183. I WATCHED EUROVISION - Does That Make Me a Bad Person?
As a self-identified punk since my teenage years, I am very used to feeling shame about watching the Eurovision Song Contest each year, and even hiding the fact from people who know me. Many of my closest friends may not be aware that I have been fascinated by Eurovision since childhood, and have watched it more years than I haven’t. For a person associated with angry political punk rock, the campy Euro-pop of Eurovision feels far from my usual radar. Yet I remember my first Eurovision as a child, back in 1993. A babysitter asked if she could watch it and I wanted to see it too after seeing Sonia, and her song ‘Better The Devil You Know’, all over Children’s TV for weeks leading up to the contest. I was enthralled. Watching the voting into the wee small hours and sitting at the edge of my seat to see if Sonia would win (she didn’t). The next year I chose to watch it myself, and a tradition was born.
The facts are, punk may be my love language, but pop had me first. Before I heard my first Green Day song, I was dancing to Michael Jackson in my bedroom and rapping along to the soundtrack for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. And though I discovered rock music pretty early, pop compilation tapes like Now and Smash Hits were on my Christmas Lists alongside requests for Guns N Roses, Aerosmith and Nirvana. I would listen to the Bruce Springsteen vinyl my parents had, but also their Beatles records. And as punk took my heart in the mid-nineties, it was Pulp’s classic ‘Different Class’ which was on constant repeat as much as Dead Kennedys. For those who know about my own punk music releases, they may not know that last year I released an electro album under my own name, and previously, under Anarchophy, some ill-conceived hiphop. Much as punk has influenced me, pop has often secretly been holding my other hand the whole time.
So there is nothing new to me to watching Eurovision and treating it like a guilty pleasure. One I don’t always admit to in public. But this year the guilt has not been as a punk enjoying a celebration of commercial Euro-pop. It has been the guilt of someone who thinks Palestine should be free still knowing watching a competition which chose to give a platform to Israeli propaganda. Israel - a country who for some reason, like Australia, is involved in the ‘Euro’-vision song contest despite not being part of Europe, was allowed to compete despite the country’s continued attempted genocide of the people of Gaza.
Strong words from me. Some might disagree with the description and talk, instead, about Hamas’ attempted genocide of the Israeli people. And they might well have a point concerning that limited group, Hamas, and the intentions of some other opponents of Israel and supporters of Hamas. But the current conflict, since October 7th, has seen the specific actions of Hamas responded to by the Israeli government with a disproportionate and continuing attack on Palestinian citizens and the destruction of, and invasion into, Palestinian territory that endures even now despite the condemnation of the majority of the world. No one opposed to Israel’s actions are endorsing what Hamas did on October 7th, but to defend the Israeli response is to defend vengeance, not justice.
Which is why many fans of Eurovision were furious that the EBU, who organise the event, allowed Israel to participate, and not only attend but sing a song about the October attacks as their entry into the competition. Essentially using the event as a PR exercise to promote the Israeli perspective that October 7th was an entirely one-sided black and white affair and the Israeli response is appropriate and justified. Indeed, in the recent past, Russia was banned from the contest after the invasion of Ukraine precisely because the absurdity of a representative of an aggressive invading nation singing in a contest ostensibly about unity and peace seemed self-evidently problematic (not to mention those representatives sharing a stage with Ukrainian representatives).
Immediately, the EBU’s decision to include Israel in the proceedings was condemned by many. A boycott of Eurovision was called for. Not only of television viewers and audience members, but of the acts. Those who chose to perform as planned were condemned online. The innocence and ‘political neutrality’ of Eurovision, and its empty slogan ‘United by Music’, was exposed for what they are. Far from innocent and far from united, Eurovision was a polarising force, giving a platform to a nation who could use the event to whitewash its war crimes and history of brutal oppression of Palestinians.
The choice therefore seemed obvious: don’t watch it. Boycott! Protest!
And yet, last night, I did none of those things. I watched the whole show from start to finish, as I do most years. I didn’t even symbolically mute the Israeli performance. Does doing this make me a bad person? Well, only as much as we are all bad people in our interconnected world where every decision we make sends signals of some sort to people about what is and isn’t acceptable to us. The meat we eat or don’t eat. The sweat-shop produced clothes we wear or don’t wear. The company we buy from or don’t. The song contest we enjoy or ignore. But it is worth remembering that in this imperfect world, nobody is perfect, and the signals we send may actually be saying very little.
When I first heard about the idea of boycotting, as a teenager, it all just seemed so obvious: why would you support something that enables or engages in something you think is morally wrong? Nestle, McDonalds, Coke…soon I was boycotting them all. But even then I remember asking the question of whether it would be better to boycott McDonalds or just encourage more vegetarians and vegans to go there and buy their plant-based products instead, giving the company a clear economic reason to reduce their meat offer and increase their plant-based ones? Does boycotting actually work, I wondered?
