EBU Shame on You
How Eurovision Whitewashes Genocide
A special thanks to Francis Francis for proofreading.
Oh rascal children of Gaza,
You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window,
You who filled every morning with rush and chaos,
You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony,
Come back –
And scream as you want,
And break all the vases,
Steal all the flowers,
Come back,
Just come back…
Oh Rascal Children of Gaza, Khaled Juma, 2014
Introduction
In 1948, Zionist militias expelled 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from 78% of Palestine. Hundreds of towns and villages were depopulated: their residents forced to flee and the buildings either destroyed or filled with Zionist settlers. Thousands of people were killed. Arabs remaining in Israel were subject to martial law, and still face racist discrimination in Israel. Those that were displaced in the conflict have never been allowed tov return. This was the start of the Nakba.
Since then, Israel has engaged in a relentless campaign of murder, forced displacement and land-grabbing familiar to oppressed people worldwide, from Turtle Island to Aotearoa. In 1967, during the Six-Day war, Israel annexed the remainder of Palestine: the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza strip. Israel has denied the Nakba, and the term Nakba is banned in Israeli school textbooks.
In 2005, Israel “withdrew” from Gaza, and by that I mean withdrew Israeli settlers in order to bomb the place easier. Israel has laid siege to the Gaza strip ever since, setting up land, air and sea blockades. The blockade and economic sanctions plunged the strip into poverty, interspersed with bombing campaigns that, over the years, have left thousands of Palestinian civilians dead.
And this is all without mentioning the treatment of Palestinians on the West Bank: arrests without trial, or even a charge; innocent civilians, including children, shot by Israeli soldiers; attacks by armed settlers on Palestinians; families being forced from their homes to make way for settlers. Palestinian children can spend years in solitary confinement, which violates international law. In one such case, the child in question was not guilty of a crime, but was forced to serve nine-and-a-half years in prison anyway. Even before October 7th, murders of Palestinians in the West Bank had reached an all-time high. (x)
I know all this is long for an intro, but I feel the context is important. Many defenders of Israel’s crimes like to pretend history began on the 7th October. As horrific as the 7th October attack was, it needs context, and it makes up only one part in a 75-year genocide. Since October 7th, Israel has systematically carpet-bombed the people of Gaza. As of writing, at least 25,000 people have been killed, 60,000 injured. The IDF has systematically bombed hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, universities, residential buildings and refugee camps. As well as destroying the people who live there, Israel is trying to destroy any evidence that Palestinians live there at all, and have a culture. The IDF also targeted journalists, doctors, UN workers, and left babies in incubators to die after invading hospitals. They also bulldozed people sleeping in tents in a hospital yard, crushing them and burying them alive.
Many western news outlets report on the genocide with a voice as passive as Zionists wished Palestinians were about their oppression. During my research, I found an article on an Israeli soldier who was killed in Gaza after he’d auditioned for Eurovision, and in the article, it describes the death toll as thus:
Israelis are killed, Palestinians just die. This is not the worst example of this, though. The worst so far is the Sky News reporting that a “bullet found its way into the van and killed a three or four-year-old young lady”. Not a child. Not a toddler. A “young lady”.
South Africa has taken Israel to court over this, and the International Court of Justice have ruled that it’s plausible that Israel is committing genocide, but the final verdict could take years. In the meantime, they told Israel to stop killing people, not destroy evidence and let in aid. Israel’s national security minister, and owner of the most punchable face, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said “Hague Shmague” like a cartoon villain. Israel ignored all these court orders, have killed at least another thousand Palestinians, and Israelis are at the border with Gaza blocking aid trucks from entering the strip. And if aid trucks do make it in, the IDF shoots them. As I write these words, Israel is now bombing some 1.4 million people trapped in Rafah, a place they were told was a safe zone.
Despite all this, Israel has been participating in Eurovision for decades, and the EBU has confirmed Israel’s participation in 2024. They’ve even announced the Israeli participant: Edan Golan. The EBU’s reasons for allowing Israel include: “It is a competition for broadcasters – not governments – and the Israeli broadcaster has been participating for 50 years.”
Three months ago, KAN, the Israeli broadcaster that competes in Eurovision, released this song, where Israeli children sing about eliminating everyone in Gaza and how “in a year, there’ll be nothing there”. This video was quickly deleted following severe backlash, including from Israelis, for reasons ranging from obvious disgust, to pointing out that it makes Israel look really bad. This is the broadcaster the EBU thinks is acceptable for Eurovision. On the EBU’s own website, it states: “individual membership implies an obligation to provide varied and balanced programming for all sections of the population”. KAN is a member of the EBU. Is children singing about how great genocide is balanced programming? How do you think Israel’s Arab citizens feel about this? Are they not a section of Israel’s population?
Okay, let’s take a step back, and I’ll explain what the EBU is. EBU stands for European Broadcasting Union, and is an alliance of radio and television broadcasters from Europe, as well as West Asia and North Africa, with associate members from across the world. It’s the group that organises and runs the Eurovision Song Contest and its children’s counterpart: Junior Eurovision.
Participating in Eurovision requires being a member of the EBU, with the exception of Australia, which is an associate member. Australia was only meant to compete once, in 2015, as a guest for the 60th anniversary. They haven’t left since. All songs compete in one of two semi-finals, with the exception of six: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the host country. These countries, called the Big Five, have an automatic place in the Eurovision finals. I love democracy! I remember explaining this to my mum a few years back, and her response was “you mean we pay extra for this humiliation?!”
Membership to the EBU is dependent on membership to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is itself dependent on UN membership. Palestine, and Kosovo, aren’t members of the ITU, therefore ineligible for EBU membership and participation in Eurovision. Participating countries also have to recognise all other competing countries. Israel’s participation also prevents the broadcasters of many North African and West Asian countries from competing, as they either don’t recognise Israel at all, or do not wish to share a stage with it.
