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Sweden’s Eurovision brings kitsch in the shadow of Gaza

After a run-up in the shadow of the war in Gaza, the Eurovision Song Contest final gets underway on Saturday in Sweden's Malmö, where representatives from 26 countries will compete.

Published: 9 May 2024 13:21 CEST
PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT
Barbed wire surrounds a camp set up by displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 9th, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and militants from the Hamas movement. Photo by: AFP

Up to 30,000 demonstrators are expected to protest against Israel’s participation in the competition over its offensive in Gaza on Thursday, when the country’s representative Eden Golan takes part in the second semi-final.

In the big line-up of original acts, Croatia, Switzerland and Ukraine are favourites to win the affair distinguished by kitsch and rhinestones.

Inside the Malmö Arena, it’s all neon lights, bright costumes and upbeat melodies.

Outside, despite the colourful decorations lining the streets, the mood is more sombre as heavily armed police patrol the city.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza, including 36 who officials say are dead.

Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,844 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Since October, pro-Palestinian rallies have been a regular occurrence in Malmö, which is home to the majority of Sweden’s population of Palestinian origin.

Throughout the port city of more than 360,000 inhabitants, brightly coloured banners compete for attention with Palestinian flags hanging from windows and balconies.

Organisers have banned all flags other than those of the participating countries inside the arena, as well as all banners with a political message.

‘Politics is everywhere’

Last year, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which oversees the competition, banned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from speaking in the arena in order to protect the neutrality of the event.

This neutrality was challenged on Tuesday during the first semi-final by Swedish singer Eric Saade, who took part in the opening number of the competition wearing a keffiyeh around his arm.

Swedish broadcaster SVT and the EBU condemned his gesture, insisting on the apolitical nature of the popular music festival — which is more often associated with flashy performances.

“It’s just its complete own world. It’s a very joyful, colourful world, a world where I feel safe,” said Nemo, a Swiss artist who identifies as non-binary and is one of the favourites.

Malmö is expecting up to 100,000 visitors, and for fans of the contest “it’s what’s on stage that is important”, Andreas Onnerfors, professor of the history of ideas and a Eurovision specialist, told AFP.

Nearly 70 years old, Eurovision is “a colourful mix of people, a demonstration of European tolerance that doesn’t exist in any other form or place”, he stressed.

However, for the artists representing Ukraine, “politics is everywhere”.

“Culture is a part of politics, so every song is political,” rapper Aliona Savranenko, known by her artist name alyona alyona, told AFP over the weekend.

“There should be demonstrations, people should voice their opinions, people should boycott,” Magnus Børmark, who is competing for Norway with his group Gåte, told AFP.

Gåte, like eight other contestants, have publicly called for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

Representatives of some countries considered boycotting the competition to protest Israel’s participation, but decided against it in the end.

‘Intensification’

Security is a major concern, especially as Sweden raised its terror alert level last year following a series of protests involving desecrations of the Quran.

Security checks have been stepped up, in particular for access to the various sites, where bags will mostly be prohibited.

The police presence has also been strengthened, with reinforcements coming from Norway and Denmark.

But police spokesman Jimmy Modin said the first days of Eurovision week were calm and that there was no threat directed at the competition.

Some members of the Jewish community are planning to leave the city for the weekend.

“With Eurovision, there’s a kind of intensification. The feeling of insecurity increased after October 7th, and many Jews are worried,” said Fredrik Sieradzki, a spokesman for local group The Jewish Community of Malmö.

“I can’t really be happy about Eurovision, even though as a congregation we think it’s good that everyone is welcome here in Malmö, including Israel,” he added.

Security around the synagogue has been stepped up, while on social networks, threats have been directed at Israel’s singer Golan.

As the final starts at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Saturday, activists will be organising the first edition of Falastinvision in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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