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euroquision · 3 months

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No, Iceland is not up to "dirty political tricks" and neither is Bashar Murad

Hey lovely people, spirits, souls, and ghouls of Tumblr! To those of you who don't follow me on TikTok, there's a video I made just yesterday concerning Iceland (the lil Eurovision Country that Could!), Israel, a certain Irish TikTok-er with impressively horrible media literacy, and our dearest friend Bashar Murad. If you're not on TikTok, that's wonderful and dear god you don't need to subject yourself to that app. Instead, I wanted to make a post that explains what's going on, what's being said, and why one (1) Palestinian is not responsible for the aforementioned "dirty" political tricks.

If you're following Eurovision or just Bashar Murad himself, consider giving this a read.

So let's begin! First: who's calling Bashar Murad/Iceland "dirty"? Where am I getting that word from and why is it in quotes? That's because: it IS a quote! Buck wild, I know. This is a quote from the TikTok account AllThingsAdam.ie, run by the Irish Eurovision...fan? Podcast-haver? Idk, I'm not saying "journalist" because if I wanted to have a laugh, I would just watch the Unicorn edit I made a couple months ago. Did I share that here yet? Just in case, here it is:

Never fails to make me smile. Great edit, Me! Anyway, back on topic: Adam McCallig is a person with a TikTok account that has half a million followers, he has a podcast where he's interviewed Eurovision and NF artists, so he's definitely a "known figure" to a certain point. I can't sit here and say he's some random troll, y'know? So, in a TikTok that has since been deleted from his page, he accuses Iceland of being up to "dirty political Eurovision 2024 tricks." I created a TikTok where I briefly show this video, and here's a link to that! You can watch that for my condensed version of everything I'm talking about here, but this Tumblr post is for those who like reading what I have to say in longer form. Here's that video:

Since Adam's video is now "gone," I will do my best and summarize what he stated with whatever journalistic integrity I have. First: you hear him open the video with the word "dirty." So no one can say I'm putting words in his mouth -- no no, these are lifted from the source material, honey. Next, he goes on to claim that Bashar "has no connection to Iceland whatsoever." As much as Adam wants this to be true, it just...isn't?? Like, let's ignore Bashar's longtime collaborations with HATARI. Instead, let's look at him literally performing on the Songvakeppnin stage in the 2020 NF season:

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Additionally, the claim "Bashar has no connection to Iceland" rings very hollow not only when we know this claim is false, but it's not one Adam brings up about the many artists trying to represent a country other than their own in the 2024 NF season. Adam says he "knows that countries can let artists from whatever country represent them," but he hasn't made any videos about Marcus & Martinus (Norwegian) competing in Sweden's National Final. Tali (Israeli-born) is representing Luxembourg this year, and MEGARA (Spanish) are representing San Marino. "Foreign" artists representing any country in ESC is FAR from new, and if it were a punishable offense, Celine Dion would just have to settle for being Canadian.

However, as soon as Bashar Murad takes the stage and the colors of the Palestinian flag are visible, Adam is ready to take to TikTok and say "dirty political tricks" are at play -- before deleting it later, like I mentioned. In fact, not only did he delete it! Mere hours before writing this post, I used my second TT account to peep his page and he posted a video saying "One of these four songs should represent Iceland in Eurovision!" and showed snippets of four songs competing in the Icelandic NF Grand Finale, which takes place on Saturday the 2nd of March. However: there aren't four songs competing to win for Iceland. There's five. Which four did he show? The fours songs that AREN'T Bashar Murad. And yet, he's the one being dirty in all this? Adam, sweetie, the dirty call is coming from inside the dirty house.

Now, you might wonder if Adam has kept this kind of energy when talking about Israel's Eurovision participation, which at time of writing is still very much up in the air. But thing is: he doesn't. At least, not really. Adam has posted a video condemning the alleged song that Israel is trying to submit to Eurovision titled "October Rain." I won't go too deep into that -- please follow @/IsraelBreaksRules on Twitter for more details on this!! But basically, what Adam is attempting to do is play some sort of "political centrist" take on Eurovision, while simultaneously trying to say "Keep politics OUT of Eurovision!!" And at the end of his deleted video, Adam claimed that while "what happened in Gaza is terrible," Iceland is just as guilty for playing political tricks as Israel might be, and Bashar Murad's participation is just as bad.

Two things wrong with that statement, Adam. One: It's not what "happened" in Gaza. It's not past tense. It's on-going. It hasn't stopped. That's actually -- believe it or not -- WHY WE'RE STILL HERE. And two: JUST AS BAD?? REALLY??