Israel made its Eurovision debut in 1973, and its participation has caused backlash amongst fans and non-fans for years now. Many countries with poor human rights records have participated, and also received criticism for it, Russia and Azerbaijan, for example. I’ll be covering all these countries and more in this essay.
You can point to most countries that enter or have entered in the past and find them lacking in some way when it comes to human rights or democracy. For example, Malta has a strict ban on abortion, as did other countries like Ireland and San Marino until recently. In addition, it’s illegal to change your gender in San Marino, and trans rights have been under threat in the UK, and other countries, for years now. And entire books have been written on the genocidal ways various European countries treat Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
Of course, artists have used the contest as platforms to raise awareness for various issues in their own countries, including some of the ones I’ve already listed. This is one of the main arguments I see for the inclusion of certain countries in the contest: that the artists from those countries can use their platforms to create impactful music. For example, Hungary’s 2017 entry ‘Origo’ by Joci Pápai tackles the discrimination the Romani singer has faced. Russia’s 2021 entry, ‘Russian Woman’ by Manizha is about women’s rights in Russia. Politics has never been far from the Eurovision Song Contest, as any viewer will know, despite political messages in competing songs being banned since 2000.
In addition to these recent examples, there’s also Norway’s 1980 entry: ‘Sámiid ædnan’. ‘Sámiid ædnan’ is sung in Norwegian by Sverre Kjelsberg before he’s joined on stage by Mattis Hætta, who sings a joik: a Sámi style of folk singing. The song is a gentle, but powerful love letter to the Sámi people and their struggle for autonomy. It even references the Alta controversy, and the subsequent hunger strike of Sámi activists outside the Norwegian parliament:
“In front of the parliament where they sat, Sámi Land, Sámi Land
The joik was heard day and night, Sámi Land”
And maybe songs like these can at least raise awareness for various people’s plights throughout Europe. If you’ve never heard of the Sámi, then hearing 'Sámiid ædnan', or Norway’s 2019 entry ‘Spirit in the Sky', might inspire you to pick up a book and learn something. Or at least do a basic google search. That’s something, right?
I know many people insist that the contest is apolitical, or should be, but that has never been the case and can never be the case. Eurovision, being a contest between countries, is inherently political because countries are inherently political. There is nothing apolitical about having borders and laws about who gets to travel and live in those borders and how. Having a government, of any kind, which controls the people and land within those borders is inherently political.
You could argue that Eurovision is more about culture, that the contest is cultural, an opportunity for people to share their culture on an international level. And it's true that while aspects of, say, traditional clothing or language can be influenced by a country's political history, they're not inherently political. But a people's culture and a country are not the same thing. Ireland, for example, could stop existing as a country tomorrow, and Irish culture would still exist.
Eurovision, however, is for countries. It's a contest for UN members who all have to recognise each other to compete. The Romani people can't enter Eurovision as a nation, but Romani people can represent Bulgaria, or Finland (or the Czech Republic), for example. Palestine cannot enter Eurovision, but Palestinians or people of Palestinian descent, such as Eric Saade, have competed in the past.
I know readers from countries like the UK will be wondering what the point of this essay is. After all, Eurovision is just a contest. It’s not important. Everyone knows it’s stupid and pointless and all the countries just vote for their neighbours and it’s not fair that the UK never wins despite almost never putting in any effort. For starters, countries that commit ethnic cleansing and genocide cannot be given a platform. This is the case for excluding Israel from the Olympics and other sporting events too.
But why punish the people? After all, people aren’t their government. But we just have to look at how Israelis have responded to their country’s genocide. There’s been tiktok trends where Israelis dress in brownface to mock Palestinians, and, as I write this, Israelis are blocking the crossing into Gaza to prevent the fraction of aid allowed in from actually getting in. Recently, telegram channels have cropped up dedicated to images of dead and mutilated Palestinians.
In addition, ever Israeli citizen is required to serve in the IDF, making sure every Israeli adult is complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people and subject to the indoctrination that comes with military service. Conscientious objectors are jailed, often repeatedly, also in violation of international law.
But back to Eurovision. Throughout the show, the host country’s landmarks, culture, and host city are woven into everything, from the postcards to the interval performances. It is a huge tourism boost. You have people from all over Europe (and beyond) coming to your country, even if they don’t have tickets to the show, they can still visit the Eurovision village and take part in events. This will become important when I talk about Israel and Eurovision in further detail.
Regardless of how important Eurovision is, writing this essay is something I can do. I don’t have any political power, I can’t influence politicians or do any serious journalism. There are other people who can do these things, and I must do what I can do. And what I can do is pull down the curtain on Eurovision’s whitewashing.
Or, I can for the five people who’ll read this.
Anyone who has spoken to me more than once probably knows how obsessed with Eurovision I am. Or was. I’ve always had my complaints: Israel’s (and Azerbaijan’s) participation has infuriated me more and more with each passing year. That being said, I still loved it. What I don’t know about Eurovision isn’t worth knowing about, as is a lot of what I do know about Eurovision. In this essay, I’d like to use some of that knowledge to shed light on the contest’s history of siding with dictators and countries committing genocide and human rights abuses. I want to focus, in particular, on Israel, Azerbaijan and Russia. I know the common narrative is that Russia invaded Ukraine and was immediately banned, while Israel is still welcome because they were “only” killing brown people. The situation is a little more complicated than that, but in a way that makes the EBU look a lot worse.
In the interest of brevity (if that is still possible), I’m going to bring up pinkwashing as little as possible. For those who don’t know, pinkwashing is pointing at perceived or real advancements in LGBTQ rights to seem more liberal, or distract from other human rights abuses. For example:
Those rooftops were people’s homes, perhaps even the homes of Queer Palestinians. I wonder how many people are under all that rubble, trapped and subjected to a slow, agonising, and terrifying death. As a bisexual, transgender man, this disgusts me. Get your fucking hands off that pride flag, this wasn’t done in the name of love, and it wasn’t done in the name of the LGBTQ community.
