It became clear early yesterday morning that it wasn't going to be a normal day when the news began to circulate on social media that overshadowed any other news regarding the Italian Eurovision Song Contest. At the end of the second semi-final, Rai passed the televoting percentages expressed in our country. It is an irregularity, since in the ESC everything must be top secret until Saturday, even the composition of the national juries, whose identity must be hidden like that of Liberato or the mafia witnesses. Worse still: it was clear from the percentages that the real (or unreal, according to the conspiracy theorists) country had voted around 40% for the beloved, hateful, sweet, genocidal Israeli Eden Golan.
At that point, the most rational and calm comment that could be read on Elon Basaglia's organize another Eurovision after the one in Turin, perhaps because the public service is in the hands of a clique of disgusting Zionists, perhaps because she is a woman. Alternative version: we are a nation of incompetents who show things they shouldn't show. Activists' version: wake up people, the problem isn't the clear votes, it's the fact that many Italians voted for the genocidal girl. Version of the conspiracy activists: it is clear that no one voted for genocide, the data is manipulated.
Thus began the craziest day of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, a mixture of bizarre interpretations, binary thinking, conspiracy theories, pure idiocy, politics, anti-politics, apolitical, 10-second videos out of context that become the key to geopolitical interpretation. “It's the end of Eurovision”, write with conviction both those who think it was a mistake to include the Palestinian question in a competition of mostly silly songs, and those who think it was a mistake Not making the Palestinian question enter into a competition of mostly silly songs. They live at the same time, in front of the same screens.
Everything and the opposite of everything is valid in this Eurofestival (I apologize to the purists of the Euro-language cantottara) which has two faults: arriving in a dramatic period of our recent history (as if history were not always dramatic) and not being able to manage the situations with clarity and timeliness. A doubt arises: aren't the ESC organizers the same ones who manage Formula 1 where penalties are imposed hours after the end of the grand prix?
Meanwhile in Malmö there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations (apparently 12 thousand people, not a few) and pro-Israel (very few people). The protests also reach inside the arena, with loud boos at Golan and his team Hurricane and masterful attempts by the Eurovison Broadcast Union which organizes the thing to keep politics out of the competition, which has always happened. But politics is like water: it gets everywhere.
On social media, meanwhile, the ESC 2024 singers were treated like prisoners of a police state that prevented them from speaking and expressing themselves. Victim of censorship was the Irishman Bambie Thug who was prevented from appearing live on Thursday evening with the words “ceasefire” written on his body, an unacceptable request. However, the request (granted) to Israel to change the text of is very acceptable October Rain in Hurricane because it contained references to October 7th. Politics must remain inside, but also a little outside, and in short it depends on which side you are on.
Meanwhile, short videos arrived taken from the press conference of the semi-finalists, with the Greek competitor Marina Satti, 37 years old and behaving like a fifteen year old and therefore immediately becoming a heroine of two worlds, who yawned and pretended to fall asleep while the Israelis spoke. Third grade activism, but still activism, right? A journalist asked Golan a very delicate question: “Have you ever thought that your presence here entails risks and dangers for the other participants and for the public?”. The moderator said it was not necessary to answer, the Dutch competitor Joost Klein promptly replied: «Why not?».
this is a video showing joost klein specifically asking “why not”, when eden golan was allowed not to answer a press question on security
KING king king three times king💙 pic.twitter.com/Eh1PTNXzdS
— theEsc🍉||🇨🇭🇭🇷🇬🇪 (@elle_hannah15) May 9, 2024
Shortly afterwards the case broke out. Basically, Klein was the protagonist of an unspecified accident (can you see it's like in Formula 1?) and was therefore placed under investigation. Someone without any proof says: he was threatened by the bullies of the Israeli delegation. This version of events passes, Twitter activism is unleashed: the Zionists and their pig accomplices are trying to kill him because he dared to criticize Israel. The singer of Europe became the hero of the digital intifada. No Klein no party.
Last night the so-called Jury Show was held, the performances that we will see tonight with the public in the room, but only in favor of the national juries, so that they can express their 50% vote which will be added to the 50% of the televoting that will be expressed today during the final. Big boos and protests for Golan, Klein absent. In its place, the video of Thursday evening's performance. The cries of censorship and shame become louder and louder as rumors gain strength that Klein actually had a run-in with a photographer or ESC worker. It is not yet known what happened, but the Eurovision Court of Human Rights has ruled: Joost Klein did not sing on the Jury Show because he dared to say something against Israel. The idea of waiting to express oneself to understand what happened does not cross anyone's mind.
In all this mess, on the one hand Rai finally decides to issue a statement on the incident of the votes passed in the girth, saying that it was a mistake and that in any case they were partial votes and therefore should not be taken seriously, we are good people, from Another Angelina Mango makes the gesture of the day. She arrives in the press room saying she wants to let the music speak and convey “the strongest message I can share”. She sings a cover of Imagine by John Lennon. “When nothing else works, sing Imagine», said Neil Young at the time of September 11th, who performed it at the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. It's a seemingly good and cheesy song that actually literally says: imagine there are no religions and no states. And therefore, no Israel and no Palestine. From the two-state solution to the zero-state solution.
The interpretations of the gesture range from “smart move to get out of the impasse after the RAI gaffe and the political controversies” to “nice that the music is talking again”, through to “oh no, dear Angelina, this is not activism”. Everything gets complicated when another video of a few seconds comes out in which Mango leaves the press room presumably after singing Imagine. She is visibly shaken, the manager pats her head as she runs away and passes her badge. A small meltdown in a tense situation? No, for activists it is proof that Angelina was forcibly forced to perform that do-gooder and, guess what?, Zionist act.
It doesn't end here, because another video comes out. It is filmed in Eden Golan's dressing room which triggers (I apologize, by dint of being on social media one forgets how to write, speak, think) everyone. Context is missing, but what do you do with context when you have three bars of 4G connection? There is the singer who, holding the telephone instead of the microphone, interprets Hurricane while collaborators and members of his delegation shout insults and pro-Palestine slogans. She smiles. Is this proof of what she will have to face? Is this a mockery of the pro-Palestine protesters? No, I read that it is an insult to the dead children of Gaza. Someone says that Golan is a Jew of Russian origin and then comments: at Eurovision they have a double standard, Russia outside, her inside.
Eden Golan had to practice singing with boos in the background.#Eurovision2024 #EdenGolan
His team plays the role of the howling pack.
She learns to concentrate
Courage is the word. pic.twitter.com/ztBhjfVkkw— Nath-K (@KaanNathalie) May 11, 2024
And it goes on like this all day and all evening waiting for Klein's soap to come to a sensible conclusion and for someone to win (in the predictions Mango went down, Golan went up), or rather for anyone to win and put an end to this heartbreak (if you are a very rational person) or to this irresistible comedy (if you have a sense of humor) and let's go back to talking, but seriously and not with the slogans and hashtags of what is happening in Gaza, of the real tragedies, of the deaths and lives in danger, of a ceasefire. In the end the only sensible comment was read under a post about Angelina Mango's half crying: “My nude photos on my profile”. Finally a precise, unequivocal fact.