My boycotts of those companies began around 1998. It is now 2024 and they’re all still here. And here in such a way that even though I tried not to give them my money for so long I still ended up giving all three companies my business in the end because of the inter-tangled web of corporate ownership too opaque and ever-changing for me to keep up with. Accidentally buying products from companies owned by those businesses anyway. It reminds me of the separation of punk and pop - for many years I refused to give major labels my money, only to find out that some of my favourite indie punk bands were on ‘independent’ labels actually owned by the majors.
And McDonalds…well it serves a lot more plant-based food these days. Not because of the boycott, but because vegetarianism and veganism got more popular, and there became a compelling economic case for it.
I remember protesting local McDonalds in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. It wasn’t just about animal ethics, it was about the way they treated workers too. Except, I remember feeling the strange contradiction though as our noisy protest made those same workers we were there to support feel uncomfortable or unsafe. I remember one particularly angry McDonalds worker asking us what we hoped to achieve? And how if we successfully closed this branch of McDonalds down he would lose his job. ‘And why aren’t you boycotting Burger King too?’ was their final jab. We had some logic about targeting the market-leaders because then all other companies would follow their lead…but the real reason was that we just didn’t have the time to target everyone who had questionable business practices. All fast food chains had their problems, and deep-down what we were really against was fast food in general, but we’d focused on McDonalds because the ongoing McLibel trial had made it a clearer target. There were barely any of us protesting as it was - we couldn’t spread out to all fast food chains. It was economical to just target one and try to make a change. But most customers just looked at us bemusedly and bought from McDonalds anyway. Some threw milkshakes and ketchup at us on their way out.
None of this is to say that the McDonalds boycotting didn’t have righteous reasons for opposing McDonalds…but it is to ask if the boycott was the best tactical strategy to make the difference we actually wanted.
Furthermore there is a question of how much what we wanted should be enforced on others. Protecting workers and animals feels pretty morally justifiable (though many might question the validity of our commitment to non-human animals)…but ending fast food in general was purely ideological. Perhaps a great future aspiration for the world, but whatever our aspiration might be, currently, at the time of our protests, fast food chains served a need for many in the current (flawed) set up of society for easy, affordable food. The leaflets talking about alternatives were great, and our own decision to choose not to eat there was fine…but there is a reason the boycott didn’t spread across the country, let alone the whole world. People didn’t want the vision of the world we were offering.
And this is the thing about the boycott as a strategy - it has to be adopted by a significant enough number of people for it to make a difference. And therefore the success of the boycott rests on the level by which the public feel genuinely motivated to action by the proposed issue and how they see their abstaining from something as having an important impact on achieving it. We can agree on the problem, but disagree on the efficacy of boycotting as a strategy. Indeed, it was once considered a great strategy for some activists to actively buy shares in a company rather than boycott it, then attend their AGM each year and disrupt proceedings as a means of awareness raising. Boycotting is a tool. It is only worth using the tool if it works. I can boycott a company right now - pick any one you don’t like - but that boycott will have no impact unless others join me. And if others don’t join me then it becomes clear my reasons for boycotting perhaps aren’t resonating, or there is something about the issue that I am missing. More work needs to be done if the boycott is to be successful and perhaps, when that work is done, I will realise a boycott was not the right strategy to propose in the first place.
A distinction should be made here between a boycott and simply choosing not to support something. Your own personal decision to refrain from supporting something you are opposed to is everybody’s right. A season ticket holder of the Aston Villa women’s football team, when I don’t buy the kit of other teams in the WSL I am not boycotting them, however, I am simply saying they are not clubs I wish to financially support. When I choose to buy brand A rather than brand B to the point that I never give money to brand B, I am not necessarily boycotting the brand, I just have a different preference. And when I do actively boycott something as an individual, perhaps an establishment where I personally received bad service or who I know hold views on particular issues in opposition to my own (there was a second hand record shop once in Cardiff where I discovered the owner had a secret line of Nazi punk and skinhead records he would offer to the ‘right’ sort of people…I never shopped there again), I am doing it for personal reasons of not wanting to give that person/business my money. Not because I necessarily want to achieve anything grander than not giving them my support. Countries too. I have never holidayed in Turkey because of the government’s treatment of the Kurds. I wouldn’t choose to vacation in Israel either. But a personal choice of who gets your funding or your time is not intended to have a huge financial impact or change a practice or policy. Boycotts are.
All of which is to say, while I can see some people choosing not to watch Eurovision because it feels tarnished and distasteful to see Israel perform in the current climate, once it became clear that the majority of artists and audience members weren’t planning on boycotting the event the idea of a boycott should have been rendered dead on arrival. It hadn’t taken off and not watching the show as an individual wasn’t going to stop the show from happening. Either the boycott happens, because people feel strongly enough that the event should not go ahead, or it doesn’t. And in this case it didn’t. And, disappointing or cowardly as that might seem, there might well be some very good reasons for Eurovision performers going ahead with the contest beyond the venal stardom of simply not wanting to throw away their promised five minutes of fame.