Other people have discussed pinkwashing more eloquently and in far more detail than I can. If you want to know more about pinkwashing, and Palestine in general, I recommend the site decolonizepalestine.com. I’d also like to point to this youtube essay, which discusses pinkwashing, and many of the points I’m about to make, but in a normal amount of words and with less rambling. I’ve tried to keep this, well, not short, but focused.
One more thing I’d like to add before we get to the essay proper: none of the hyperlinked songs I’ve mentioned will link back to the ESC youtube channel, only the individual artists’ channels, where possible, or reuploads. This is to avoid giving the Eurovision youtube channel views while we’re boycotting, and so anyone interested in the songs mentioned doesn’t have to use the official channel.
The Beginning
In order to dissect Eurovision and its failings to take stances against oppression, we need to start at the beginning.
The first Eurovision Song Contest took place in May, 1956, in Lugano, Switzerland. Seven countries took part: Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France and West Germany, which competed as Germany. Each country entered two songs, the first and only time this happened. The results were decided by juries from each country, as would become the case for many future contests, but what also never made it to a second contest was the fact that the juries could vote for their own countries. In addition, Luxembourg’s jury couldn’t make the contest, so two Swiss jury members took their place. I’m sure they were completely unbiased in their decisions. Anyway, the contest was won by Lys Assia, representing Switzerland. Assia also represented Switzerland in the next two contests, in 57 and 58.
If we look at the list of participating countries, we can see three of them were still colonial empires at the time: France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. During the course of the contest, these three countries (and others that will join the contest), will fight to protect the remnants of their empires. Not only by violent resistance to the independence of their colonies, but by invading and deposing any government that didn’t allow them to exert enough soft power and continue extracting resources from these countries and people.
The less said about Germany and Italy’s recent histories, the better. We all know what they did. One thing I will mention is the 1904-08 genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia, because that tends to get overlooked when discussing Germany’s history of genocide. I could spend several paragraphs talking about it, but the Namibian president put it so much better when Germany chose to support Israel at the International Court of Justice.
And while I’m talking shit about European countries, women in Switzerland could not vote until 1971. Lys Assia, the first ever winner, could not vote in her own country at the time of her victory. Some Swiss cantons had started giving women the vote at canton level from 1959, but the canton Assia was born in, Aargau, didn’t until it became federal law in 1971. Two cantons even dragged their heels until 1989 and 1990. So, for all three contests Assia entered in, she had no vote anywhere in Switzerland.
The contest became a yearly event, and began to expand, drawing in participants from all over Northern and Western Europe, many with their own colonial pasts and presents.
For those who like to dismiss the UK’s colonial past as “ancient history”, here are a list of all the countries that have gained independence from the UK since it’s debut in 1957:
Ghana (three days after the 1957 Eurovision final), Malaya (1957), Somaliland (1960), Cyprus (1960), Nigeria (1960), Sierra Leone (1961), Kuwait (1961), Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar declared independence separately, 61 and 63 respectively, then joined together to become Tanzania), Jamaica (1962), Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Uganda (1962), Kenya (1963), Malawi (1964), Malta (1964), Zambia (1964), The Gambia (1965), Maldives (1965), Guyana (1966), Botswana (1966), Lesotho (1966), Barbados (1966), South Yemen (1967, the year the UK first won Eurovision), Nauru (1968), Mauritius (1968), Eswatini (1968), Tonga (1970), Fiji (1970), Oman (1970), Bahrain (1971), Qatar (1971), United Arab Emirates (1971), The Bahamas (1973), Grenada (1974), Seychelles (1976, the year the UK won Eurovision for the third time), Solomon Islands (1978), Tuvalu (1978), Dominica (1978), Saint Lucia (1979), Kiribati (1979), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1979), Zimbabwe (1980), Vanuatu (1980), Belize (1981, the year the UK won Eurovision for the fourth time), Antigua and Barbuda (1981), Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983), and Brunei (1984).
This list doesn’t include countries that had gained independence shortly before, within living memory, such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan or Egypt. Or countries that gained independence from countries that had gained independence from the UK, such as Papua New Guinea, Namibia, Samoa, or Bangladesh.
The list does include countries that have since competed in the song contest: Cyprus and Malta.
Fascists in the Song Contest
We all know many European nations like to wax lyrical about how liberal and progressive they are whilst playing down and even covering up their colonial crimes. This isn’t new, and it isn’t news, but what about ideologies that supposedly go against supposed European freedom? What about an ideology that almost destroyed Europe, that caused the war that left Europe fractured and in need of a song contest to bring it together? According to the mythology surrounding Eurovision, that is.
Yes, the EBU let fascist dictatorships compete. Spain, Portugal and, in the 1974 contest, Greece all competed whilst ruled by far-right and military dictators. But communist Yugoslavia was also allowed to compete at this time, so it all balances out, right?
I’ll be focusing on the one country that won during this period: Spain. A country ruled by a personal friend of Hitler and Mussolini: General Francisco Franco. During the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s air force, and the air forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy bombed cities and civilians across Spain, including Madrid and, famously, Guernica. During and after the war, tens - possibly even hundreds - of thousands of people were murdered in a reign of terror that included torture, concentration camps, and systematic executions. The main targets of the Spanish fascists were republicans, communists, Jewish people, Romani people and gays, among others.
But, I suppose, by the time Eurovision came round, Franco had dialled back the killings, and was “just” oppressing the Spanish people.
Spain made its first appearance in Eurovision in 1961, and won the contest in 1968 with ‘La La La’ by Massiel. Ever since, the rumours of bribery have followed Spain, but I think there’s something more important - and concrete - to discuss about Spain’s winning song, and that’s that it was ripped from the artist it was originally intended for and given to Massiel. Joan Manuel Serrat, the artist originally chosen, wanted to sing the song in Catalan. This went against Franco’s language policies, which repressed all regional languages in favour of Castilian Spanish. Serret refused to sing the song in Spanish and, with one week left before the contest, Massiel was chosen instead.
