There is no denying that Ira Losco gave an excellent performance when representing Malta in the recent Eurovision Song Contest. She did her best; she has a lovely voice and despite being five months pregnant, she gave first class rendition of a song which, however, was not the one chosen by the Maltese public nor by the judges especially selected for this purpose.

The song Walk on Water imposed by so-called artistic experts, replaced the one chosen by the Maltese nation and the panel of judges. This was an insult to public opinion and against the basic rules of democracy. Consequently, the chosen song was not tried and tested by any jury, whether it be the public or a selected panel of judges, and had to compete with songs chosen by the opinion of much larger nations. Certain so-called artistic experts thought they knew best, and that the public and jury’s choice was irrelevant.

Ira Losco thus had the insurmountable task of competing against all the odds. Even the song presented by far-away Australia, although not a European country was considered promising enough to win first place in this song contest followed by Russia, France, Austria, and several others. Unfortunately, politics also played an important part in this contest, because the ultimate winner was the Ukrainian song which was mainly a political song referring to the Stalinist past of the mass deportation of Ukrainians in revenge for supporting Nazism during the Second World War.

Moreover, disparaging and discouraging remarks made by a certain lawyer on Facebook thinking that it was a private communications were most inappropriate. It is hoped that this lawyer has now learned his lesson that private remarks made on social media can spread like wild fire, and can be exposed to the whole wide world.

Although expectations were boosted to high levels for Ira to attain one of the first three placings, albeit with an imposed song rather than the selected one by the Maltese public and jury, Ira was not just expected to sing Walk on Water but to actually walk on water. As far as is known, only Jesus Christ has managed to achieve this without mechanical or artificial assistance.

 

Raymond Sammut

Mellieha