I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered…but does it bollocks. Not compared to how people matter.
To be completely frank, I should’ve written this two years ago.
To be absolutely bastard hard frank, this entire situation should’ve been fucking resolved two fucking years ago. It should have started and ended with Sveriges Television and the European Broadcasting Union telling Kan and Eden Golan to fuck off with their obvious political pandering. They should’ve told them to fuck off when Kan journalists were writing messages on the bombs that the Israeli Defense Forces drops on the people of Gaza, who are also starving thanks to that same IDF whom blame it on Hamas, a terrorist organization that wouldn’t exist if Israel wasn’t an apartheid state. They should’ve told them to fuck off when Israel was blatantly running YouTube ads to unfairly rig the televote using government money…and if somehow 2024, in which Joost Klein getting disqualified accidentally prevented an Israeli televote win, wasn’t enough, the EBU should’ve fucking told Kan to fuck off after DOING THE EXACT SAME THING IN 2025, THIS TIME NEARLY WINNING THE ENTIRE FUCKING CONTEST.
But, in the EBU’s infinite wisdom, they decided that they would allow Israel into the contest after all. This decision was made and executed in the scummiest way possible. After Slovenia, alongside Spain, Algeria, Turkey, Montenegro, the Netherlands and Iceland called for a vote on Israel’s participation at the EBU general assembly on the 4th of December, the EBU pretended to oblige…after a vote on a new set of rules meant to prevent what happened in 2025 from happening again. After the rules were resoundingly voted in, the EBU decided that the Israel participation vote wasn’t necessary after all. This made a lot of people very angry, and was widely regarded as a bad move. This has lead to, as of the 5th of December, four national public broadcasters representing Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain boycotting this edition of the contest, since the entire point of the secret vote was to get rid of Israel because of their genocide and apartheid of Palestinians in the region. After all, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is still in recent memory, which led to Russia getting kicked out of the 2022 edition of the contest and eventually suspended from the EBU entirely due to Russia using their EBU members as propaganda outlets. Exactly what Kan is doing with their TV Channel: Kan 11. Of course, one has to wonder how much of this was influenced by Israeli government ministers, along with Issac Herzog, the government of Israel himself, in a clear violation of the European Broadcasting Union’s “no politics” rule of the Eurovision Song Contest. No doubt helped by chief Roland Weissmann of Österreichischer Rundfunk, the host and national public broadcaster of Austria, just blatantly meeting with Herzog to ensure Israel stays in the contest.
All of this could’ve been prevented had the EBU actually did its job and called a spade a spade back in early 2024 and realized that another Russia situation was happening again. This all could have been prevented had the EBU swallowed their pride, allowed themselves to get whined at by Germany for a bit, and then move on with the contest without endorsing a genocide…and also did the same thing with Azerbaijan. But, they did not. Instead, they dragged their feet through the mud over this issue and let it simmer until it was nothing but a pig carcass in a vat of piranha solution, dissolving everything around it, including the credibility of the Eurovision Song Contest itself. While I did try to have my cake and eat it by watching the contest, and even voting in the contest, while also voicing my opposition to Israel using the contest to pinkwash its genocidal apartheid regime. As we saw with the final minutes of the contest this year, this is something that I cannot justify doing anymore. Therefore, I will not do any coverage of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest.
This includes the Eurovision Haters’ Guide on my personal YouTube channel (which is apparently a brand now, which freaks me out) and any and all articles about Eurovision on this blog, which includes a planned series where I go through every years’ Barbara Dex/You’re a Vision award winners, along with a revival of the award that I had planned for New Years’ Eve, which would have re-christened it the “Barbara Dex Award”, and I would’ve given it to whom I felt “dared to look different” the most, in either a positive or negative light. Since I’m scrapping the planned article, I might as well give my top three right now. Third would’ve been Parg of Armenia; second would’ve been Tautumeitas of Latvia, and the winner would have been Lucio Corsi of Italy. Congrats, Lucio, and I’m sorry I announced the award in a hastily-written post about me boycotting Eurovision next year. (I also didn’t have much time to do the rankings proper, so I’m just basing it based on what I remember the most. This wasn’t my big priority is what I am saying…)
It’s very likely that I will not even watch the contest, and I certainly will not vote in the contest. Instead, I encourage you to give that money, if you can, to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, or any other charity and mutual aid group looking to relieve the intentional starvation of the Gaza Strip.
I know I am not the first, nor will I be the last to write that they are boycotting the event, so I will make my remarks brief. The Eurovision Song Contest is in a precarious spot right now, with it being a potential victim to the geopolitics and the rising threat of authoritarianism in Europe via the misuse of Europe’s national public broadcasters. If the contest dies, then it may never be replaced. The death of the contest would be a tragedy for the unseen, from queer representation from areas that repress queer rights, to the representation of smaller countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, and Montenegro. The ESC is a vital, yet fragile part of European culture, especially for younger Europeans. With distrust in major institutions rising everywhere in Europe, the continued inclusion of Israel further threatens to erode that trust in the contest and its broadcasters. The path forward after this isn’t clear, and nobody can pretend to have all the answers, but we need to make our broadcasters know that Eurovison, as it is, cannot stand when it’s being used as a tool for pinkwashing, gaslighting, and ignoring genocide.
On the rarely-seen coat of arms of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the national public Broadcaster for the United Kingdom, there is a motto. A motto that has been used by the BBC for almost 100 years: nation shall speak peace unto nation. This motto, to me, perfectly encapsulates what national public broadcasting should be: an organization to uplift a nation, and give voices to the voiceless, from the news to entertainment, and not give in to internal and external hostile forces. Of course, it seems that not even the BBC is following it’s own advice at the moment, as judged by their horrific coverage on trans issues as of the last few years. However, it is a standard that all national public broadcasters should be held to. Especially by its citizens, since they pay for the broadcasters through their taxes. These broadcasters should know that letting the Eurovision Song Contest go down this road of pinkwashing promotion of genocide denial is dangerous for everyone involved. Especially as the bridge at the end of the road has been wiped out by an IDF missile.
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