According to Eurovision rules at the time, all entries had to be sung in their country’s national language. Catalan, being banned from public life at the time, was not an official language. On the contrary, Franco was trying to stamp out every sign of the Catalan language and culture. The Eurovision rules were on the side of Franco’s policies here. As much as I can’t stand the English language’s domination in Eurovision, I’d much rather have no rules regarding language in the contest.
For its efforts Spain landed its first ever win. In Eurovision, if you are a fascist dictator repressing a minority language, you will be rewarded for it. Austria was the only country to pull out of the contest, dodging not only a bullet but a fucking grenade.
The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest was, in short, a shitshow. In the beginning, there were no signs of any problems. Sure, Austria had pulled out, but the official reason given was that they couldn’t find a suitable artist, and no other countries boycotted. The host broadcaster, TVE, even got Salvador Dalí on board to design the promo material. Dalí was a public supporter of Franco’s regime and, allegedly, wrote in a letter that he thought non-white people should be enslaved. The stage itself contained an ugly, silver sculpture that seemed to echo the imagery used by Franco’s Falangist party.
What the 1969 contest is remembered for, however, is its four-way tie. The countries who each scored a winning 18 points were the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Spain, who became the first country to win two consecutive contests. There were no tiebreaker measures in place at the time, so all four countries were declared the winner.
16 countries competed in the 1969, meaning if you competed in that contest, you had a 25% chance of being a winner. The next year, along with Austria, four countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden and Portugal) boycotted the contest because of the tie. They needn’t have bothered, though, since the EBU had set up tie-breaker rules just in case it happened again (which it did in 1991). It’s nice to know these countries were perfectly okay with helping Spain whitewash its image, but will boycott over more than one country winning Eurovision.
Spain has never won the contest since.
Israel in Eurovision
Israel made its debut in 1973, and has won the contest on four occasions: in 1978, 1979, 1998, and 2018. It has hosted the contest three times, twice in Jerusalem (79 and 99) and once in Tel Aviv (2019). This is despite Jerusalem being a disputed city, with East Jerusalem claimed by Palestine. The UN considers East Jerusalem to be part of occupied Palestine, as does most of the international community.
The only reason the 2019 contest was hosted by Tel Aviv in 2019 was due to a lack of a suitable building in Jerusalem to host, because the size and scale of the contest has become so much bigger in the last 20 years. But we’ll discuss 2019 in its own section.
Israel didn’t host, or even compete in 1980 due to the contest coinciding with Yom HaZikaron, a memorial day for IDF soldiers who’ve been accidentally shot by their comrades while trying to gun down Palestinian children, or whatever. That was a joke, but one fifth of IDF soldiers who’ve been killed in Gaza were killed by friendly fire.
In the run-up to the contest itself, artists are invited to perform at various pre-parties across Europe, as well as one in Israel: Israel Calling. Israel Calling is a three-day whitewashing event, with a dash of greenwashing to boot.
Greenwashing, similar to pinkwashing, is the practice of pretending to be environmentally friendly in order to distract, or justify, from crimes such as ethnic cleansing.
Israel’s claim it is “making the desert bloom” involves planting invasive species, causing ecological damage rather than preventing it, and dismissing Palestinians, their agricultural practices, their right to the land, and native plants adapted to living in Palestine. The idea stems from the racist assumptions that Palestinians are too uncivilised to do anything with their land other than stand back and let it remain a barren desert.
The trees, in particular, highlight how Zionism uses greenwashing as a colonial project: forests of pine trees have been planted to make Palestine’s landscape look more European. These trees aren’t suited for the arid environment, often die off and need to be replanted, kill off native flora, and lead to destructive forest fires. These are the trees Eurovision contestants are invited to plant during Israel Calling.
This is far from the worst part, though. This Eurovision Forest is part of a larger forest, which was created on the ruins of several Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were displaced by Zionist settler violence.
Here’s an article listing which contestants went to Israel Calling last year. I wonder if they knew, if they had any idea what they were doing when they were planting trees, or if they simply believed they were helping the environment. They should know better than to perform at concerts in Israel, but this is still insidious. They’re being made to destroy evidence of the Nakba, and they most likely don’t know that’s what they’re doing. If you perform at Israel Calling, you’re invited to, literally, cover up a genocide.
Whether it’s pinkwashing, greenwashing, or just plain whitewashing, Israel will never be able to wash its hands of Palestinian blood.
This Century
I could go on. I could mention, for example, how Turkey debuted in 1975, after invading Cyprus in 1974. Cyprus wouldn’t compete in Eurovision until 1981, but Greece withdrew from the 1975 contest in protest. Greece returned to the contest in 1976, causing Turkey to withdraw due to the alleged political nature of Greece’s entry. Having looked at the lyrics, it’s pretty obviously about the invasion of Cyprus. Turkey did broadcast the contest, but not Greece’s entry.
I could also mention the numerous crimes against humanity committed by many of the colonial powers competing in the contest during the 20th century. For example, the UK forcibly expelled the 900+ residents of Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory) between 1968 and 1973 to make way for a US military base. The UK won the contest in 1969, whilst this was happening, but winning the 1969 contest wasn’t exactly hard.
Before I move on, let's briefly mention Yugoslavia. I haven’t talked about it yet for various reasons, but it would be remiss not to discuss why it no longer competes, or exists.
Yugoslavia participated for the last time in 1992. Wikipedia says the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which at that point was just Serbia and Montenegro, was banned due to economic sanctions, but there’s no source anywhere to back up those claims. It’s possible, though, as there were economic and cultural sanctions against FR Yugoslavia during its genocides against Bosniaks and Kosovans. Another possible reason is that FR Yugoslavia wasn’t admitted to the UN until 2000, and you have to be a UN member to participate in Eurovision, which is why FR Yugoslavia didn’t compete even when sanctions were lifted between 1996 and 1998.
In the interests of getting this essay finished before the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, let's move on to the 21st century.
