Culture

Horsemen from across Afghanistan converged for the dramatic final match of the nation’s prestigious annual buzkashi tournament on Kabul’s outskirts, attracting crowds that included high-ranking Taliban officials witnessing this centuries-old sporting tradition.

Buzkashi, Afghanistan’s national equestrian competition, showcases elite riders who must carry a leather-wrapped bundle – historically a goat carcass but now a weighted facsimile – across a designated goal line to earn points.

Amid swirling dust clouds kicked up by galloping horses, a victor ultimately prevailed. The winning team took a celebratory circuit around the field, proudly displaying their flag in triumph.

Afghanistan’s cherished buzkashi tournament maintains its status as a traditional sport characterised by limited formal rules and fierce physical competition.

In its classic format, two teams compete to score using what was traditionally a goat carcass, though contemporary matches utilise a leather-and-rope substitute filled with straw to replicate the weight of an animal.

Competitors – with 12 riders on each side – demonstrate extraordinary horsemanship, stretching dangerously from their mounts to retrieve the bundle from the ground before racing towards the goal while pursued by opposing riders.

Though prohibited during the Taliban’s earlier governance in the 1990s, buzkashi experienced a revival following their removal and has continued since their return to power in 2021, with government officials now attending competitions.

In this week’s championship, northern Sar-e-Pul province overwhelmed northeastern Badakhshan with a commanding 7-0 victory, concluding the 11-day national tournament. Baghlan claimed third place, while Kunduz finished fourth among the 11 provincial teams competing.

The competition featured eight international participants from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to Atal Mashwani, spokesman for Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports.

Corporate sponsorship from a petrol company funded the tournament, providing automobiles as prizes for the top four teams, alongside trophies, medals, and certificates.

Thousands of male spectators filled the stands at the central Kabul venue, with enthusiastic fans even climbing nearby trees and electricity pylons to gain better vantage points of the action.

Steph Sarah recalls a time in Venice Beach’s mythical skateboarding history — long before the sandy expanse on Ocean Front Walk became the world-famous skate park, a concrete playground where pro skaters are born.

“It was all boys,” says Sarah, a 36-year-old Venice Beach native who learned to skate at age 12. “If you did come across another girl skating, they were your competition, because there wasn’t even enough room for one girl to skate, let alone multiple girls.”

The group welcomes all skill levels and jokes that they’re the “world’s okay-est skaters.” (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

On this Thursday night, that is distant history. As fog rolls in over the Venice Pier, Sarah skates alongside dozens of women on the coastal path. They belt out the lyrics to “Hey Jude” as singer Chloe Kat serenades them with a guitar in hand. Curious fishermen eye them, their fishing lines cast into the black ocean. But they pay no attention. Twirling under the moonlight, the women resemble a witch’s coven — their spells are good vibes, California weather and the boards beneath their feet.

Since its inception in 2018, GrlSwirl has been a leading force in creating a more inclusive skateboarding culture in Venice Beach — and across the world. The Venice Beach-based organization fosters community among female skateboarders. Twice a month, the group hosts nighttime “group skates” for women and community members. The event has exploded on social media, often attracting over 100 participants on warm summer nights.

“You get to witness what it’s like for people to break all the rules and show up fully as themselves,” Lucy Osinski, one of the co-founders of GrlSwirl, says of the group skates. “The weirder, the sillier, the more authentic, the better.”

Participants dodge a parking barrier gate during a nighttime group skate.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

Growing up in the world of professional ballet with its restrictive body standards and intense discipline, Osinski found newfound freedom in skateboarding. “I went from feeling so fragile and weak to so powerful,” she says. “It made me feel like I belonged and liberated in a way I had never experienced before.”

But when she moved to Venice Beach in 2017, skateboarding as a woman invited hostile attention. “Every time I would skate, people would catcall us or yell at us to do a kickflip,” she says. (“Do a kickflip” is considered a skateboarding taunt.) “I started chasing down any girl I saw on a skateboard. I made a text chain. I called it GrlSwirl.”

Osinski began posting about group skates on Instagram, where GrlSwirl gained traction. “The next week, 20 girls showed up just from word of mouth, and then the next week 40, and then the next 60, and then we had over 100 girls.” Soon, the group’s reputation attracted brand sponsorships and inquiries about starting chapters in new cities.

Today, the organization also doubles as a nonprofit that teaches underprivileged communities to skate worldwide, including surf-skate retreats that empower women and girls. Osinski explains that GrlSwirl has hosted skateboarding clinics from refugee camps in Tijuana to the first-ever women’s skate jam in the Navajo Nation. GrlSwirl has an international following with chapters in more than seven cities and an online community spanning 80 countries.

Lindsey Klucik, left, dances with friends to Christmas songs at the Venice Pier during a GrlSwirl group skate.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

Lucy Osinski rolls in with a skateboarding move.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

“Everything we’ve done from Day 1 is to make spaces and find ways to build community through skateboarding,” says Osinski. “People want to be in a village, but they don’t know how to be a villager. GrlSwirl is the village.”

The popularity of the bimonthly group skates has even attracted out-of-towners curious about the event. Osinski says the event has drawn tourists from Japan, Russia and more. Traveling from Salzburg, Austria, Karoline Bauer joined the skate with her partner while on vacation after following them on Instagram. “We were just looking for some community. We don’t have that back home,” Bauer says.

