So, Canada is now eligible for Eurovision. I can already hear the collective sigh of relief from the global intelligentsia: finally, a nation with actual manners, poutine, and an earnest belief in multicultural harmony will grace the garish stage. But let us not mistake this for progress. This is simply the latest symptom of the cultural entropy that has been eating away at the Old World since the fall of Rome.
Eurovision, that confounding pageant of sequins and synthpop, was once a glorious exercise in continental self-deprecation. It was a space where the British could laugh at the French, the French at the Germans, and everyone at the Eastern bloc’s folkloric nightmare. But now, with Canada in the mix, we are witnessing the ultimate triumph of the decaffeinated, polite, and utterly bland globalism that has drained the colour from our national identities.
Remember the Victorian era? Back then, we had an Empire. We had distinct, proud, and often warring nations. Today, we have Eurovision: a festival of homogeneity dressed up in the rags of provincial eccentricity. Adding Canada is like adding a slice of processed cheese to a fine Stilton. It will smooth out the edges, sure, but it will also destroy the character.
The British broadcaster has already demanded “fair voting rules.” Which is, of course, a euphemism for “please, God, let someone else win for once.” But the real issue is something far more sinister. By inviting Canada, the Eurovision committee has tacitly admitted that the world is now a single, flattened cultural landscape. The very idea of a “European” song contest was predicated on the existence of distinct European sensibilities: the Greek passion, the Irish lilt, the German precision, the British irony. Canada has none of these. They have Celine Dion, and I rest my case.
Let us be clear: this is not about geography. Canada is not Europe. It is a North American suburb with a maple leaf. Its national music is either country twang or Anne Murray ballads, neither of which belong in the same pantheon as ABBA’s “Waterloo” or Loreen’s “Euphoria.” Its inclusion will force Eurovision to dilute its own identity, to become an anaemic global gala where the only shared value is a saccharine belief in “unity in diversity.”
I am not naive. I know that the continent has been in decline since the Treaty of Rome. The rise of the EU was the beginning of the end for national character. Eurovision was the last refuge of the eccentric, the weird, the proudly strange. Now it will become just another iteration of the World Expo, a parade of nations selling the same optimistic, vapid, and market-friendly message.
And so, congratulations Canada. You have won the right to bore us to tears with your earnest, well-produced, and utterly forgettable songs. The rest of us will be left to mourn the slow death of European cultural identity. But do not worry: the voting will be fair. It will be impartial. It will be, in a word, Canadian. And that, dear reader, is the problem.
Long live the particular, the difficult, the grotesque. Long live old Europe. And as for the new, well, we shall see. The fall of Rome took centuries. The fall of Eurovision will be mercifully quicker, but no less tragic.