Israel was the first entry of the new millennium: it performed first in the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest, and was controversial to say the least, but mostly in its home country. The song was ‘Sameach’, or happiness, performed by PingPong, a band that entered as a joke. The song was about an Israeli woman in love with a Syrian man, and the music video for the song was provocative in every way possible. If you can see through the five pixels in the video, you’ll find the singers using cucumbers instead of microphones, same-sex kisses, and, near the end, they wave Israeli and Syrian flags whilst wearing keffiyehs. The song topped the charts in Israel the week before the contest.
During the dress rehearsals, the group brought out their Israeli and Syrian flags. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority told them to not bring the Syrian flags to the final, and PingPong said no, they were going to keep the flags. This led to PingPong’s entry being disendorsed by the IBA and the band made to pay their own costs. Afterwards, a meeting was held by the government that declared the entry "a disgrace and a shame to the State of Israel, the Broadcasting Authority and Israeli culture". After the dress rehearsal, the artistic director said “We represent a new kind of Israeli who wants to be normal and have peace. We want to have fun and not go to war, but the right wing is not happy about that message”.
An idea that is, apparently, a disgrace to Israel.
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, along with a coalition of countries: the UK, Australia and Poland. This was part of the widely-condemned Iraq war, which still has devastating ramifications for Iraqis today. There were no WMDs, but the fallout from American bombs continues to kill the people of Iraq (warning for graphic photos of birth defects in babies).
Unsurprisingly, no countries were banned from for this, though the UK did receive 0 points in the 2003 contest. No one knows if this was due to the invasion of Iraq, or simply because the song was so bad. I mean, European countries have been following the USA into their respective former colonies for decades and no one gave a shit. Poland, the other Eurovision entrant part of the US-led coalition, came 7th.
ESC rules state that every participating country has to broadcast all the entries in full, obviously. If some entries were cut, then people can’t vote for them. Lebanon was set to make its debut appearance in 2005. The problem, though, is that Lebanese law forbids broadcasting Israeli content.
Ripples of this problem started when Lebanon’s official Eurovision website posted a list of competing countries that year, and left Israel out. When the EBU asked the Lebanese broadcaster, Télé Liban, to confirm that they would show the whole contest in full, Télé Liban said they would not be able to, and would subsequently withdraw. Because this withdrawal happened in March, Lebanon wasn’t given its participation fee back and was banned from entering for three years.
I mean, that’s a pretty simple rule to follow, right? You have to show every entry and treat every entrant fairly. The EBU is very serious about this, and in the interest of fairness, they enforce this rule regardless of who breaks it, right? This will also come up again in part two.
I would also like to add that, in the following year, Israel and Lebanon were at war. On 12th July, 2006, Hezbollah fighters invaded Israel, killing three IDF soldiers and capturing two. This was done in the hopes of a prisoner exchange, as Israel held a number of Lebanese prisoners. This did not happen, and Israel invaded Lebanon and imposed a blockade that would last a month after the ceasefire. Israel also dropped cluster munitions on southern Lebanon, 90% of which fell in the final 72 hours of the conflict, just before a ceasefire. These were dropped on entire towns, leaving parts of southern Lebanon uninhabitable for years to come. These cluster munitions required extensive cleanup operations and were still killing people years later.
In December of 2008, Israel commenced operation “Cast Lead”, an aerial bombardment of Gaza followed by a ground invasion, lasting into January. This killed 1400 people, including 300 children. Amnesty International reports that, not only were civilians killed with “high-precision” weapons, but also indiscriminate and reckless attacks in densely populated areas. In addition, Israel targeted medical staff and ambulances trying to rescue wounded people.
Israeli singer Noa was selected to represent her country in 2009, and what she did with that opportunity was to insist her musical partner, and Palestinian activist, Mira Awad, join her on stage. They went to Eurovision with the song ‘There Must be Another Way’, a phrase on the lips of many people at the time. This was sung in English, Hebrew and Arabic. For the life of me, I can’t figure out if this is a whitewashing attempt at giving Israel the appearance of wanting peace, or genuinely brave and Noa and Mira’s part.
When the duo were announced as Israel’s representative, Israel was still bombing Gaza. Mira’s participation was criticised heavily by Palestinian activists, saying she was helping Israel cover up its crimes and present a false image. Mira responded in an interview as such:
The duo came sixteenth in the Eurovision final.
Noa released a video on facebook on the 25th October 2023, once more singing ‘There Must be Another Way’. She also discusses the process of creating the song in 2009, and states “This song, remains painfully relevant..today, more than ever.” She also refers to Mira Awad as her beautiful sister, though does state, incorrectly, that this was the first time Arabic was sung at Eurovision (Morocco’s 1980 entry was sung in Arabic), but it was beautiful nonetheless. While it may seem naive, I’m glad that Noa is still hoping for another way, and hasn’t allowed herself to be consumed by hatred.
Then I looked at some of her other posts and they seem to be along the lines of both Israel and Palestine have suffered equally, which is pretty radical for an Israeli, but, as I suspected, painfully naive. While she has parroted falsehoods about October 7th (Hamas did not burn babies alive), she’s also fiercely critical of Netanyahu for being a warmonger.
I also found Mira Awad’s facebook page, and I find what she has to say far braver:
The full post has a similar underlying theme to Noa, but actually centres the genocide in Gaza, rather than treating Gazans as an afterthought.
The Rules
Eurovision entries, now numbering in the thousands, have tackled a vast range of subjects: love, peace, more love, more peace, pirates, vikings, listening to your neighbours having sex and realising you recognise one of the voices as your childhood neighbour. There are, however, limits to what you can sing about.
Like any other contest, the Eurovision Song Contest has rules, ranging from how the contest is broadcasted to the performances themselves. If a broadcaster or entrant breaks those rules, there are various repercussions, from fines to bans to no action at all. How and when these rules are enforced are inconsistent at best.
