Eurovision struggles to keep politics out as
Israel controversy hits Malmö
Competing rallies are on the streets, Netherlands’
entrant is under investigation and others complain music is being overshadowed
Philip
Oltermann in Malmö
Sat 11 May
2024 00.01 BST
The
official motto of the 68th edition of Eurovision is “united by music”, but as
the continent’s beglittered and sequined masses descended on the Swedish city
of Malmö for Saturday’s grand final, music’s ability to heal and bridge divides
was looking in serious doubt.
In the
run-up to the song contest’s main event, the Netherlands’ performer Joost Klein
missed his slot in two dress rehearsals after being put under investigation by
the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) due to an unexplained “incident”.
“We are
currently investigating an incident that was reported to us involving the Dutch
artist. He will not be rehearsing until further notice,” the EBU said in the
statement.
At a press
conference on Thursday night, several performers, including Klein, had
signalled their frustration that the debate around the inclusion of Israel –
guaranteed after the singer Eden Golan qualified at the semi-finals – was
likely to overshadow the world’s largest live music event.
Klein, who
is due to perform just before Dolan on Saturday night, was asked at a press
conference if his gabber-infused pop anthem to free movement, Europapa, could
live up to the competition’s unifying motto. He said pointedly: “I think that’s
a good question for the EBU.”
In March,
the association of broadcasters ruled that Israel was allowed to compete as
long as it changed the lyrics to its entry, then called October Rain, about the
trauma of the Hamas massacre on 7 October.
The EBU has
defended its decision by saying Eurovision is “a non-political music event” and
“not a contest between governments”.
Golan, 21,
had been ordered by Israel’s national security agency to stay in her hotel room
between performances and was ushered to dress rehearsals in a convoy of cars.
At the lineup of semi-finalists, she cut a forlorn figure near the stage exit,
not least because the other participants did not appear willing to volunteer
gestures of solidarity.
When a
Polish journalist asked Golan if she had considered that her presence at the
contest might be endangering the other acts and the attending fans, there were
murmurs around the auditorium and the host intervened to say she did not have
to answer the question if she did not want to. “Why not?” interjected Klein,
who sat next to her, a Dutch flag draped over his head.
The Greek
performer Marina Satti also appeared to mimic falling asleep when Golan was
asked a question by Israeli press.
Bambi Thug,
a non-binary singer representing Ireland at this year’s competition, said the
debate around Israel’s inclusion had “completely overshadowed everything”.
“It goes
against everything that Eurovision is meant to be,” they said.
The group
of performers gathering at Eurovision was “a big, big community” and Israel’s
contestant Dolan “was never allowed to even meet us”, they added. “God forbid
we have some conversations where minds might be changed.”
Bambi Thug,
who before Thursday’s first semi-final was made to remove makeup from their
body that spelled out the word “Ceasefire” in a medieval Celtic script, said
they did not know exactly what happened at the incident for which Klein was
being investigated. “But I am with anyone who is pro-Palestine.”
In the
run-up to the song contest, pro-Palestinian activists had unsuccessfully urged
participating artists to boycott the five-day event.
As fans
from across Europe, dressed in colourful suits, sequined dresses and draped in
national flags, made their way to the venue on Thursday, about 5,000 protesters
gathered at Malmö’s Stortorget square with Palestinian flags, black-and-white
keffiyeh scarves and banners reading “Boycott Israel”.
One of them
was Christofer Kibbon, 19, who attended the protest as a member of Fridays for
Future Sweden. “Israel is using the ESC to ‘pink-wash’ themselves,” he said.
The fact that Israel was asked by the broadcasters’ union to modify its entry,
he said, “shows they are trying to spread their message”.
In the city
centre, many of the official posters and banners have been graffitied over to
read “United by genocide”. More protests are expected on Saturday.
At a
smaller rally in Malmö’s Davidshall neighbourhood on Thursday evening, heavily
guarded by police, about 120 people waved Israeli and Swedish flags, sang
Golan’s Hurricane and danced the horah to a previous Israeli Eurovision entry.
“Golan was
coming to very hateful surroundings [in Malmö] and we absolutely did not like
that,” said Jehoshua Kaufman, one of the gathering’s organisers. “We wanted to
welcome her and have a tribute to the people murdered at the Nova festival on 7
October.
“There is
such a fear of having different opinions in this city. You can probably walk
around Malmö with a kippah, but not with an Israeli flag.”
Shortly
before making his comments, a woman walked up to Kaufman’s congregation
shouting “genocide” and “murderers”, before being escorted away by police.
France
famously called Eurovision a “monument to drivel” when it declined to send an
entry in 1982. Yet even drivel is rarely apolitical.
Originally
conceived of as an experimental vehicle for new cross-border broadcasting
techniques, the song contest’s ethos of European unity was “almost an
unintended consequence of the political context in postwar Europe”, said Paul
Jordan, a cultural historian who was part of the international jury for the
French national selection for Eurovision in 2019.
The bridges
that the contest is able to build are nonetheless real. There are not many
events in Europe where Swiss non-binary singers make friends with Greek
dancers, acerbic Estonians dance behind the stage with bubbly Armenians dress
in folk dresses, or where young Turkish fans cheer on Greece, its longstanding
rival in the Aegean Sea.
The Greek
singer Marina Satti welcomed her new fans with open arms on Thursday night: “We
really love Turkey,” she said at the press conference after the second
semi-final, while also commemorating the absence of Romania and Bulgaria and
insisting that the musical traditions of the eastern Mediterranean region go
deeper than the national boundaries of today.
Owing to
Eurovision’s supposedly apolitical status, even simple messages are often
articulated in a veiled way, which has given the proceedings around the contest
a surreal air this year.
“We are the
only country in the world that is in the shape of a butterfly,” said the
Latvian singer Dons after progressing to the finals. “A butterfly symbolises
hope and freedom because to be a butterfly, you have to fly and you have to be
free. And every country in the world deserves to be free.”
Was he
talking about Latvia and its fellow Baltic states in the post-Soviet space?
Ukraine? Palestine? At a song contest as highly charged with political debates
as this year’s, it’s unlikely to be the last talking point.
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