Decades of artwashing: Why Eurovision keeps stirring political controversy

As a balm for the world exhausted from two devastating world wars, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) envisaged a "light entertainment show" to serve as a platform for uniting nations fractured by conflict. Thus, in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest was born.

Even today, perhaps owing to its post-war origins, it has never managed to escape political influences throughout the decades. But the contest faced criticism over the years for failing to just focus on music instead of becoming a source of controversy year after year.

There are even allegations that it might not have been intended to be a solely artistic competition.

The most recent controversy surrounds Israel, which has been conducting a brutal military offensive in Palestine’s Gaza for nearly five months, resulting in the death of approximately 29,000 people, most of them women and children.

The Zionist state’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians has prompted artists and individuals to call on the organisers to exclude Israel from the song contest.

In October, the Icelandic Association of Composers and Lyricists (FTT) board released a statement calling on the Icelandic National Broadcaster (RUV) to withdraw from the 2024 Eurovision contest “unless Israel is denied participation in the contest on the same grounds as Russia in the last competition”.

The Icelandic Society of Authors and Composers (ISAC) has also sought a boycott unless Israel is disqualified. The petition has been signed by nearly 10,000 Icelanders, around 2.5 percent of the country's population.

Last month, over a thousand Finnish musicians joined their Icelandic counterparts in this call, saying Finland should abstain from participating in the contest if Israel is not excluded.

However, despite all this, neither Iceland nor Finland intends to withdraw from the competition, nor does the EBU have any plans to disqualify Israel.

As it is announced that Israel will indeed participate in this year's contest in Malmo, Sweden, scheduled for May, people from across the world are calling on the international community through social media to boycott the contest.

Israel’s 20-year-old representative singer Eden Golan, on the other hand, has been asked to change her lyrics at the request of the EBU due to its political content.

Was it always about 'joy and optimism'?

“We owe nothing to those nations that exercise excessive force through military power and should not share the stage with them in events that are typically characterised by joy and optimism,” says FTT in its statement.

However, Eurovision has often strayed from its avowed path of using music as a unifier.

As the event's history is full of controversies, one could never predict which way the wind will blow.

When Russia was prohibited from participating in Eurovision after it launched its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, the EBU stated that including a Russian entry in that year's contest "would bring the competition into disrepute".

A year later, in 2023, the same EBU cited strict rules to turn down Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy’s request to speak during the ceremony via video, asserting that the contest is "non-political".

While Georgia faced disqualification from the 2009 Moscow contest due to the perceived political undertones in their disco-funk entry "We Don't Wanna Put In", Ukraine secured victory in 2016 with a song referencing Joseph Stalin's mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944.

Despite its historical and political subject, the union did not deem the song political.

During the hosting of the 2019 Eurovision finals in Israel, demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against "artwashing apartheid".

They were joined by over 150,000 people worldwide who had signed a petition initiated by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, calling for a boycott of the 2019 contest.

After the finals in Tel Aviv, Iceland was fined just because its official band displayed scarves with Palestinian flags.

For years, critics have pointed out that the event selectively punishes only those it deems political while letting others get away solely because of their alignment with the Big Five.

The Big Five

Türkiye opted out of the competition in 2013, citing grievances against the voting system and calling for the automatic qualification of the "Big Five" –UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy – for the finals. Ankara said the EBU favoured these nations due to their higher financial contributions to the union.

In its official statement, Türkiye highlighted its success in the 2000s when Eurovision voting was predominantly based on audience participation. However, changes implemented in 2011, which reduced the weight of audience votes to 50 percent and introduced jury votes, were seen as biased in favour of the Big Five.

In an interview last year, the Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, Martin Österdahl, admitted that it's unfair for the Big Five countries to automatically qualify for the Eurovision grand final. However, he added that he didn’t foresee any changes to this system.

Over the years, Eurovision has been at the forefront of artwashing – that is, using art and cultural events to deflect attention from political or societal issues, often to re-brand the image of organisations or states involved.

Despite Eurovision's attempts to artwash various political matters over the years, it appears unsuccessful in diverting its audience from politics, even after decades of efforts.

Regarding Israel's participation, Noel Curran, the Director-General of the EBU, recently stressed that it wasn't their role “to make comparisons between wars”.

In a blatant show of double standards, he claimed that KAN (the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation) was autonomous from the Israeli government, while the Russian broadcaster was aligned with the state.

As Curran highlighted the EBU's alignment with other international bodies, like sports federations, in maintaining Israel's participation in their competitions, it raises the million-dollar question once again: Was Eurovision ever solely about music?