Conservative groups hope to force local referendums in potential host cities for 2025 song contest

Conservative groups are threatening to block Switzerland from hosting next year’s Eurovision by forcing budget referendums on potential host cities, saying the song contest is a “propaganda event” that “celebrates satanism and occultism”.

Switzerland won the right to host the world’s largest live music event after the Swiss singer Nemo triumphed in Sweden with The Code. The cities of Zurich, Geneva, Bern and Basel have all filed applications to host the five-day spectacle.

The Christian conservative Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) party, however, has said it will seek to make use of the country’s direct democracy system to put the bidding cities’ loan applications to the vote.

“The Eurovision song contest is a ghastly propaganda occasion”, the EDU said in a social media post on Tuesday. “A country that provides a stage to such disgusting trash won’t elevate its image but merely showcase its own intellectual decline.”

Samuel Kullmann, a senior EDU politician, told the Swiss broadcaster SRF his party was disturbed by Eurovision’s increasing “celebration, or at least tolerance of … satanism and occultism”. “More and more artists present openly occultist messages and underline them with respective symbols,” he said.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zipEnglish
    171·
    4 months ago

    lol there is no single propaganda machine that is more prolific or longer lived than fucking christianity

  • li10@feddit.ukEnglish
    163·
    4 months ago

    Cancelling Eurovision is certainly one way to get me on board with right wing policy 🤔

  • John Richard@lemmy.world
    122·
    4 months ago

    Switzerland… the country with the most private VPNs and email. Not for the sake of privacy, but to protect the oligarchy.

  • casmael@lemm.ee
    10·
    4 months ago

    TIL the Swiss have literally nothing else better to do perhaps they could get a hobby like yodelling, or pointing at sheep

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    4·
    4 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Switzerland won the right to host the world’s largest live music event after the Swiss singer Nemo triumphed in Sweden with The Code.

    The Christian conservative Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) party, however, has said it will seek to make use of the country’s direct democracy system to put the bidding cities’ loan applications to the vote.

    Samuel Kullmann, a senior EDU politician, told the Swiss broadcaster SRF his party was disturbed by Eurovision’s increasing “celebration, or at least tolerance of … satanism and occultism”.

    The Irish singer Bambie Thug’s stage show at the 2024 contest involved a devil-like horned dancer and a circle of candles containing a pentagram, which in its inverted form is a common satanic symbol.

    In the final in Malmö, Nemo became the first non-binary artist to win the contest in its 68-year history with a song celebrating their identity beyond male and female gender norms.

    Any referendums against Swiss cities hosting Eurovision would not necessarily swing in the political right’s favour, but the threat of plebiscites introduces immense uncertainty for planners.

    The original article contains 401 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
    4·
    4 months ago

    I wonder if German has one of those nice big compound words for “insane people doing something good for stupid reasons”.

    • ackthxbye@feddit.orgEnglish
      9·
      4 months ago

      The closest word I can think of is Schildbürgerstreich which can mean “stupid people failing to achieve a worthwhile goal for stupid reasons”.

    • DandomRude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      There’s “Verschlimmbesserung” but that’s pretty much the opposite. It’s a noun that describes an attempt to improve something that actually ends up making it worse. The word combines elements from two German verbs: “verschlimmern” (to worsen) and “verbessern” (to improve).