While EuroVision was getting the headlines, FalastinVision was where you could find the most relevant music.
The rise in the daily death count in Gaza, along with the imminence of the mass starvation event, is such that even BBC and NPR is reporting on it a little. Over 100 people have been killed by Israel's random bombing of locations up and down the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours -- largely tents, and buildings which have already been bombed previously. Within them, children, Israel's primary victims. (All Hamas children, of course.)
A friend who has been donating all the money she could afford, since the war began, totaling $18,000 so far, reported to me that if a bag of flour can be found on the besieged Strip today, it will cost you $700. She said her contacts in Gaza are now saying good-bye.
During World War 2 there were parts of Switzerland that were accidentally bombed by Allied planes because they mis-read the map, and thought they were bombing Germany. Mostly Switzerland made it through the war intact. Swiss banks make a lot of money from other countries' wars, along with Swiss arms manufacturers, but Switzerland itself has been at peace for over 200 years. In the city of Basel you'll find fully intact neighborhoods where all the houses were built in the 13th century.
On May 17th, there in Basel, Switzerland, the most-watched television event of a typical year on planet Earth, the EuroVision Song Contest, took place. This was headline news everywhere, of course.
What didn't make the international headlines so much was the use of tear gas and rubber bullets by the Swiss police in their efforts to control the protesters outside, outraged once again at the inclusion of the fascist state of Israel in the contest -- particularly at a time, some would add, that Russia is excluded, for the Russian government's war crimes, which plainly pale in any comparison with those which Israel is carrying out by the hour.
Well over a hundred million people apparently took in the EuroVision performances and watched the drama unfold, as for much of the evening, reportedly, Israel was looking like the likely winner, until the last contestant, representing Austria, pulled ahead in the voting at the last minute.
While that gala was taking place, a far smaller and more low-tech "genocide-free" song contest was happening.
It was the second annual FalastinVision, organized by folks in Sweden. Sweden has often been the winner of EuroVision, and was the host country for the event last year, when once again there were protests against Israel's participation.
I was paying attention to every minute of FalastinVision, until my vision was blurring and my ears were very tired of having headphones on them. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful event, despite the length of it.
This was an event organized by people who, as with all of the participants, believe that there's an essential place for culture in social movements and in the creation of bonds of solidarity. I might have been spending most of Saturday glued to my laptop screen, sitting in the dark with headphones on, ignoring my children anyway, but what especially motivated me to be part of the whole marathon was having been asked to be one of four judges for the contest.
I have rarely paid much attention to EuroVision, but I've watched bits of it over the years. I would have probably benefitted from a greater familiarity with EuroVision proceedings, because I believe FalastinVision is loosely based on it in various ways, such as the procedures for voting on songs. There's a certain method for the jury members, who rate their favorite seven selections, and then a much simpler one for the general viewing public, who can also vote, for their single favorite song.
The event began with hosts in Sweden talking about the dire situation now in Gaza, and the efforts of the flotilla which has long been attempting to sail there -- sabotaged in one way or another at every turn, most recently involving a drone bombing of an aid ship in international waters near Malta that destroyed its engine.
What went on next was a brief introduction to each of the jury members, the various watch parties, and, mostly, the contestants.
The hosts interviewed most of them before playing their song in pre-recorded form. Swedes were well-represented, but there were also artists from Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, Iran, Chile, Australia, Ireland, and probably somewhere else.
FalastinVision was hosted on Streamyard, a platform I use a lot. Tens of thousands of Zionist bots had been trying to hamper operations on other platforms, but Streamyard streamed just fine.
As the stream began, Streamyard invited people like me to stream the proceedings on our own social media. I streamed the event on my YouTube channel and on X. Very quickly, the stream was taken down from YouTube, supposedly for copyright violations. On X, it kept streaming and it's still up.
What we all got to hear next were songs -- often involving well-produced music videos -- recorded by artists who are beseeching everyone to confront this genocide, see what's happening, be moved by it, and moved to action. In many different languages, in various genres, what we heard was one well-constructed anthem of resistance after another.
In my own life, I became familiar with various forms of music in the course of friendships and relationships with people from various parts of the world. This was how I first grew to love the Nueva Trova tradition of Latin America, and Arab music as well, with an emphasis on music of anti-colonial resistance from Palestine and Lebanon.
As for Swedish hiphop, until now it's not something I've delved into much -- I've heard a lot of it in various situations, usually at gigs where I was also playing, but never tried to get a lot of the lyrics translated. As a jury member, I was of course reading along in the English lyric translations we all had for each song, and it was an experience I'm far better off for having had.
I'm a new fan of Anton Berner, Frida, and LOREM, Swedish artists who have all made brilliant contributions to the struggle with their music.
I was particularly moved by both the beautiful music, vocal harmonies, and storytelling of Portuguese singer/songwriter, Annie G. Silva, with her song, "Vento."
If I had been just a member of the public, I would have found this much easier, and just voted for the Portuguese entrant. Otherwise, trying to assign different scores to the various songs, most of which were brilliant, seemed like an impossible task. Even picking the best seven out of the 16 songs was very difficult.
In terms of the process, it was interesting to note that the handful of songs that would definitely not have made it into my top 7 were in the top 7 of other judges. As a native English speaker, I think I was hyper-critical of the songwriters who chose to write in English, when it was clearly not their first language. Most of them employed enough over-used phrases or painfully bad rhymes that these things killed the songs for me. But not for the Swedish judges, who were apparently not at all bothered by bad English rhymes.
The preference for Swedish-language hiphop among the Swedish jury members seemed fairly evident, not surprisingly. They were some of my favorites as well, even in translation.
Plans for featuring the activities and performers at different watch parties had to be adjusted when the Basel watch party was unable to go to the location of the party because they were busy being kettled by police at the EuroVision protests.
By the end of the votes coming in, while brilliant Swedish hiphop artist Anton Berner was in the lead at first, once the public's votes were counted, Iranians for Palestine were the winners. They weren't in my top 7, but their song was a powerful entry, too, and the video accompanying it was especially moving. Due to a bad internet connection in Iran, the winning band couldn't be interviewed live.
While I'm still not a big fan of contests, this one was a brilliant idea. It represents an alternative to EuroVision, in principle, rather than just a protest against it.
And it is certainly one of the highest-quality and most international gatherings of like-minded artists I've ever been part of, albeit mostly an online one. Whatever happens in what seems like the endless struggle for survival of the Palestinian people, FalastinVision should continue, and grow.
FalastinVision represents a beacon of hope for the power of culture -- something which is often dismissed by significant elements of contemporary western resistance networks and organizations, and it is dismissed at our collective peril. Bring on the music -- the beating heart of the resistance.
