Last night, in Tel Aviv, was held a giant ceremony with 41 participants this year at Eurovision. They all overlooked an orange carpet featuring glamorous dresses with their songs in the background and were briefly interviewed.
Jonida Maliqi, the representative of Albania with "The Land of the Earth," chose a creation of Ardi Asllani. She switched to the orange carpet with a blue electric dress, sleeveless jacket and shoulders, with a dominant detail of a belt as wrapped in the colors of the rainbow.
Rainbow? Why rainbow? According to Jonida's brief interview on the carpet, "if life is blue, you can choose another color from the rainbow [...] Life is like a rainbow." The statement is particularly meaningful in English as "blue" translates even in "sad." The apparent message is something of the kind "happiness is a choice."
The situation is complicated at this moment. The statement you read above was given after the moderator on the carpet said "we see that the dress has the flag of LGBT. What can you tell us about this? "Even in describing a short video released by Wiwibloggs - the biggest blog about the Eurovision - it is written that Jonida Maliqi dedicates the dress to the LGBT community.
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Jonida Maliqi is a lot of things, but no ally of the LGBT community, as it tends to look in Israel. Even, it is quite the opposite. May 2014, Maliqi and 55 other characters signed the famous pro-family petition , against gays where they tried to "become burdensome with tendencies of breaking, destruction, disfigurement and perversion that are trying to break through the homeland. "So, the singer thinks people with different sexual orientation pose a risk to their family and society and are against the laws of God's nature. In other words, it is (or was in 2014, maybe has changed its mind today) homophobia. In need of more evidence about this show, it's enough to see the episode "Duplex" where Maliqi was invited to close with an extremely homophobic segment (min. 17:00).
You can rightly ask why someone who is clearly not an ally of the LGBT community emerges as such in the eyes of the world and the answer is not so intricate.
First, Israel is pretty progressive in terms of LGBT rights and Tel Aviv is the hottest city to gay people. Tourism in this period of the year, which precedes the month of pride, increases considerably in Tel Aviv. By appearing as an ally, Maliqi gains the sympathy of this demographic group.
Second, a number of LGBT rights organizations are accusing Israel of using Eurovision, which is closely monitored by this community, to draw attention to the war crimes in Palestine. These organizations appealed for boycotting the Eurovision and asked Madonna not to perform precisely for the above reason. Again, Maliqi puts their arm through a simple belt with the colors of the rainbow.
Jonida Maliqi and her team know very well what they do with the rainbow in the dress. The rainbow is also a biblical, Irish symbol and a symbol of South Africa after apartheid, but today it is more than ever a symbol of a marginalized community that is not worth the use of PR, much less by someone who opposes and thinks they do not deserve the same rights with him.
