Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1516790
Malta might actually stand a chance of WINNING, for a change!) … and that leaves us with on- ly one other option, as far as I can see. It's "involvement in those wars which the ESC's or- ganisers – in their infinite wis- dom – have arbitrarily decided to just 'single out, for prefer- ential treatment': without, it seems, any clearly-defined selection criteria, of any kind whatsoever." And who knows? Under those circumstances, a deci- sion to 'ban France' – or even the UK, for that matter (which illegally invaded Iraq, together with the USA, back in 2004) – might conceivably have been taken: if only the 'rigmarole of international politics' had played out slightly differently, in the end. For that reason alone, I my- self would seriously think twice, before choosing to ban any single country from the Eurovision Song Contest (both Israel and Russia in- cluded). But there are other good rea- sons not to: effectively, the de- cision only isolates the banned country further… making it harder, not just for those con- flicts to ever be ironed out, at all; but also, for that country's opposition to actually make its own voice heard. Who's to say, for instance, that Russia's choice of Eurovi- sion entry, this year – if they were allowed to compete, nat- urally – might not have been 'transformed' (through mu- sic's 'magical' influence, re- member?) into a fulcrum for popular activism AGAINST the war in Ukraine? If not by Russia actually fielding an an- ti-war contestant, of its own accord; at least, by fomenting a popular revolt against the country's own choice (which has been known to happen, by the way: there are musicians who emerge to counter show likes Eurovision, just as much as to compete…). The same question could be asked of Israel, too: not just because this year's Israeli con- testant, Edan Golan, is herself an outspoken supporter of her country's actions in Gaza (as, of course, she has every right to be…) … but also because the lyr- ics of this year's Israeli entry – going by the suspicious- ly-familiar, not-at-all-ripped- off-from-Guns-N-Roses title of 'October Rain' – have like- wise 'come under the scrutiny' by the omniscient Eurovision Committee. According to the Israel Hay- om newspaper (quoted in Lovin Malta): the song in- cludes lines such as 'There's no air left to breathe' and 'They were all good children, each one of them'; and that, it seems, is a reference to 'indi- viduals seeking refuge in shel- ters while Hamas gunmen car- ried out a series of killings and kidnappings at the 7th Octo- ber music festival and other locations.' Ye-e-es… and as I recall, the Hollies had a 1972 hit with a song called 'The Air That I Breathe'. Was that about Ha- mas too, by any chance…? Hey, you never know: it might have been! For this, too, is part of the 'magic of music'. It may well be that, with 'Oc- tober Rain', the songwriter's intention really WAS to justify Israel's disproportionate retal- iatory actions in Gaza... But stripped of any context, the finished song (especial- ly, the 'good children' part) could just as easily be about the 'Gazan civilian victims, of Israeli aggression'. Oh, and the song also men- tions 'flowers', by the way. Yes, that's right: 'flowers' (because no other song, in the history of world music, had apparent- ly ever mentioned such things before) … "which, according to the Israeli outlet, is military terminology for casualties of war." Erm… really? So that's what all those other songs about flowers were actually about, all this time? Yikes! And there I was, think- ing that Bon Jovi's 'Bed of Ros- es' was a rather insipid love- song, about a guy who had clearly watched 'American Beauty' far too often for his own good… Only now do I discover that the words: 'I want to lay you down on a bed of roses', ac- tually refer Jovi's psychotic desire to 'bury his listeners in the same unmarked grave, where he buried all his other past genocide victims…' (And I must say: from that perspec- tive, the song suddenly sounds a dozen times better than it really is!) Either way, however: we are once again applying entirely arbitrary selection criteria… this time, to decide whether a country's chosen SONG (i.e., the 'communication' part of music's 'magic formula') con- forms to an as-yet undefined, and entirely inconsistent, 'code-of-conduct'… In other words: the Euro- vision Song Contest first de- cides which countries can, or cannot, even participate at all: and then, the lucky winners of this magical lottery will be told what they can, and can- not, take the opportunity to actually 'sing about'… And, well, that's the end of all Tom Petty's 'musical magic' right there… isn't it, now? maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 MARCH 2024 OPINION 11 At the moment, they're all about whether Israel should be allowed to even compete in this year's ESC: when that country stands accused, by large sections of global public opinion, of 'genocide' against the people of Gaza