Lietuviškas vertimas bus vėliau. I write this in English because I want to show it to my international friends as well, and it’s not on the Wonderland blog because here I can embed youtube. All of this is based on what I blogged about, links that I bookmarked, tweeted or posted.
Let’s start with the video of the year. It doesn’t need to be dedicated a song:
Cultural discovery of the year – tons of things about Brazil, including music.
My city of the year – Berlin. I’m sending it the only song I know that uses its views for an official video.
Now let’s go from personal to global. Lithuanian breakthrough of the year – the Baltic Pride in Vilnius. Some classics when wishing good luck to the organizers:
Lithuanian nonsense of the year – the Parliament’s decision not to revoke the immunity of its members Gražulis and Uoka after they threatened public order during the Baltic Pride parade. In addition, Uoka provided patronage for a nationalist youth organization’s march on the Independence Day, where , where members were shouting “Lithuania for Lithuanians”.
Swedish nonsense of the year – significant political gains of the far right. Even Sweden fell… I hope there’s still a lot of potential for Sweden to resist this nearly pan-European trend, so:
Hungarian nonsense of the year – nationalist youth group Pax Hungarica demonstration in support for a Lithuanian historian, accused of Holocaust denial. I’m sending them a super-serious song about how to be a Hungarian patriot:
Japanese nonsense of the year – continuing harassment of immigrants. Officials, but, unfortunately, also many people, accuse immigrants of bringing in crime, as if it wouldn’t exist otherwise. Meanwhile, sociological research shows that only 1-2 immigrant groups exceed the crime rates of the native population. Clearly, the government and large parts of the population are scared of and fighting phantoms rather than real people.
Israeli nonsense of the year – >50 or so racist municipal rabbis encouraging Jews not to rent homes to non-Jewish people, particularly Arabs. 27 rabbis’ wives also signed a letter encouraging Jewish women not to date Arab men. It seems the fact that other people can be just people rather than their identities to each other drives them nuts. So, I’m sending them a song by a superkosher Israeli Jew:
EU nonsense of the year – failing to act against the expulsions of the Roma. For this I’m sending them a song about a total eclipse. Of their hearts.
Back to positive.
Israeli heroes of the year – people who joined the Human Rights march, including refugees.
Japanese invention of the year sings for itself – singing mouse 😀
Lithuanian trend of the year – it has become OK to say, “I have left-wing values” or “I am a leftist”.
People of the year – all the various interesting and inspiring immigrants, expats, guest-workers, guest-students, or whatever they want to call themselves, – those whom I interviewed or otherwise researched on, asked for help, spent time with, and learned from.
To be updated, but meanwhile – happy New Year! Of course, this list is based on what I could think of a song for, and these events are not necessarily the most important. As you see, I bracketed the negative events between the positive. I wish all of you who read this that the balance of the next year is strongly positive!