'm not in favour of mob rule, or even capital punishment really, but Ahmedinajad and Khamenei would ornament any lamppost.