being anti-war is good except when it’s not

Global politics enters the entertainment arena in Europe. The organizers of the cheesy Eurovision Song Contest, “notorious for the banality of its entries,” as The Times (London) puts it, are confronted with the problem of an Israeli band that sings about not wanting to be annihilated by A’jad (who was last seen yesterday making love to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who showed his appreciation by claiming that A’jad endorsed the Saudis’ 2002 peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians. Ha!).

Will Israeli peaceniks be allowed to participate in the world of global pop culture? With lyrics like this? [see this post for a discussion about how pop culture can work to dissipate conflict]

The world is full of terror

If someone makes an error

He’s gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come

There are some crazy rulers they hide and try to fool us

With demonic, technologic willingness to harm

They’re gonna push the button

Push the button push the bu push the bu push the button

And I don’t want to die; I want to see the flowers bloom

Don’t want a go capoot ka boom, and I don’t want to cry

I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun

But nevertheless - he’s gonna push the button

Push the button push the bu push the bu push the button

The New York Times and the London Times quoted one of the contest organizers as saying: “It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition.” Why not? I wonder. Last year, as I recall (and wrote about here), a Finnish heavy-metal band with a rather unappealing Satan-worshipping “message” won the competition.

And an anti-war message is inappropriate in 2007? I’m not sure I get that.

Kobi Oz, the lead singer of the Israeli band whose song was voted into the competition by popular vote in Israel (those are the rules of entry), says:

“I’m not worked up over the issue, because I know our song is not political. …the song is about the state of humanity in general, whereby a minority has access to excessive power. The song could be about the terror in Russia or Spain, or the violence on the streets of England or France.

“Our way of dealing with terror it to laugh in its face. I think the Europeans should adopt this method as well.” [e.a.]

Good luck with that! I’ll be following along.