For instance - a belief in dialogue rather than silence. Allowing Israel to perform and state how it feels about October 7th through art is a much better response to the horror of those attacks than a retaliatory war. If only songs were all Israel had in answer to Hamas’ actions! But more to the point, hearing the crowd reactions, and words in support of Palestinians from fellow competitors and judges, provides an important push-back to the Israeli version of events the song promotes. A reminder that the official story is not always the only story and that, especially in national conflicts, your own country will always be in a bubble which frequently requires the rest of the world to pop it for you to get the facts. Indeed, Israel ended up doing very well in the public voting in the end (despite doing poorly with the national juries) most likely because pro-Palestinian viewers weren’t watching (and therefore voting) and the vote was weaponised by supporters of Israel’s actions to send a message that wasn’t being countered now because of the boycott. The very PR manipulation the boycotters feared was, perhaps, enabled by the boycott rather than prevented by it. (Though in the end Switzerland won, not Israel, despite the politicised vote, so the ‘success’ was relatively muted).
Wanting to have that public dialogue rather than suppress it seems like one good reason a boycott here might be considered the wrong strategy. Another is to think about ideas of punishment. I believe punishment is always the wrong approach to wrong-doing, as it just adds more wrong into the world and achieves nothing positive. Consequences, yes. Punishment, no. The Israeli government have made a decision, but does this mean that all Israeli people should pay for it? At what point does that blanket punishment become the very discrimination we claim to oppose? Isn’t this part of the problem in Gaza - all Palestinians there are now being punished for the actions of a handful of people on October 7th? Like interning all Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbour or assuming every Russian supports the invasion of Ukraine, to paint all Israeli people as complicit in the attacks in Gaza is unfair and unhelpful. Now, that said, the song sung was specifically and explicitly a song about the events of October 7th, but even this does not have to be sinister or problematic. For comparison, consider the attacks on America on September 11th, 2001. The wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq were both unjustified invasions which murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and the American government (and its allies) should be held accountable for their war crimes. What they did to those countries had no justification and was abhorrent. But 9/11 still happened. American lives were lost that day and people were traumatised by what they watched happen. People’s lives were forever changed. And American musicians wrote a lot of songs about it. Bruce Springsteen, for example, opposed George Bush’s wars, but wrote a whole album about 9/11 and played benefit shows for first responders. Two things can be true at once: you can be horrified by the Hamas attacks and want to mourn for what happened to your country AND you can think the Israeli response is just as bad, if not worse, than the attacks that preceded it. Imagine if we were having that conversation this last week instead of simply arguing about whether we were, or were not, going to watch a stupid music competition on TV?
Which brings the third argument against the boycott - it is only a music competition. Light entertainment. If you want to boycott something which is giving Israel a genuine platform to spread propaganda and whitewash its attempted genocide of the Palestinian people, boycott the news every night which act as their mouthpiece. Boycott BBC Question Time. Boycott the news websites you read.
A related, fourth, argument is that more than being ‘only a music competition’, it is a music competition which every year, in an increasingly hostile world, highlights LGBTQ+ artists and gives an international platform to queer culture. One of the problems with the overly simplistic black and white worldview that says if one thing is bad then the whole thing needs to be shut down is that the world has many more issues than the one issue you currently happen to be prioritising, whether that is Gaza or not. Hierarchies are bad. All hierarchies. Including hierarchies of social issues we should care about. All issues are worthy. Palestine should be freed, but also, in my own country, the UK, more and more oppressive legislation is coming out to make the lives of transgender people more difficult and try to deny the existence of transgender and non-binary people. A music competition which championed non-binary performers like winner, Nemo, and Ireland’s entrant, Bambie Thug, might be doing a terrible thing by giving Israel a platform, but is also doing something wonderful that cannot be denied by giving the spotlight to performers like these. One must weigh up the costs as well as the benefits of shutting down something through boycott and, with Eurovision, ultimately it is unlikely Israel not getting to perform would end the war, but it would certainly mean performers like Nemo and Bambie Thug don’t get to be seen by international audiences, including by the many young, non-binary, viewers looking to see others like themselves in the world.
There should be a ceasefire now and Palestine should be given back to the Palestinians. Of that, for me, there is no doubt. But Israel’s unjustifiable retaliatory actions have been happening since October. A music competition in May is not the cause of the continuing crisis in Gaza and no international music competition is going to be the end of it either. In fact an international music competition is probably not the place to go looking too deeply for ethical purity because it is predicated on a foundation of diversity and difference of opinion. But its intended message of unity and peace, however vacuous, is far more likely to bring about an end to conflict in the world than the drawing of even more furious and closed-minded lines of us against them will.
So yes, I watched Eurovision as usual this year. Yes, I felt uncomfortable watching Israel perform. Yes, I felt a bit ashamed that I didn’t choose to miss it this time around. But no, I don’t believe I am a bad person for doing so. If anything, I believe that focusing on Eurovision instead of focusing on Gaza is a massive distraction that serves to enable only its continued devastation.
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
My book, ANARCHIST ATHEIST PUNK ROCK TEACHER, is out everywhere now on paperback and eBook. You can order it direct from the publisher or from places like Amazon.
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