One of the rules concerning lyrics is the banning of political messages. In many ways, this is understandable. If an entry included lyrics about a politician or political party, especially if the country those lyrics represented was undemocratic, it would piss people off. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what a “political message” could be, and the vagueness of that term has been used against a lot of entries over the years. For example, let’s take a look at Lithuania’s 2010 entry:
“Yes Sir we are legal we are, though we are not as legal as you
No Sir we're not equal no, though we are both from the EU”
These lines, from ‘Eastern European Funk’ by InCulto, raise a good point, but would you consider them a political message? The EBU didn’t. So what do they consider too political for Eurovision?
Probably the most well known case of these rules being enforced is with Georgia’s 2009 entry: ‘We Don’t Wanna Put In’, with “Put in” sounding a little too similar to Putin. Georgia were asked to change the lyrics or submit a new song, and they refused, claiming there was no political intention with the song.
The dig at Putin was almost certainly a response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008. For context, Georgia has two breakaway states, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, populated by both Abkhaz and Ossetians respectively, as well as Georgians. Both these regions had autonomy in Georgia when it was part of the USSR. When the USSR broke up, Abkhazia and South Ossetia (North Ossetia is in Russia) declared independence from Georgia. These wars, both in the early 90s, resulted in unrecognised independence for the two states, who won with Russia’s backing. It also resulted in a lot of Georgians being ethnically cleansed from the region when they had to flee.
This conflict remained static throughout the 90s and early 2000s, until tensions began rising again as Georgia seeked to move away from Russian influence and towards the west. On Russia’s orders, South Ossetia began to provoke Georgia into a conflict, until, on 1st August, a roadside bomb detonated by a Georgian police vehicle, injuring several officers. Fighting escalated, with South Ossetia shelling Georgian villages, until, on August 8th, Georgia marched on Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital. Unfortunately for Georgia, Russian troops had already marched into South Ossetia. In the five days of fighting that followed, Russian and Abkhaz forces opened a second front, Russia had captured a number of Georgian cities and were close to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, when a ceasefire was finally agreed. Hundreds of people were killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced. The Georgians of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have not been allowed to return to their homes.
Russia recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries setting up military bases in both countries, but few others did. Georgia still considers them part of Georgia, but occupied by Russia.
Georgia’s enthusiasm for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest had been tepid. Initially stating they had no interest in taking part, then saying they were going to after their victory in the 2008 Junior Eurovision song contest in November. Russia gave them the full 12 points there, so maybe the contest was bringing people together through music?
However, after ‘We Don’t Wanna Put In’ was rejected and Georgia refused to change the lyrics, they withdrew from the contest.
That being said, I can’t imagine many Georgians were that upset at not going to Eurovision… because that year it was hosted in Moscow. Russia’s invasion of another country did not affect its ability to host Eurovision, let alone participate. Russian police also violently broke up a pride parade on the day of the Eurovision finals and arrested at least 20 people.
But let’s punish Georgia for the tamest dig at the guy who just invaded their country.
I’d also like to add that Ukraine was looking to join NATO at about the same time as this, and the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine run parallel to the tensions between Russia and Georgia. The lack of a response to the invasion of Georgia also emboldened Russia to start annexing parts of Ukraine.
Interestingly, two years previously, Russia had complained about Ukraine’s entry, the infamous ‘Dancing Lasha Tumbai’ by drag queen Verka Serduchka. The claim was that “lasha tumbai” sounded suspiciously like “Russia goodbye”. These complaints were largely ignored, though the song’s title was changed to “Danzing”, just in case. Funny enough, I’d always misheard it as “Russia combined”, therefore thought it was giving the opposite message.
I think it is important when we talk about how Eurovision finally decided to show solidarity with Ukraine that Russia had been menacing it and other former-Soviet countries for decades, and the EBU did nothing until it became too unpopular to ignore what it was doing. These same criticisms have been lobbied at the “west” in general: Georgia was, apparently, not worth antagonising Russia over.
Hungary’s 2015 entry was ‘Wars for Nothing’, sung by Boggie. On the surface, it seems like a slightly more genuine take on the “wars bad, peace good” genre of Eurovision entry. I’m not saying that’s a bad message, just that they often feel toothless and vague. ‘Wars for Nothing’ was boring, but didn’t really have that “war crimes and injustice is bad but I’d rather it keep happening than have any change to the status quo and will just vaguely wish for world peace” vibe I’ve come to expect from these songs.
During Boggie’s performance at A Dal, the Hungarian national finals, a screen showed a map of the world. As the map zoomed in, text appeared mentioning current conflicts, recent terrorist attacks and how many have been killed in them. This included a mention of Gaza, which incensed the Israeli ambassador to Hungary, who demanded it be removed. They needn’t have bothered: Boggie and her team were already developing a new one for Eurovision itself.
Still, Boggie released a statement on facebook, which includes:
“It makes me incredibly sad that someone interprets a song that is written about and for peace as an attack against any nation. The song is not only about peace but also about our inner fights and our ability to face our faults and take responsibility for our actions.”
I have to agree. If Israel can’t face being called out for killing people in Gaza, maybe it should stop killing people in Gaza.
Israel would, of course, never think of including political messaging in Eurovision. It certainly would never, for example, enter Eurovision with a song about how Iran is definitely, probably, going to nuke Israel. The BBC article about this, for some reason, concludes that Israel is no stranger to controversy, because in 1998 Dana International, a “trans-sexual”, represented Israel. Not controversial due to all the ethnic cleansing, but the fact that a trans person once competed. I hate the BBC.
But we’re not done talking about 2015. Armenia released their entry, titled ‘Don’t Deny’ by Genealogy. Now, 2015 was the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide, an event which some countries, including Azerbaijan, deny.
