Hanna Fahl: We need Eurovision more than ever

For 64 years, then hatched an idea at a meeting of the european radio and television union held in Monaco: an international singing competition which was broadcasted in several countries. It was both a deliberately difficult technical challenge, meant to test the limits of the relatively fresh tv medium, and a utopian dream of unifying a war-torn Europe on light entertainment. The following year was held the first Eurovision song contest in Switzerland.

Now it is time again for this year's absolute knasigaste and most enjoyable week. Already on Tuesday evening we will be invited on both an australian operadam up on a huge stick that unbearable montenegrin vocal harmonies and dumpop from San Marino. We will also hear from a (smaller) handful of superb pop songs with the potential to become big sommarhittar in Europe. Eurovision is a sublime and totally illogical combination of world-class entertainment and shameless kitsch.

the actual state of mind through the competition and the discussion that surrounds it. Great historic events have left their traces in the Eurovision – the fall of the berlin wall, wars and conflicts.

This applies not least to the last decade. When we one day look back on this schlagereran we will be able to note the refugee crisis, metoorevolution, and perhaps also a growing nationalism in the låtutbudet. And Eurovision has never been so charged politically that the last few years, never been used so clearly as the bat.

Among the participating countries are dictatorships like Azerbaijan, who won in 2011 and was the host of the contest after Loreen won the following year. There are countries in war and conflict (something that is also noticeable when the points are added together, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the panels royal, for example, regularly each other regardless of låtkvalitet). In recent years, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the highest degree characterised the competition, so to the degree that Russia withdrew from the contest in 2017, after a lengthy brawl on the government level for entry to Ukraine, and Ukraine, in turn, withdrew from this year after a another war on the artist Maruvs contract and any gigs in Russia.

anyone who has ever visited a public broadcaster, all of which delve into the culture around the competition, know how the unreal – yes, utopian – pan-european happy it is.

the Israel/palestine conflict – there has been launched the protest lists for the boycott and the event has become a symbolfråga. As DN's Nathan Shachar put it (13/5 2019): ”Behind the performers, singing contest hides a other settlement, the bitter battle for Israel's image.”

Major events have great symbolic value, in terms of both the Eurovision as other massive nöjesarrangemang and international sporting events. One may wonder how long the organizers EBU can get away with having impressive persevering strutsmentalitet insist that the contest is apolitical, when it is definitely not there – to win and thus organising the competition is something that can be used in pr and propagandasyften irrespective of whether the rules prohibit the cry explicit political slogans from the stage.

and unique to the contest is still, in fact is something as unusual as a unifying force, and there is a symbolism in it too, a completely different. In the six decades that have passed, the competition expanded and retooled. It is the world's biggest entertainment tv program, with upwards of 200 million viewers every year, the competition has fans and fan clubs, as the events considered pulling the Eurovision many thousands of tourists who all agree on their team/their nation – yet, the contest is fascinating, peaceful and ickevåldsam. No fighting, no shouts something hateful, there are no aggressions in the arena. Anyone who has ever visited a public broadcaster, all of which delve into the culture around the competition, know how the unreal – yes, utopian – pan-european happy it is. In this way, perhaps we need it more than ever.

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