If you watched my TikTok response that I shared the link to, you'll have seen the evidence I shared. But I wanna share them again just so you all can clearly see how the "political tricks" at play this year are not on the part of Iceland, nor would they be "just as bad." Where do we begin? Maybe we could begin with the fact that "Wild West," Bashar's song, has been spammed with negative reviews by anti-Palestinian ESC fans. This is mathematically observable when you notice "Wild West" has roughly THREE TIMES as many reviews as the other Icelandic NF songs on EurovisionWorld.com. You can check them out here and see the numbers yourself.

But it doesn't stop at bad reviews. Israeli ESC fans have begun a campaign to mass vote against Bashar, specifically for Hera Bjork, one of the four other competitors in Iceland's final on Saturday. This is really funny to me though because if Bashar doesn't win, it should totally be Sigga Ozk, right? GO TIFFANY!!! Anyway, I digress. A link to an article covering this voting campaign can be found here!

Not only is Bashar facing backlash, hate, and organized efforts AGAINST his participation, Israel is funneling money and resources into Facebook ads that look like this, claiming to shape the narrative:

...as well as filming "comedy" "sketches" like this "song" called...

*deep existential sigh* "Jews Pua" Link to that video here, if you can stand three minutes of awful propaganda containing just the right combination of shitty, easy rhymes and enough pinkwashing to put "Cops at Pride!" to shame. All of this should make it VERY clear to anyone observing this situation as a whole that the political tricks at play are NOT being done equally from everyone involved. Dare I boldly say: this shit is INCREDIBLY ONE-SIDED and we need to remind ourselves of the awful reality that is Israel's access to the money, ability, and audience of their "dirty political tricks" more so than Bashar Murad or Iceland ever could.

Lastly, let's just acknowledge the racism-shaped elephant in the room. Now, I as a white American am not here to play "Racism Police." That will never be the case. What I am about to say applies to the greater conversation, and it's not just an "Adam" problem. It's a problem we see happen when one (1) Palestinian decides to exist and write a song, and the way the world has been built around us conditions us to see that and scream "dirty political trickery afoot!!" Truly, ask yourself is this is "equal" in any way shape or form, as Adam posited. Adam and people like him will treat Iceland and Israel as equal, but that doesn't automatically make them "equal."

We are living in a world where Israel is currently being sued for genocide. That is not an exaggeration, it's just something we can all see and talk about. Israel is a country that has the money, platform, and bias of the most powerful countries of the world to not be held to the same standards of responsibility for the horrible things they're doing, nor is my own country being properly held accountable for PAYING for these things they're doing. Race is something used as a tool to identify oppressed peoples not just because it's discriminatory, but it tells people who aren't part of that group that people like Bashar Murad are simply political just by existing. Nowhere does Adam mention that Bashar and his song "Wild West" are about his journey as an artist having to leave his home and travel thousands of miles to the global "west" to even have a chance of representing Iceland (not Palestine, not Gaza, just Iceland) in Eurovision while the country responsible for the death of his people are facing MUCH less scrutiny from the Eurovision powers that be, let alone Irish TikTok accounts with re: shitty media literacy skills.

My final message to you is this: if you're someone paying attention to Eurovision and you maybe feel confused or overwhelmed by Israel, Iceland, Bashar, etc. etc. etc., here's what I want to tell you:

This is not an equal game. Iceland/Bashar are nowhere near on the same level as Israel and the money/access they have to GLOBAL levels of propaganda. Israel, in fact, verbally confirms how they want to use Eurovision to "shape the narrative" which is far dirtier, far more political than just the song "Wild West." Moreover, thinking that treating Eurovision as apolitical or that EVERYONE deserves the SAME level of EQUAL scrutiny only helps Israel at the end of the day. The things they've done, are doing, and hope to do are representative of tens of thousands of people they've killed in the last few months alone. Would you genuinely look at Bashar Murad trying to represent Iceland and say "Yep, these two things are the same"? My hope is that you wouldn't, but people like Adam clearly do.

Don't be like Adam. Don't play this weak-ass centrism card that ultimately helps no one and just makes it easier for people to shift blame, suspicion, or anger towards Bashar Murad. This is not the fight being had right now, and don't let it waste your time. Focus on what and who matters, which is obviously: the country doing genocide and wants us all to be chill with that.

PS. As a personal recommendation, "Wild West" and "Into the Atmosphere" are my two favs to win for Iceland, so def go gives those a stream. And while you're at it, let Bashar himself take you on a visual journey that might help you understand his message a bit better.

Much love you all. Thank you for being here. EuroQuision out.

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#eurovision #es #eurovision 2024 #esc 2024 #bashar murad #free palestine #free gaza #iceland #songvakeppnin 2024 #israel #euroquision #tiktok #twitter #Youtube

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