I didn’t pay close attention to this song at the time, and during subsequent rewatches of Genealogy’s performance, or looking at the lyrics, nothing stood out to me as explicitly about the Armenian Genocide - except the chorus of “don’t deny”. Then I watched the music video. This is the one case where I’ll have to link back to the official Eurovision youtube channel for reference, unfortunately. The music video features a large, extended family in early 20th century clothing posing for a series of photographs. With each photograph, the family gets smaller, and the smiles fade, until there’s a single mother and child, then no one. Then the six members of Genealogy - five representing the Armenian diaspora of each continent, and one singer from Armenia itself - sit in the seats left empty and pose for a photograph of their own. It’s a really powerful music video.
This song caused controversy in neighbouring Turkey and Azerbaijan, with people claiming the song is a dig at their denial of the Armenian Genocide. To alleviate any claims that this was a political song, the Armenian delegation changed the song’s title to ‘Face the Shadow’ and no more was made of it.
I’m glad that was the end of it, though it’s a shame Armenia even had to change their title. I think songs like these are allowed in Eurovision because they’re classed as historical, not political. This became explicitly clear the next year, when Ukraine won Eurovision with a song about the genocide of the Crimean Tatars by Joseph Stalin. ‘1944’, performed and co-written by Jamala, was a deeply personal song, as her grandmother and great-grandmother were among those deported to Central Asia. One of her great-grandmother’s children didn’t survive the journey across the Soviet Union to Central Asia. This happened despite Jamala’s great-grandfather fighting in the Red Army.
The Crimean Tatars were not the only ethnic group deported this way, and millions of Finns, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Germans, Greeks, Koreans, Chechens, Ingush, Turks, Romanians, Norwegians, Kalmyks, Poles, and many others were forcibly transferred to Siberia and Central Asia, often away from border regions of the USSR. It’s possible a million of these people also died of starvation and the harsh conditions they faced. The Crimean Tatars were only allowed to return in 1989, when the Soviet Supreme Court finally declared the deportations a crime, 45 years later. While the population transfers were ruled criminal and a genocide, the none of the people affected received any reparations.
‘1944’ is sung in English with a Crimean Tatar chorus, based on a Crimean Tatar folk song, lamenting a youth that could not be spent in her homeland - Jamala was born in Kyrgyzstan, then part of the USSR.
This song was met with swift backlash in Russia, with Russian MPs slamming the song as being political in the wake of their country’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and subsequent repression of the Tatar ethnic minority. The EBU said the song and title were fine, and not political. As mentioned, Jamala went on to win Eurovision 2016.
There have been Eurovision entries about historic events, such as ‘Waterloo’, and Ireland’s 2007 entry ‘They Can’t Stop the Spring’, about the Spring of Prague and Velvet Uprising. And I would like to reiterate that “1944” is a phenomenal song and one of my favourites of all time, but it still feels a little hypocritical on the EBU’s part. ‘1944’ was fine, and so was ‘Face the Shadow/Don’t Deny’. Maybe it’s because, whilst Crimean Tatars are not allowed to gather and commemorate their genocide, Russia doesn’t actually deny it happened, unlike Azerbaijan.
Let’s now skip ahead to 2017. Portugal won for the first time, achieving a record number of points, and finally putting an end to it being the country to have competed the longest without ever actually winning. The song was ‘Amar pelos dois’, sung by Salvador Sobral and written by his sister, Luísa.
But I’m not here to talk about Salvador’s song, I’m here to talk about his clothes. Throughout the run-up to the contest, in various interviews, Salvador Sobral wore a jumper saying “S.O.S. REFUGEES”, in reference to the still-ongoing refugee crisis. He also spoke up about the plight of refugees in interviews, saying:
“When I thought of coming here I immediately thought of the refugees because they are fleeing from death. Make no mistake. These people are not immigrants — they are refugees, running away from death.”
“I can’t say that Europe isn’t making an effort. Everybody’s making an effort. But I feel like there is…so much bureaucratic stuff happening in the refugee camps in Greece, in Turkey, in Italy. We can diminish these bureaucratic services. They ask for birth certificates for people who just came in plastic boats…that’s just insane.”
(source)
He had planned to wear his jumper during the Eurovision final, whenever he wasn’t performing. The EBU then asked him to not wear his jumper then, saying it contained a political message. The political message… that refugees are people and deserve to be saved.
Salvador said in response: “This is not a political message — it is a humanitarian and essentially human message.” Nevertheless, the jumper was missing from the Eurovision final.
Weirdly, the following year saw France enter with a song about refugees. ‘Mercy’, by Madame Monsieur is about the baby daughter of Taiwo Yussif, a Nigerian refugee who gave birth on the SOS Méditerranée ship L'Aquarius. Taiwo named this miracle baby Mercy.
This story inspired French duo Émilie Satt and Jean-Karl Lucas (Madame Monsieur) to write a song, told from the point of view of baby Mercy. While this song received widespread support in France and across Europe, some French radio stations refused to play the song because it was about a refugee, even though that refugee was a baby.
The song came 13th at Eurovision. The next year, the duo released a children’s book with Dutch artist Saskia Halfmouw, titled Mercy, zo heet ik (I am called Mercy). The proceeds of the book go to Mercy and her family, whom French journalists had tracked down and found in a refugee camp in Sicily.
When she was shown a video of the song, this is what Taiwo had to say: “It is a very nice song. I pray to God that this song will be a success and that, thanks to that, someone can help me. I have no one. My baby suffers here in this camp. I want it to stop. We have been here for too long.”
Mother and daughter have since received refugee status and live in a shelter for women and children. Madame Monsieur even met baby Mercy, and things seem to be going well for her. While I will be reaching a more cynical conclusion later on, I would like to say that I am so, so glad this song was able to help even just one family. Sometimes, that’s all we can do.
In 2021, Toussaint Michael Chiza, stage name Tusse, represented Sweden with the song ‘Voices’. When he was just 5, Toussaint had to flee his home country of DR Congo, and lived in a refugee camp in Uganda until he was 8. During his escape to Uganda, he became separated from his parents, and lived with his aunt in the camp. After being granted asylum in Sweden, he found out later that his father was still alive, and was able to get in contact with him.
