Australia, Last Heard, is Not in Europe

The annual Eurovision Song Contest — which chose its winner this year, Israel (Netta Barzilai), on Sunday — is perfectly right to be ‘Eurocentric’. Since the last 63 years, this contest —which hasn’t actually thrown up long-lasting talent barring Abba (Sweden, in 1974) and Celine Dion (a Canadian strangely representing Switzerland in 1988) — has lost its sheen, especially with its format becoming ubiquitous in various TV shows such as ‘Indian Idol’ and ‘America’s Got Talent’. But the wrong kind of ‘Eurocentricism’ was noticed this year in the inclusion of Australia in Eurovision.

On the face of it, this seems as harmlessly odd as having Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, and Rwanda, a former German and Belgian colony, as members of the Commonwealth, an otherwise archaic club of ex-British colonies. But Australia’s inclusion in Eurovision can be construed as being not so benign.

This multicultural country, once predominantly populated by settlers from Europe and Britain after corralling the country’s indigenous people, is now home to a large number of people of Southeast Asian, Indian and other non-European origin. The tag of Eurocontestant neither makes sense or is proper, and comes across as pushing Australia literally on the stage as a European nation. Which it certainly isn’t, from our Indocentric perspective.