Eurovision Used to Be a Lighthearted Spectacle – Yet It Has Evolved Into a Calculated Tool to Sanitize Conflict.
A recent term emerged several months after the start of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Labeled WCNSF, it means “Wounded child, no surviving family”. This acronym is specific to Gaza, as stated by doctors like paediatricians. Normally, it is uncommon for physicians to treat a young patient who has been bereaved of their entire family. But, there has been nothing “normal” about the widespread destruction in Gaza, where whole bloodlines have been wiped out and the number of children who have lost limbs exceeds that of anywhere else in the world. Nothing normal in many doctors arriving back from a landscape of rubble with accounts of children being deliberately targeted.
A Living Nightmare Despite a Supposed Ceasefire
The Gaza Strip continues to be hell on earth. Critical healthcare resources are failing to reach those in need, and international watchdogs have stated that violations are still being committed. Authorities has denied these allegations, consistent with how it denies everything it is implicated in. But while traumatised orphans are now suffering from the cold in makeshift tent camps, there is a piece of uplifting information: nothing is going to stop the international singing competition from continuing with its declared purpose of “togetherness and artistic sharing.” Eurovision will continue to offer a blood-red carpet for Israel, even though a number of European countries have now pulled out in protest. Since this, it seems, is what international harmony looks like.
Eurovision, of course excluded Russia from participating in 2022 due to the “serious conflict in Ukraine”. Yet the conflict in Gaza is treated differently.
A Selective Vision
Disregard the reality that Israel was accused of unfair vote practices last year in what appears to have been an attempt to manipulate Eurovision. Set aside the news that a three-year-old girl was allegedly fatally struck in Gaza on a recent Sunday. Forget the fact that attacks by settlers and systematic expulsions in the West Bank have escalated. Disregard the condition that foreign reporters are still blocked from unfettered access in Gaza. None of this, evidently, should be seen as a barrier of Eurovision’s much-touted ethos of unity.
The Pageant Proceeds While Ignoring Profound Human Cost
The contest reaches its seventieth anniversary next year – roughly two times the average life expectancy of someone in Gaza now. The show may go on, but it will never be able to restore the whimsical pleasure it historically embodied. A contest that once promoted togetherness has now become a cynical way to sanitize military aggression.