A lot of the press attention around Tusse has this fixation on him being a child refugee, with headlines exclaiming “From child refugee to pop singer!” I remember a similar, gushing, reaction from the UK commentators while watching Eurovision that year, to the point where I started to feel uncomfortable. It just felt like Europe was patting itself on the back for Tusse’s success, despite all the refugees who had been left to drown these past years.
I think this gushing over Tusse, and allowing the song ‘Mercy’ in the contest points to something quite gross about Europe’s relationship with refugees: we love an individual overcoming the odds and succeeding, but we refuse to consider systemic change. We don’t want to think about whether we’re responsible for those odds being there in the first place. What if no one had written a song for Mercy and her mother? Or worse still, what if Mercy’s mother had not been rescued? It would be a tragedy, but not to a lot of people. Would anyone have faced any consequences for letting them die? Or if they’d lived in obscurity, then they’d be part of the faceless “swarm” of migrants “invading” Europe’s shores. Not that their fame protected them from receiving racist abuse - in many ways it made them a target for racism.
(source)
Salvador saying we need to do more to help refugees forces us to think, even for a moment, that our governments are complicit in this suffering, and we can’t have that. The fact that there might be something we can do to change things isn’t worth thinking about. That takes work, and disrupts the status quo. Certain liberals and centrists can be especially vicious when you dare to bring up that even supposedly liberal parties demonise refugees. Another failing is that we treat systemic issues as a fact of life, that there’s nothing to be done even though we have centuries proving that something can, in fact, be done about injustice. Refugees dying isn’t some inalienable fact of life, it’s a crime.
I’m glad that Tusse, and hopefully Mercy, can rebuild their lives in Europe, and I hope they remain safe and happy, but what about the people left behind? Why don’t we care enough to change things?
The Democratic Republic of Congo is still facing what has been dubbed a “silent genocide”. Six million people are dead, and six million more displaced. This fighting started in the wake of the Rwanda genocide, with a Rwanda-funded militia fighting to control the east of the country. The west backs Rwanda, and China owns many (but not all) of the cobalt mines in the region, where children as young as 4 slowly poison themselves for less than $2 a day. It’s the cobalt - crucial for many of the electronic devices we use - that is at the heart of this horror.
The Congo is still bleeding, and we are holding the knife.
There is something we can do about that, even in a small way: stop buying so many electronics. If we use our phones, laptops and tablets until they’re actually worn out, instead of replacing them every year, we’ll cut down the demand for cobalt. It may seem like a drop in the ocean, but it’s a step worth taking, just like not watching Eurovision until Israel has been kicked out.
This patchy enforcement of the rules is a recurring issue. Sometimes, it seems to skew towards countries that tend to do better in the contest, and songs tipped to do well or win. Other times, it seems to be based on random chance or vibes. I mean, Montenegro’s 2012 entry, ‘Euro Neuro’ by Rambo Amadeus, was about Montenegro’s relationship to the EU. Rambo Amadeus - shockingly, not his real name - describes the EU and euro as being in “some kind of neurotic situation”. The song came 15th in its semi-final, and therefore failed to qualify for the final, so we can’t point towards a bias for songs with good odds.
Sometimes, the Eurovision rules land its organisers in hot water, like in 2016 when a list of some examples of banned flags was released in the run-up to the contest.
The Basque president and Spain’s broadcaster protested the Ikurriña, the Basque flag, appearing alongside flags such as that of ISIS, and that it was being banned at all. Kosovo’s broadcaster also objected to their flag being on the list. The EBU’s response was to say they hadn't meant to add examples of banned flags to their list and that all regional flags were banned, not just the Ikurriña, and only the flags of UN members, the EU and pride flags were allowed inside the arena.
The EBU reference group, who sets the rules, also warned LGBT fans not to use pride flags in a political manner, such as during Russia’s performance. They also advised against waving EU flags during the UK’s performance, as that would also be political.
Not only were LGBT fans angry at the attempt at censorship, but this policy also excluded the cultures of the contestants themselves. In particular, Joe, from UK duo Joe and Jake, who is Welsh; and Norwegian entrant Agnete, who is Sámi, both of whom had fans from those backgrounds who wanted to support them. The EBU eventually released a statement saying the Welsh and Sámi flags were allowed to Eurovision. The Spanish embassy in Sweden, the host country, also launched a formal complaint with the police when an Ikurriña was confiscated from a fan at Eurovision, who was also made to leave the arena. The Spanish Consul intervened, got the fans their flag back and made security let them back in the building.
There’s one more thing I’d like to point out: why the hell is the EU flag allowed? Seems political, I mean, the first sentence of the wikipedia entry for European Union calls it political:
Being a member of the EU isn’t a requirement for competing in Eurovision. Being in Europe isn’t even a requirement. Brexit didn’t stop the UK from competing in Eurovision, to my parents’ dismay. I voted to remain in the EU, but I still have my problems with the EU, from how it treats refugees to how it’s complicit in Israel’s war crimes. It seems bizarre that a supposedly apolitical competition would allow the flag of a political organisation.
The list of banned flags for last year’s contest was stricter: only competing countries’ flags are allowed, I assume as a deterrent for people bringing Russia flags, but also includes countries that simply couldn’t afford to compete this year. The rules goes into more detail, saying regional flags “with political overtones” aren’t allowed:
And protest items and materials, of course. It’s interesting how vague these rules are. Obviously, there were exceptions, even for the competing artists. Here’s Australian group Voyager at the flag parade last year:
The largest flag there is the Aboriginal Australian flag. I’m more than glad this is the case, but I know other people (and by people I mean racists) would be offended by the inclusion of such a flag. Obviously, those people should be ignored, but at this point I’m surprised the EBU isn’t taking their side.
We’re not done with flags and controversy, but let’s leave it there.
For now.
In fact, let's just leave it there in general. In part 2, I'll be moving on to discussing more recent contests, and what we can do to get Israel banned from Eurovision. For now, I'll just link this video here, which actually gives some helpful advice on who to contact.
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