Babel wrote:Aske wrote:
on one hand it seems paradoxical for a country currently involved in an armed conflict or otherwise conducting themselves in a way that flies in the face of everything esc stands for to be included in a contest created to celebrated peace and unity, but esc really isnt a contest between states and contestants arent government representatives. in theory at least, in some cases thats probably debatable but i digress.
politics can never be fully removed when country names are involved and when the winning country gets to host next years competition, fair enough, but just because a state is up to no good does not mean that said countrys public broadcaster is not allegible to take part. that depends on the broadcaster. it also doesnt mean that the country, people and culture is not worthy of celebration, which should be the most obvious thing ever but somehow it's not.
so in the case of israel, as long as KAN is an ebu member allegible for participation, they will be and should be allowed to take part. that goes for belarus and azerbaijan and whoever else people have issues with too.
but as it turns out KAN has made it very simple this year, and i hope they dont let it pass as theyve done w ukraine in past
theyre fully aware that they crossed a line w this and the fact they they are doing it anyways and plan on refusing to go along w it if ebu requests a change is fucking pathetic im sorry, play by the rules or face the consequenses bye
While I to some degree do agree, I also still think it's important to remember the legitimacy a "non-political" competition can give a country. I think it's fair to say that people can't participate and represent a country that is in trouble with international law, as long as it's done equally for all countries, and not just the ones getting media attention.
While I very much agree with you on the participants not being the country, the simple fact will always be, that these people will have to discuss the conflicts at home while participating in interviews (to some degree) and often will feel some kind of pushback from the audience (like Russia during Krim invasion) and while the latter isn't okay (in theory) I honestly get it, because both people and the other participants are rather outspoken about controversies and have a harder time separating them from Eurovision.
I do absolutely agree on the people of controversial countries deserving a space to celebrate their culture and country too, but in a competition, where they're tightly bound with the country it's harder to make space for it, because an audience will never be able to separate.
I do agree on the thing Israel is doing this year though, and to some degree also think it's a good choice from them to keep it in politics, because it takes the hard choice from EBU
i see your point abt legitimacy, theres definetly some truth to that.