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The official motto of the 68th edition of the Eurovision is “united by music”, but as the continent’s glittering and sequined masses descended on the Swedish city of Malmö for Saturday’s grand finale, music’s ability to heal and bridge divisions seemed in serious doubt.
Ahead of the song contest’s main event, Dutch artist Joost Klein missed out on his place in two dress rehearsals after being investigated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) over an unexplained “incident”.
“We are currently investigating an incident reported to us involving the Dutch artist. He will not rehearse until further notice,” the EBU said in a statement.
At a press conference Thursday night, several performers, including Klein, expressed their disappointment that the debate surrounding the inclusion of Israel – guaranteed after singer Eden Golan made the semi-finals – would probably have overshadowed the world’s biggest live music event.
Klein, who is scheduled to speak just before Dolan on Saturday night, was asked at a press conference if his chatter– an inspired pop anthem of free movement, Europapa, could fit 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 of its entry, then called “October Rain,” about the trauma of the October 7 massacre by Hamas.
The EBU defended its decision, saying Eurovision was a “non-political music event” and “not a competition between governments”.
Golan, 21, was ordered by Israel’s National Security Agency to stay in her hotel room between performances and was taken to rehearsals in a convoy of cars. At the line-up of the semi-finalists, she cut a miserable figure near the stage exit, not least because the other contestants didn’t seem ready to make voluntary gestures of solidarity.
When a Polish journalist asked Golan if she thought her presence at the competition might endanger the other performers and the fans in attendance, there were whispers around the room and the host stepped in to say she didn’t have to answer the question, if she did she didn’t want to . “Why not?” Klein interjected, sitting next to her with a Dutch flag over his head.
Greek performer Marina Satti also appeared to be faking falling asleep when Golan was asked a question by the Israeli press.
Bambi Thug, a non-binary singer representing Ireland at this year’s competition, said the debate surrounding Israel’s inclusion had “completely overshadowed everything”.
“It goes against everything Eurovision is supposed to be,” they said.
The group of performers gathered at Eurovision was a “big, big community” and Israeli contestant Dolan was “never even allowed to meet us”, they added. “God forbid we have conversations where opinion might change.”
Bambi Thug, who before Thursday’s first semi-final were made to remove body make-up that spelled out the word “Ceasefire” in medieval Celtic script, said they did not know exactly what happened in the incident for which Klein is being investigated. “But I’m with anyone who is pro-Palestine.”
In the run-up to the song contest, pro-Palestinian activists unsuccessfully called on the participating artists to boycott the five-day event.
As fans from across Europe dressed in colorful costumes, sequined dresses and draped with national flags made their way to the venue on Thursday, around 5,000 protesters gathered in Malmö’s Stortorget square with Palestinian flags, black and white kufiya scarves and banners reading “Boycott Israel.”
One of them was Christopher Kibbon, 19, who attended the protest as a member of Fridays for Future Sweden. “Israel is using the ESC to ‘pinkwash’ itself,” he said. The fact that Israel was asked by the broadcasters’ union to change its entry, he said, “shows that they are trying to get their message out.”
In the city centre, many of the official posters and banners read “United by Genocide”. New protests are expected on Saturday.
At a smaller rally in Malmö’s Davidshall district on Thursday evening, heavily guarded by police, around 120 people waved Israeli and Swedish flags, sang Golan’s Hurricane and danced to a chorus of a previous Israeli Eurovision entry.
“Golan was coming into a very hateful environment [in Malmö] and we absolutely did not like that,” said Yehoshua Kaufman, one of the organizers of the gathering. “We wanted to welcome her and pay tribute to the people killed at the Nova festival on October 7.
“There is such a fear of different opinions in this town. You can probably walk around Malmö with a kippa, but not with an Israeli flag.
Shortly before he made his comment, a woman approached Kaufman’s congregation, shouting “genocide” and “murderers” before being escorted away by police.
France famously called Eurovision a “monument of nonsense” when it refused to send an entry in 1982. Yet even nonsense is rarely apolitical.
Originally conceived as an experimental vehicle for new cross-border broadcasting techniques, the song contest’s ethos for European unity was “almost an unintended consequence of the political context in post-war Europe,” said Paul Jordan, a cultural historian who sat on the international jury for the French national selection for Eurovision 2019
However, the bridges that race can build are real. There aren’t many events in Europe where Swiss non-binary singers befriend Greek dancers, acerbic Estonians dance backstage with champagne-clad Armenians, or where young Turkish fans cheer on Greece, its longtime rival in the Aegean.
Greek singer Marina Sati 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 noting the absence of Romania and Bulgaria and insisting the musical’s traditions of the eastern Mediterranean region go deeper than today’s national borders.
Due to Eurovision’s supposedly apolitical status, even simple messages are often articulated in veiled ways, lending a surreal air to the events surrounding this year’s contest.
“We are the only country in the world that is shaped like a butterfly,” Latvian singer Dons said after reaching the final. “The butterfly symbolizes 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 neighboring Baltic states in the post-Soviet space? Ukraine? Palestine? At a song contest as heavily charged with political debate as this year’s, it’s unlikely to be the last topic of conversation.
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