Published: 6 February 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
The contest was founded in 1956, When the European Broadcasting Union wanted to unite the continent through music for one evening. Charming idea. One of the first rules of the contest was no politics. This rule lasted for a few years until 1968, when Spain decided to send a song in Catalan but President Franco insisted the lyrics be translated into Spanish so the singer withdrew. A Spanish singer replaced him and he won. The following year Austria boycotted the contest in protest. After this barrier was breached, there was no turning back.
As someone who has been involved in numerous contexts of Eurovision, I have seen just about every layer of politics possible.
Let's start with Geopolitics. Due to immigration and open borders in the last couple of decades, many people in Europe are voting for songs not because they are the best ones, but because those songs represent the motherland.
Ireland is known to have given many points to countries like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania thanks to the expatriates now living on the emerald isle, Germany awarded the 12 points to Turkey many times thanks to a huge group of Turkish immigrants, and Israel will always give many points to Russia and the Ukraine thanks to over one million immigrants who came during the 1990s.
Greece and Cyprus will forever trade the top mark thanks to their mother-daughter symbiosis and the same language, the Scandinavian bloc will pat every member on the back thanks to similar language and culture and, of course, all of the ex-Yugoslav countries will give points to the other frenemies in order to prevent another genocide. The latter is fine by me. Anything in order to prevent genocide.
Politics also emerges in messages hidden within the songs. Those messages are not always against another country, but sometimes directed towards the people and/or government of that same country. Israel is the champion of sending songs with political messages. The most political song ever sent by Israel was in 2009. It was titled There must be another way, and was sung by Noa and Mira Awad, an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Israeli, who were sent right after a war with Gaza. The message was not directed by the government. It was all through the singers.
A political message can also be found in the Israeli entry in 1983, Hai, by Ofra Haza. As an Israeli it was very moving to have seen the Israeli representative singing The people of Israel are alive in a contest that was held in Munich, Germany, and seeing the backup singers dressed in yellow.
But it's not just the Israelis. In 2009, during a crisis between Georgia and Russia, the contest was held in Moscow. The Georgians tried to be cute by sending a song entitled We don't wanna put in. The EBU stepped in and it was too political, forcing the Georgians to withdraw. Thenthere are the Arab countries who can take part but don't because of Israel.
Politics is not just between countries, sometimes it’s focus is internal. After the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972, Israelis are heavily guarded. It's been like that since we first participated, in 1973. When we represented our country in 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan, a Muslim country with an open border with Iran, 15-30 special agents and Mossad agents escorted us during our two-week stay to prevent us from being kidnapped. The following year in Malmo, Sweden, we were again escorted again by special agents and there were two large demonstrations against us.
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As Israel is hosting this year’s competition in Tel Aviv thanks to Netta Barzilai’s sublime victory, the BDS movement is raising its head to get countries and singers to boycott Israel.
I'd like to think that the average person who's watching the broadcast in Europe or Australia will vote for its favourite song and put politics aside. Israel did win last year, which shows us that anything is possible.
The ESC was meant to unite us, not separate us. Like any other aspect of life, politics has made its way into this beautiful and joyful contest. But once you understand and recognise it, you can choose to ignore it.
Alon's book, 'Three minutes of eternity', based on his experience in the Eurovision song contest is available on Amazon.
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Photo: The members of the Shalva Band, which successfully auditioned for "Rising Stars," an Israeli reality TV show (Courtesy Shalva Band)
