Eurovision Was Once a Campy Joy – But It Has Transformed Into a Cynical Way to Sanitize Conflict.
A recent initialism surfaced a couple of months following the onset of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Known as WCNSF, it means “Injured child with no living relatives”. This acronym is found only in Gaza, per insights from medical experts such as paediatricians. Typically, it is unusual for doctors to treat a child who has seen the death of their complete family. But, there has been no semblance of normality about the widespread destruction in Gaza, where whole bloodlines have been eradicated and the number of young amputees is greater than that of any other place in the world. Nothing ordinary in scores of doctors arriving back from a devastated terrain with testimonies of children being deliberately targeted.
An Unimaginable Crisis Regardless of a Supposed Ceasefire
Conditions in Gaza persist as an utter catastrophe. Essential medical supplies are failing to reach those in need, and major human rights organizations assert that atrocities are continuing. The Israeli government rejects these accusations, consistent with how it refutes everything it is accused of. Yet as grieving children who lost parents are now freezing in improvised encampments, there is a piece of uplifting information: nothing is going to stop the Eurovision song contest from advancing its professed goal of “unity and artistic sharing.” Eurovision will continue to roll out a blood-red carpet for Israel, although at least four European countries have now pulled out in protest. Because this, it seems, is what international harmony resembles.
Eurovision, of course prohibited Russia from competing in 2022 over the “unprecedented crisis in Ukraine”. However, the situation in Gaza appears to be entirely distinct.
A Selective Vision
Overlook the circumstance that Israel was criticized for unfair vote practices last year in what seems to have been an effort to manipulate Eurovision. Set aside the news that a toddler was allegedly fatally struck in Gaza on a recent Sunday. Pay no mind to the evidence that settler violence and forced displacement in the West Bank have escalated. Disregard the condition that international journalists are still blocked from freely reporting in Gaza. All of this, it would seem, should be seen as a barrier of Eurovision’s self-proclaimed spirit of unity.
The Contest Continues Amidst Profound Human Cost
Eurovision reaches its seventieth anniversary next year – almost double the average life expectancy of a person in Gaza at present. The event will proceed, but it will likely never recapture the whimsical pleasure it historically embodied. An institution that initially championed togetherness has devolved into a blatant mechanism to whitewash war.
