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In 1981 I watched the Song for Europe competition hosted by a suited and somewhat muted Terry Wogan. The contest would decide who would go forwards to represent the UK at Eurovision that year. I was 12 and watched the acts carefully and declared boldly that not only would one of the acts win the race to go to Dublin (for Ireland was hosting that year) but that the same act would go on to win Eurovision, my father snorted doubtfully. The act was called Bucks Fizz and the song ‘Making Your Mind Up’. Bucks Fizz duly went to Dublin and won the contest just as I said they would, the song was Eurovision gold.
That began a 43 year love affair with Eurovision. During that time I have defended Eurovision against all comers. I have laughed with delight at many of the acts, danced to tunes from nations all over Europe, I have cried tears of joy when the contest provided significant moments of unity and hope. That is all over now. My heart is broken and my journey with Eurovision is finished.
I didn’t watch the contest last night, for the contest has been fatally poisoned for me and millions of its fans – poisoned predictably by Israel, a nation which now acts as a septic putrefaction on the soul of humanity, poisoning everything it touches.
The double standard with Russia needs to be mentioned here, for that nation is banned from Eurovision perhaps never to return, part of an overarching economic, sporting and cultural boycott that has extended to the performance of material by long dead Russian composers and playwrights. The proffered reason for this (which I never believed) was that the Russian invasion of Ukraine so offended the lofty morals of the (Western) organisers and sponsors of the competition that they could not be allowed to compete.
I broadly supported the absence of Russia from Eurovision, any invasion which leads to the death of over 600 children since 2022 must be ended before Russia can return to a song contest allegedly about peace and unity through music. Fast forward to February 2024 though and casualty statistics for children in Gaza in just 6 months stand at over 13,800 with another 12,000 injured, many maimed, blinded and burned horribly. Many more children lie buried beneath the rubble, I can barely bring myself to think of how they died.
A city of 2.2 million people, the majority women and children is being slowly starved to death, almost all of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed or damaged, almost all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed, Gaza’s health system lies in ruins, mass graves are still being found filled with hospital patients and medical staff executed with their hands tied behind their backs.
All of this horror is not the collateral damage of an actual war as in Ukraine. The disparity of available force is grotesquely in Israel’s favour and the policy pursued is one of genocide, quite openly pre-advertised by Israel, boasted about and live streamed on social media for all to see. Genocide against a civilian city of mostly children is not a war.
But in February, Israel was passed by the European Broadcast Union to compete in Eurovision – allowed to pass itself off as a civilised nation while engaged in an ongoing genocide against a trapped and defenceless civilian population. Allowed to compete at Eurovision while its government is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice and with warrants for the arrest of many Israeli government officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of genocide imminent at the International Criminal Court.
How could this happen? It’s simple really. Russia does not pay for Eurovision but western governments do and this is why the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy automatically qualify for every grand final while the rest have to fight for a place.
There was no way that the western political and media establishment, neck deep as it is in complicity with Israel’s genocide would ever allow Eurovision to reflect the moral outrage at Israel’s fascist atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank. Quite the reverse in fact, with the western media straining every sinew to hide Israeli war crimes behind a fog of euphemistic language, distortions, outright lies and selective media blackouts they weren’t going pass up an opportunity to artwash Israel on the biggest global stage of all.
It should come as no surprise that Eurovision’s lead sponsor since 2021 has been Morrocan Oil, an Israeli cosmetics company. The only artist at the show to raise even tangential opposition to Israel being there (the Netherlands entry at a press conference) suddenly found himself mired in allegations of misconduct and banned from the show. What a coincidence. Classic Israeli tactics. The boos in the hall for Israel’s entry were filtered out by technicians.
So there it is. Israel gets to compete in Eurovision no matter what it does, because Western money pays for it and its too good a propaganda opportunity to pass up. Israel came fifth in the contest last night after a large ‘popular vote’. I have no doubt the Israelis found a way to rig the vote at least in part, I knew they would, they don’t leave these sorts of things to chance, but it doesn’t matter, in any kind of a sane moral world Israel would never be at the contest anyway.
You could almost hear The Guardian purring this morning at the results of such a successful psyop. The Israeli press were predictably delighted and the IDF has just carpet bombed a refugee camp in Rafah. Join up the dots.
So Israel has changed Eurovision into a vehicle for artwashing genocide – but they won’t change me, so I must part company with it.
Goodbye Eurovision, I loved you dearly, I miss you already. If there is even a world to come back to at the end of all this then perhaps we can start again, laugh again, dance again, cry with joy again – my world is darker without you, but then the skies seem only to get darker these days and we all so desperately need the dawn.
Well said.
Wish I didn’t have to say it. Heartbroken on so many levels these days.
Seems more like European hypocrisy…The UK is still in Northern Ireland, France is still in New Caledonia & Tahiti (against the wishes of the indigenous people of both) and also denies greater autonomy for the Basque region & Corsica, Spain denies greater autonomy for Catalonia, Germany denies Sorbians greater autonomy, no action was taken against any European countries that participated in Iraq or Afghanistan (reported civilian casualties in Iraq vary from 151,000 to as much as 650,000), and Turkey which fully participates in Eurovision continues to occupy Northern Cyprus (which it ethnically cleansed) and and has repeatedly bombed Kurdish civilians (violating Syrian & Iraqi airspace to do so)…