Eurovision is supposed to be a song contest… not a ‘declaration of principles’

… and ‘song contests’, in turn, are supposed to be about this obscure little thing called ‘music’: once famously defined – by the late Tom Petty – as “probably the one real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things…”

You can probably imagine, then, how excited I tend to get at this time of year: when the entire world takes a break from all the usual rigmarole of international politics, to concentrate on something that truly matters for a change.

That’s right, folks! The Eurovision Song Contest: a show which aims to promote ‘the values of universality and inclusivity’; and ‘our proud tradition of celebrating diversity through […drums rolling…] MUSIC!’

In other words: precisely the same sort of ‘magic’ that had such a transformative effect on Tom Petty’s life (and my own, if it comes to it; and yours; and theirs, and ours, etc.)

So as Peppi Azzopardi might have put it, on an ancient episode of Xarabank: ‘Kif tista ma’ tkunx eċċitat?’ How can anyone not be positively brimming with enthusiasm, right now… at the prospect of an entire international music festival – followed by over 180 million, worldwide - dedicated to ‘moving us’; ‘healing us’; ‘communicating with us’… not to mention, doing all those other ‘incredible, magical’ things? I mean: what could possibly go wrong, anyway?

Um… well, quite a lot, actually…

Right: let’s rewind a little, back to the part where I wrote about all the international media coverage that this event invariably attracts. At the time of writing there are at least two or three news stories about the Eurovision Song Contest, given varying degrees of prominence in pretty much all Europe’s major newspapers….

… and needless to add, not even one of them is about all the ‘healing, communicating’ (or otherwise ‘beneficial’) effects, that this contest is supposed to have. No indeed, folks! At the moment, they’re all about whether Israel should be allowed to even compete in this year’s ESC: when that country stands accused, by large sections of global public opinion, of ‘genocide’ against the people of Gaza.

Now: I do understand, of course, that it’s a rather important question to ask, at this stage (especially given that another country – Russia – has already been banned, for entirely analogous reasons…)

But then, the same problem arises when discussing Russia’s case, too. Sorry, but… wasn’t this supposed to be a festival about ‘music’? And wasn’t the whole purpose of the Eurovision Song Contest (at least, in part) to tap into precisely those same ‘magical properties’, ascribed to music by Tom Petty, that might actually help OVERCOME these self-same conflicts, to begin with?

To put that another, less convoluted way: if the ESC truly aims to promote the values of ‘inclusivity, universality, and (in particular) DIVERSITY’: shouldn’t it just allow ALL countries to participate, equally: regardless of their government’s ‘diverse’ actions on the global stage (which, in any case, shouldn’t really have any bearing on the individual contestant, at all?)

Already, it seems, something akin to a conjuror’s trick has been played on us. It is as though the entire ‘raison deter’ of the Eurovision Song Contest has been made to disappear, before our very eyes… and in its place, we discuss…

… why, ‘the usual rigmarole of international politics’, of course! You know: that obscure little phenomenon that invariably has the very OPPOSITE effect, of Tom Petty’s ‘magical music’!

Instead of ‘healing’ us, it ‘deepens the wounds’; and instead of facilitating ‘communication’, it only makes it impossible for any meaningful mediation to even take place...

But wait, that’s just the start. For if we are going to ban individual nations from participating in Eurovision, solely on the basis of the military actions of their governments… then why are we limiting the discussion to only Russia and Israel? What about all the other times, that ESC-contestant countries have engaged in (often unlawful) military entanglements, in other parts of the world?

Take France, for instance. [Note: if you read that in French… it rhymes!] Should France be allowed to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest: given that, in 2011, in just bombed the living heck out of Libya, for no other reason than: a) to get rid of Gaddafi, and; b) to protect its own vested interested, in that resources-rich North African state?

Now: I know what you’re probably thinking. That’s not exactly a like-with-like scenario, is it, compared to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine?

And no, perhaps it’s not. But then… does it even have to be? After all, it’s already unclear - from the double-standards between Russia and Israel, alone – what criteria are specifically used, when it comes to actually banning a single country from Eurovision.

