We are inside the cauldron at the Gold Coast convention centre, SBS & Sony Australia have hyped up Eurovision 2019 ‘Australia Decides‘. So I raise the banner as the first act comes on stage. The production manager tells her cameraman to turn his camera off while she rings security. A woman in the audience asks what the banner says. I turn toward her. Another woman rips it down. I hold it back up higher this time, a third woman rips it down. The audience has gay flags, aboriginal flags, band banners … Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey have told fans to support their favourite acts in any way they wish. I don’t want Australian artists to go to the compete in the apartheid state of Israel, I’m for human rights. A guy waves an Australian flag in my face. Doesn’t he know that this state practiced its own form of apartheid only 30 years ago under the Queensland Aboriginal Acts. He must be aware the government consigns refugees to hellholes in the Pacific?
Security comes upon me and black-shirted security guy tries to pull the banner off me. It is all I can do to maintain my dignity in the face of the abuse. The security woman says I ‘have to leave the Eurovision ‘Australia Decides’ “because i have violated the terms and conditions of my ticket”. So much for my point of view.
Later SBS claimed that Eurovision supports unity among nations, songs bring people together. There are no Palestinians in Eurovision. It was Israel that bought Eurovision to Tel Aviv with last years entrant winning. They are whitewashing their genocide of Palestine. Why can’t people in Australia and in Europe see it?
LEADING UP TO THE TELEVISED FINAL, there had been a lot of hype to this event on the night. There were warm-up comperes telling the audience when to clap, when to shout out, how to do mexican waves and instructions not to pick their noses (especially when SBS cameras were on them). The event was live. A producer ordered security to come down on me. Security weren’t too bad, insisting I leave the hall with the banner but allowing me back in after I had checked it in to at reception.
Fully pumped, the audience demanded expression for their own sectional interests, holding up signs supporting their own acts, but refuse to look at the reality that Israel is using Eurovision to camouflage its true nature … an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinian people. Fortunately there were some who attended the concert who supported the protest against Israel using Eurovision to whitewash its image in the world.
Yes, this audience voted for an absurd performance of a singer on stilts … they that ripped down the banner three times! Remember racist football fans at Springbok Rugby games during South African apartheid!
Plenty of artists played at Sun City in South Africa. Sun City was a mega casino for white South African’s to visit a casino, gamble and attend strip shows, even though these activities were illegal within South Africa itself. A bit like Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. The Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Millie Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra (1981), Paul Anka, Status Quo, Rod Stewart (July 1983), and Elton John (October 1983), British rock band Queen, Australia’s Nick Cave all played there. Current artists should not get suckered in by playing in Tel Aviv.
SBS, Sony (Australia), music lovers, we need to look to our own attitudes of racism and self interest and stop supporting Israeli apartheid and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West bank!
Shame on you SBS, shame on you Sony Australia.
The banner read “No to Eurovision 2019 in Israel”.
Ian Curr
10 Feb 2019
#BoycottEurovision2019 #SBSEurovison #AusDecides #BDS
By tradition, the Eurovision finals are held in the country of origin of the previous year’s winner. Israeli pop star Netta Barzilai won Eurovision in 2018 with a quirky #MeToo-inspired entry, Toy. This year’s contest will be held in Tel Aviv in May.
But activists for the Palestinian-led international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement have been calling on musicians and broadcasters to refuse to participate in this year’s song contest as part of a broader campaign against Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
The campaign urges artists, musicians and other cultural institutions not to tour to Israel while it “maintains a regime of settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation over the Palestinian people”.
The calls follow protests outside SBS’s headquarters and petitions to broadcasters and artists both in Australia and internationally.
The Eurovision finals and grand final are scheduled to be held at the Tel Aviv Convention Centre on 14, 16 and 18 May. See https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/10/kate-miller-heidke-chosen-to-represent-australia-at-eurovision-2019
https://www.facebook.com/wbt2006/posts/1197460960419307
[facebook url="https://www.facebook.com/justiceforpalestinebrisbane/videos/635358830232669/" /]
https://www.facebook.com/PShiftonZed/photos/a.1983681545002046/1983681595002041/?type=3&theater
Adi Granot has rewritten the ‘Toy’ song that won the Eurovision contest last year: Adi Granot lyrics, singing “For there is no Occupation in the Most Democratic and Moral Nation”, for BDS boycott Eurovision in Tel Aviv
Itay Keren: Recording & Mix
Subtitles: “Eurovision Palestine”