Conversation

Now that the Eurovision Song Contest is over and given how close it was that it turned into even bigger disappointment than it already was, I think EBU should really come to the conclusion of not allowing Israel to compete in the upcoming years, unless they fully cease their genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.

Many times now the excuse has been that they don’t want to make the song contest political—which I guess is a sentiment I can maybe kinda understand, but can’t accept as it is—and how the banning of Russia was a completely different situation, even though that action is also inherently political and nothing else. It’s the right thing to do though, since NOT banning Russia from competing would’ve turned the song contest itself way more political given how the current Russian regime would most definitely use the platform to spew their propaganda and politics. No matter how much you try to control the lyrics so they don’t contain any hidden meaning, you cannot keep up with how language works and will lose eventually. Not to mention how the system can be manipulated for propaganda use as well.

This year there was a lot of talk how Israel has been buying ads from YouTube and other places urging people to vote for Israel in the ESC. That action alone speaks volumes how the competition that’s supposed to be non-political is very much political. It’s become the propaganda platform for the Israeli regime that is currently performing outrageous acts of genocide in Gaza and against the Palestinian people. Some could of course argue that maybe people just don’t care and they “really liked the song” but that’s the whole point why they advertise: you have some people who might not know of the situation but maybe kinda liked the song, people who might not care, people who know but want to just piss off “the other side” and all of them have a ton of people who would not have voted otherwise but since the advertising was so prevalent it works like advertising does and now you have a ton of voters “doing their part” to be part of some protest or what not. Add to that the fact that a lot of people boycotted the ESC—rightfully so, I might add—you have a disproportionate amount of fools, anti-protestors, and fascist fuckwads voting just to get some reaction out of the whole thing. And the Israeli government can just use this as yet another excuse and a show of support for their crimes against humanity.

As such I feel that even if genocide isn’t a good enough reason for the EBU to disqualify Israel from the competition, the massive advertising campaign they did and will continue to do unless they’re expelled from competing should qualify as reason for expelling. That fact alone makes the competition all about the politics and not about the actual music as it should be. EBU complaining and wailing on and on how the ESC is not a political contest is all just noise that cannot be taken seriously when not taking the obvious course of action and expelling the country that uses the competition to further their political agenda is the reason the competition IS already too political.

Being neutral doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take action at all. Sometimes taking action is the only way you can be neutral to begin with. Just like Russia before, Israel also should not be welcome to the contest that claims to be neutral. Inaction and failure to uphold the ideals of the contest is not “being neutral”.

#Eurovision #ESC