In the seven-decade history of Eurovision, it\u2019s unlikely that a three-word slogan has been repeated so readily by the song contest\u2019s extravagant contestants, tireless organizers or cagey media managers: The world, they insist, can be \u201cUnited by Music.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Malmo, the Swedish city hosting the kitsch cultural phenomenon this year, is increasingly divided by Eurovision. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s Eurovision final will be watched by more than 150 million people around the world on TV and around 15,000 fans gathered inside the Malmo Arena. But the concert may be only the second-best attended event in the city that evening; a pro-Palestinian protest, calling for Israel\u2019s removal from the contest, is expecting at least 20,000 attendees, and possibly far more. <\/p>\n
The competition \u2013 which tries desperately to retain its \u201capolitical\u201d tag \u2013 has become the largest cultural event so far to be rocked by the repercussions of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. Israel\u2019s military assault has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza since it was launched in response to Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage. <\/strong>Those protesting or boycotting the song contest claim it is \u201cartwashing\u201d the conflict; others defend Israel\u2019s inclusion, insisting the contest should not be dragged into geopolitics. <\/p>\n Weeks of simmering tension over the question are coming to the fore in Malmo this week, ahead of the contest\u2019s semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday. And they are leading to perhaps the tensest three minutes in the contest\u2019s history, when Israel\u2019s competitor, Eden Golan, performs live. <\/p>\n \u201cWe could well see protests in the arena, we could see booing,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cI would imagine the scale of it in Malmo would be bigger than anything we\u2019ve ever seen before.\u201d <\/p>\n It is difficult to pierce the celebratory bubble that surrounds the competition each year. But even among Eurovision\u2019s media-managed contestants, there are some rumblings of discontent this time. <\/p>\n Founded by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 1956 as a unity-fostering project between national broadcasters, Eurovision has been rocked and buffeted for decades by the continent\u2019s geopolitical currents. It offers an unrivaled soft power-building platform to member states with poor human rights records, like Azerbaijan and, until two years ago, Russia. <\/p>\n But this year is the most difficult yet for the EBU, which decided against excluding Israel over the country\u2019s war in Gaza, whereas Russia was barred after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago \u2013 contrasting stances that led to calls of double standards. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we start across the board just deciding that we\u2019re going to exclude people, on the basis of geopolitical situations or terrible things that might be happening in the world, then every year we\u2019re just going to have groups of people calling for someone to be excluded \u2013 be it Azerbaijan, be it somebody else,\u201d Curran said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe want to try and keep the contest as non-political as we can,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd that\u2019s hard.\u201d <\/p>\n He may be understating matters. Publicists representing a swathe of Europe\u2019s most eccentric musical artists in Malmo have been especially cautious with their talent, seeking to protect them from questions relating to the protests taking place just a few yards from their hotels. <\/p>\n The EBU was already forced to intervene when Golan\u2019s initial song submission, \u201cOctober Rain,\u201d was deemed to too closely reference Hamas\u2019s October 7 attacks on Israel. <\/p>\n Artists are not allowed to make statements either, though some may risk the punishment \u2013 a fine for their broadcaster \u2013 to do so, as Iceland\u2019s act did in 2019, when they held up Palestinian flags during the contest, which was held in Israel. <\/p>\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t want them to do that, quite obviously,\u201d Curran said. \u201cThat is not something that we want artists to do, and it\u2019s in the rules that they shouldn\u2019t do that, and can\u2019t do that.\u201d <\/p>\n But, for all their efforts, Eurovision bosses will hold their breaths while Golan sings in Saturday\u2019s grand final if, as expected, she progresses from Thursday\u2019s semi-final. <\/p>\n \u201cThe real worry would be any threat of violence, particularly towards the singers,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cThe worst nightmare could be a stage invasion.\u201d The latter occurred during the United Kingdom\u2019s performance in 2018, when a man snatched the microphone from singer SuRie and screamed a message before being removed. <\/p>\n As Malmo sought to stage a week\u2019s worth of events and performances to celebrate Eurovision, it encountered a problem: artists kept dropping out, following pressure from pro-Palestinian groups urging a boycott of the contest. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has divided the city, in a way,\u201d admitted Karin Karlsson, who is in charge of staging the events in Malmo. \u201cI don\u2019t think we will solve any questions when it comes to the war in Gaza by boycotting,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n In total, she said 20 artists had dropped out of performing in the city. But Karlsson is undeterred. \u201cI sleep well,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to show everybody a vibrant, super diverse city, where we can live side by side but still think differently.\u201d <\/p>\n She hopes that Malmo is on track to fulfilling that goal. \u201cBut you never know. It\u2019s uncertain at the moment.\u201d <\/p>\n That has caused tensions with some residents, she said, who want resources and time spent on public services, rather than international spectacles. <\/p>\n The city is also home to large Muslim and Palestinian populations. Weekly pro-Palestinian protests have been held since Israel\u2019s war in Gaza began in October, and the protest during Saturday\u2019s live final could be the biggest since those early weeks. <\/p>\n \u201cWe hope to show the EBU that the people of Malmo reject their attempt at artwashing,\u201d said Mohammad Ghannam, who has led the movement to boycott Eurovision as part of Sweden\u2019s Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) group. <\/p>\n And last week, Israel\u2019s National Security Council raised its travel warning to Malmo, urging Israelis planning to attend Eurovision to reconsider whether they need to do so. It cited \u201ctangible concern that terrorists will exploit the protest and the anti-Israel atmosphere to carry out an attack on Israelis,\u201d and described Malmo as a hub for \u201canti-Israel protests.\u201d <\/p>\n Lara Yosef, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant to Malmo who will be attending Saturday\u2019s demonstration, said that when she walks past Eurovision advertising in her city, \u201cI see blood.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping that some artists will surprise us and (make) some statements on stage,\u201d Yosef said. <\/p>\n But many more are working to block out what is becoming a near-deafening distraction, joining Eurovision\u2019s organizers in offering delicate comments. \u201c(Our) sympathy is (with) all people who say that war is sh*t,\u201d said Ukrainian contestant Alyona Alyona. \u201cBecause who, if not we, can say what is war, and how sh*t it is?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the seven-decade history of Eurovision, it\u2019s unlikely that a three-word slogan has been repeated so readily by the song contest\u2019s extravagant contestants, tireless organizers or cagey media managers: The world, they insist, can be \u201cUnited by Music.\u201d But Malmo, the Swedish city hosting the kitsch cultural phenomenon this year, is increasingly divided by Eurovision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} An increasingly political song contest<\/h2>\n
\u2018It has divided the city\u2019<\/h2>\n