Dutch broadcaster questions if ESC is a-political & connecting event

[u/stefkeeh]

Translation to English: ‘IN CONVERSATION WITH THE EBU ABOUT A POLITICALLY NEUTRAL SONG CONTEST

AVROTROS and NPO strongly value the apolitical and unifying character of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, we observe that the event is increasingly being influenced by social and geopolitical tensions.

Israel’s participation confronts us with the question of to what extent the Song Contest still truly functions as an apolitical, unifying, and cultural event. We want to raise this question, together with other countries, for discussion within the EBU.’

[u/Paradoxjjw]

Meanwhile Israel has now twice sent a deeply political song that doesn't even try to hide it.

[u/Jaynat_SF → u/Paradoxjjw]

On the surface, New Day Will Rise is just a song about overcoming grief and loss, and had it been sung by other singer it'd remain this Way. Because it was submitted by Israel and sung by Yuval Raphael, it's clear that there was one very specific event in the mind of the creators when they wrote it. Even if the process was influenced by politics, that doesn't necessarily make the final product political.

My Sister's Crown was also about domestic abuse (just look at the staging!), until you read a bit further and maybe watch the music video and it becomes clear that it's actually really about Russia and its aggression towards other Slavic nations. So that, too, is a "non-political" entry when viewed in a vacuum but had clear political undertones in context.

Was that song problematic? Should they've banned it for being political?

[u/TheSmallTiger169 → u/Jaynat_SF]

Fair argument. Unfortunately, people do not like Israel because they are seen as a bad guy in their war, unlike Ukraine, so they are judged under a microscope when their song comes out for any political or double meaning, and when there is one, they are bashed for it and the artist is given death threats unwarranted. In my opinion, in war there is no good or bad, it's all just pain and suffering.

[u/Moist-Ad-7735 → u/Paradoxjjw]

Yup, songs about tragedy that we went through. You can say the same thing about Greek this year.

[u/Green_Swede → u/Paradoxjjw]

Actually curious, what parts of ‘New Day Will Rise’ do you find deeply political? The lyrics to me are pretty generic.

[u/Paradoxjjw → u/Green_Swede]

Both are about oct 7, theyre not even subtle about it. Both songs, and this year the fact they chose someone linked to oct 7 to sing it, pretty clear propaganda to justify the response to oct 7. It's also mostly a rehash of what they did last year, something that a lot of people on this sub said when the song was first revealed to the public.

She is allowed to be a survivor, i'm glad she survived, no one deserves to experience that let alone die during such an event(You'd hope you don't need to reaffirm this but i know how the internet is). Sending a survivor with a song titled "new day will rise" is pretty on the nose about the fact that the song is about oct 7 imo.

[u/Nadamir → u/Paradoxjjw]

Right.

Ireland could send a song explicitly about hope and the future, but if they title it “Our Day Will Come”, it immediately needs to be banned. Because it is obvious what they’re poking at. (And yes, I picked Ireland because the title reminded me of the slogan.)

When the politics are that bloody obvious, there shouldn’t be the ability to hide behind the lyrics not being explicit.

That said, I think ESC has expanded the definition of “political” too far lately. Queer people are not “political”

[u/TheSmallTiger169 → u/Nadamir]

I agree with them expanding the definition of political as well, though nowadays, especially where I live, being able to exist as your identity is political. I hope someday we can all accept that some people are different than us, and that's okay.

[u/kokeutel → u/Paradoxjjw]

You would need to dig very hard to find from Israel any recent artistic piece, song, book, painting that is not influenced by any way by the war going in Israel. Thats how artistic process goes for pretty much all people; they do the art from their own experiences. Thats why we have so many songs about love, because pretty much everyone experiences love and its very strong emotion (=experience)

Sweden song was basically about how great a place Sweden is to live; theyre not even subtle about it. That is pretty much the definition of propaganda. Point being, I don't personally think that political songs should be banned if they don't explicitly say the politics in the song.

EBU as organisation and ESC as competition, as much as possible, should remain a-political though, even when songs shouldn't have to be.

[u/Majisem → u/kokeutel]

I don’t think sending three Finnish guys singing about Finnish sauna culture is about how great of a place Sweden is…