Certainly, it can’t be ‘involvement in ANY war’ (which, now that I think about it, is a great pity… because otherwise, Malta might actually stand a chance of WINNING, for a change!)

… and that leaves us with only one other option, as far as I can see. It’s “involvement in those wars which the ESC’s organisers – in their infinite wisdom – have arbitrarily decided to just ‘single out, for preferential treatment’: without, it seems, any clearly-defined selection criteria, of any kind whatsoever.”

And who knows? Under those circumstances, a decision to ‘ban France’ – or even the UK, for that matter (which illegally invaded Iraq, together with the USA, back in 2004) – might conceivably have been taken: if only the ‘rigmarole of international politics’ had played out slightly differently, in the end.

For that reason alone, I myself would seriously think twice, before choosing to ban any single country from the Eurovision Song Contest (both Israel and Russia included).

But there are other good reasons not to: effectively, the decision only isolates the banned country further… making it harder, not just for those conflicts to ever be ironed out, at all; but also, for that country’s opposition to actually make its own voice heard.

Who’s to say, for instance, that Russia’s choice of Eurovision entry, this year – if they were allowed to compete, naturally – might not have been ‘transformed’ (through music’s ‘magical’ influence, remember?) into a fulcrum for popular activism AGAINST the war in Ukraine? If not by Russia actually fielding an anti-war contestant, of its own accord; at least, by fomenting a popular revolt against the country’s own choice (which has been known to happen, by the way: there are musicians who emerge to counter show likes Eurovision, just as much as to compete…).

The same question could be asked of Israel, too: not just because this year’s Israeli contestant, Edan Golan, is herself an outspoken supporter of her country’s actions in Gaza (as, of course, she has every right to be…)

… but also because the lyrics of this year’s Israeli entry – going by the suspiciously-familiar, not-at-all-ripped-off-from-Guns-N-Roses title of ‘October Rain’ – have likewise ‘come under the scrutiny’ by the omniscient Eurovision Committee.

According to the Israel Hayom newspaper (quoted in Lovin Malta): the song includes lines such as ‘There’s no air left to breathe’ and ‘They were all good children, each one of them’; and that, it seems, is a reference to ‘individuals seeking refuge in shelters while Hamas gunmen carried out a series of killings and kidnappings at the 7th October music festival and other locations.’

Ye-e-es… and as I recall, the Hollies had a 1972 hit with a song called ‘The Air That I Breathe’. Was that about Hamas too, by any chance…?

Hey, you never know: it might have been! For this, too, is part of the ‘magic of music’. It may well be that, with ‘October Rain’, the songwriter’s intention really WAS to justify Israel’s disproportionate retaliatory actions in Gaza...

But stripped of any context, the finished song (especially, the ‘good children’ part) could just as easily be about the ‘Gazan civilian victims, of Israeli aggression’.

Oh, and the song also mentions ‘flowers’, by the way. Yes, that’s right: ‘flowers’ (because no other song, in the history of world music, had apparently ever mentioned such things before) … “which, according to the Israeli outlet, is military terminology for casualties of war.”

Erm… really? So that’s what all those other songs about flowers were actually about, all this time?

Yikes! And there I was, thinking that Bon Jovi’s ‘Bed of Roses’ was a rather insipid love-song, about a guy who had clearly watched ‘American Beauty’ far too often for his own good…

Only now do I discover that the words: ‘I want to lay you down on a bed of roses’, actually refer Jovi’s psychotic desire to ‘bury his listeners in the same unmarked grave, where he buried all his other past genocide victims…’ (And I must say: from that perspective, the song suddenly sounds a dozen times better than it really is!)

Either way, however: we are once again applying entirely arbitrary selection criteria… this time, to decide whether a country’s chosen SONG (i.e., the ‘communication’ part of music’s ‘magic formula’) conforms to an as-yet undefined, and entirely inconsistent, ‘code-of-conduct’…

In other words: the Eurovision Song Contest first decides which countries can, or cannot, even participate at all: and then, the lucky winners of this magical lottery will be told what they can, and cannot, take the opportunity to actually ‘sing about’…

And, well, that’s the end of all Tom Petty’s ‘musical magic’ right there… isn’t it, now?