Malmö
Almost everyone knows, for example, the familiar trick from TV series and movies when a person does not want to hear unpleasant news. That’s when we put our hands over our ears and start yelling vague things so that the other party’s message is covered up.
Ignorance is bliss. If you don’t hear bad news, it doesn’t exist.
During the past Eurovision week, the European Broadcasting Union Ebu has behaved exactly as described above.
In the days leading up to the finals, the entire singing competition descended into chaos, but the organizers continued to pretend that nothing was strange. A disastrous Saturday when the events came crashing down and the rumor mill was running hot, there was no first official announcement from Ebu.
When the previous day the Dutch representative Joost Klein had missed the general rehearsals for the final and everyone was thirsty for more information about the situation, Ebu separately canceled the press conference that had been announced in advance, so that the journalists would not be able to ask unnecessary questions.
Figuratively: in the middle of the crisis, Ebu sat in the corner of the Malmö arena with his hands over his ears and repeated two slogans like a mantra.
United by music.
A non-political song contest.
If you repeat them long enough, maybe they will become true.
This one this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will go down in history as a huge mess. Unfortunately, it can’t even be considered a very big surprise. Signs of danger have been in the air for months.
It was already clear in advance that there are known to be some kind of tensions between the Israeli delegation and the representatives of some other countries. The participation of Israel, which is at war in Gaza and is being sued for genocide, in this year’s Eurovision has been a hot topic in some European countries for months.
Even on the issue of Israel, Ebu kept a low communication line throughout the long spring. Perhaps it believed the style would work because in the end no country withdrew from Eurovision due to Israel’s participation.
At the same time, it was known that among the countries participating in the Eurovision Song Contest there are artists who have actively taken a stand for Palestine.
At the end of March, in response to the discussion about Israel’s participation, representatives of nine countries – Finland being one of them – published a statementwhich called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the safe return of all hostages.
The tensions in the air started to materialize in real life from the end of the week. At the press conference after Thursday’s semi-final, Holland’s Joost Klein made it quite clear with his gestures what he thought of Israel’s Eden Golan from sitting next to.
Klein was then kicked out of the finals because he reportedly had an altercation with the event’s cameraman. The news talked about possible violence. According to the Dutch broadcasting company Avrotros, Klein did not even touch the camera.
On Saturday, the representative of Ireland Bambi Thug announced to the Irish public broadcaster RTE that he thinks Israel should not be allowed to participate in the Eurovision final.
On Friday, the Israeli broadcasting company Kan published a video on Tiktok, which apparently made fun of how Golan has received boos and “Free Palestine” shouts during his performances.
Eurovision was founded in the 1950s with the idea that a light event like a singing competition could be good for uniting Europe torn apart by the Second World War.
For decades, when talking about Eurovision, it has been repeated that it is a non-political event where the focus is only on music. No matter what happens in the world, music unites us people across borders.
It is lazy to pretend that Eurovision has nothing to do with politics. Over the years, political statements have been repeatedly seen on the singing competition stage. Depending on the world situation, the public has shown displeasure towards the participants.
In 2022, just a couple of months after the full-scale invasion of Russia began, Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest with an overwhelming landslide. Kalush Orchestra’s song wasn’t bad either, but with Europe-wide sympathy for Ukraine could have some effect on the result. Before that, Russia had been excluded from the non-political event.
Its own separate issue is that Eurovision has long become a significant community event for people belonging to sexual and gender minorities. Still, flags representing gender minorities, for example, were not allowed to be taken to the Eurovision arena this year either, because they are also seen as politically charged.
Backstage at the Eurovision Song Contest this year, there were very heated, politically charged arguments. The unifying factor of music was far from them.
In Saturday’s final, the Eurovision fans’ view of all this was best summed up in what kind of booing storm the Eurovision chief boss Martin Osterdahl received during the final scoring. Österdahl was booed especially hard when he announced the scores of the Dutch expert council. The Dutch themselves refused to hand them out after Joost Klein was ruled out of the final.
Very the situation was best summed up by the representative of Switzerland who finally won the Eurovision Song Contest, a 24-year-old artist Nemo. He made history by being the first contestant of the opposite sex to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
In the flag parade seen at the beginning of the Eurovision final, Nemo himself marched on stage with the flag of the opposite sex and told the press conference that he himself had to smuggle it into the arena. In the same breath, Nemo said he hoped many others did the same.
Then he said a sentence that may well go down in Eurovision history. In his comment, Nemo referred to the fact that he had accidentally broken the trophy given to the winner after his win. At the press conference, he already had a new, replacement trophy.
“Like I said, I broke the code and broke the trophy. The trophy was repaired. Maybe Eurovision also needs a little fixing.”
For his statement, Nemo received resounding applause from the press present.
It is good to hope that the organizers of Eurovision will even listen to the words of the winner of the song contest, if they are not interested in the criticism given by others.
After these Eurovisions, the road of repeating apoliticalness and pushing the unity of music has come to an end. I hope the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest will understand that in the future there will be a need for more openness and reflection on the relationship of the song contest to various societal and social themes.
Finnish Public Broadcasting has a good opportunity to contribute to this development if it wishes.
You don’t have to be an extraordinary representative to state that in today’s world, the situation in Gaza will not be the last crisis, which will also be reflected in Eurovision in the coming years.
#Analysis #Eurovision #future