The group skate welcomes skateboarders of all skill levels. As a motto, the group jokes that they’re the “world’s okay-est skaters.” “We’re not looking for people to be shredding like crazy,” says Naomi Fulta, a team rider for GrlSwirl. “We have people who come here who literally have never stepped on a skateboard, to people who’ve been skating their whole lives.”

Yuka Okamura has been attending GrlSwirl’s group skates with her 10-year-old daughter for over five years. To her surprise, Okamura began learning to skateboard when her daughter started taking lessons. “I had no idea that I would start something new after I had a child. It’s amazing to share the joy and the experience with her,” she explains.

Yaya Ogun, a GrlSwirl team rider, poses with the group.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

For Yaya Ogun, one of the team riders, group skates are an opportunity to build community and make friends. Skateboarding naturally lends itself to community, she explains. Ogun attended her first GrlSwirl event alone and now rides as a sponsored skater. “You have to go someplace physical, you’re gonna meet people, you’re gonna make friends,” she says.

Ogun is a self-proclaimed pandemic skater. “There’s a huge wave of us who started either during or after the pandemic,” she says. “I grew up wanting to skate, but I just never had the time. And then all of a sudden, I had a lot of time,” she says with a laugh.

As a transplant from Texas, Ogun was drawn to GrlSwirl because the organization is anchored in the local community, which has experienced rent hikes and the closure of local institutions in recent years. “This is a special place, and it’s changing a lot,” laments Ogun. “We want to respect it and raise it up and not change anything.”

Osinski credits GrlSwirl’s success to its birthplace, Venice Beach, a place that celebrates uniqueness and community. Venice is a mecca for skateboarding, home to the Z-boys who revolutionized the sport in the 1970s and the subject of the documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys.”

GrlSwirl aims to inspire people to “come together through the simple act of trying something new.”

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones/For The Times)

“Venice is a place of creation. You don’t have to look like a Venice skater to be a Venice skater. It’s about growing up and giving back,” Osinski says.

The girls skate into the evening, the sunset casting an orange light onto their smiling faces. Ogun declares her contempt for longboards — not to mention penny skateboards, which she says are a death trap. In the distance, waves carry surfers to the shore after their last surf of the day. As darkness falls on Venice Beach, the promise of something new swells.

The Eurovision likes to sell itself as a glittering exercise in European unity, colorful, loud, proudly diverse, and (officially) above politics. Yet anyone who has watched the contest with both eyes open knows that “apolitical” has always been more of a brand promise than a lived reality. In late 2025, that gap widened into a full-blown crisis, as a number of broadcasters reported across outlets that Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Iceland signaled they would not take part in Eurovision 2026 after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided not to exclude Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Palestine.

This episode is not simply “politics invading culture.” It reflects a shift in how legitimacy is demanded and contested in Europe’s cultural diplomacy, particularly when public broadcasters operate under constant online scrutiny. A constructivist lens helps explain why withdrawal can become socially “appropriate” not only because of interests, but because identities, norms, and public expectations set the boundaries of acceptable action.

Eurovision’s political DNA

Eurovision was launched in 1956 as a post-war cultural bridge. Its origin story is important: a shared stage was meant to build familiarity, and familiarity was meant to soften rivalry. That heritage still shapes the contest’s self-image. But Eurovision has long functioned as a stage where politics appears in coded ways through voting patterns, representation debates, and symbolic messaging.

In 2026, the argument is no longer coded. The EBU’s insistence that Eurovision must remain apolitical is being tested by publics who increasingly expect cultural institutions to reflect basic humanitarian values. This tension has been building for years, but the Palestine crisis and the EBU’s decisions have turned it into a legitimacy problem, not merely a public relations headache.

Why withdrawal became “appropriate”

Constructivism in international relations focuses on how identities and norms shape behavior. States and national institutions do not act only from material interests; they also act from what is socially acceptable, what fits their self-image, and the expectations of their audiences.

Three dynamics stand out.

Identity signalling, domestically and externally

For several withdrawing countries, participation carried an identity cost. Public broadcasters—especially those that see themselves as guardians of civic values—operate within national narratives about solidarity, rights, and moral responsibility. Remaining in the contest while public debate framed Israel’s participation as incompatible with humanitarian concerns risked looking like complicity or indifference. Withdrawal, by contrast, functioned as a signal: this is who we are, and this is the line we will not cross.

Importantly, this signalling was not addressed only to external audiences. It was also addressed inward towards domestic publics, artists, and civil society networks. In many European societies, those constituencies are no longer passive consumers of cultural events; they are active participants in the reputational economy surrounding public institutions.

Norm cascades and moral momentum

Once a few broadcasters moved towards withdrawal, the decision quickly gained social momentum. This is what Finnemore and Sikkink described as a “norm cascade”: when a norm shifts from being optional to being expected, and the reputational cost of non-compliance rises. In practical terms, it can start to feel safer to leave than to stay—because staying invites condemnation, while leaving can be framed as moral coherence.

This is also why the dispute escalated so quickly. A single broadcaster withdrawing is a story. Multiple broadcasters withdrawing is a pattern, and patterns trigger moral comparisons. The question changes from “Why did they leave?” to “Why are you still staying?”

The ‘apolitical’ norm is under strain because it looks selective.

The apolitical claim does not collapse simply because people become more emotional. It collapses when it appears inconsistent. Critics repeatedly pointed to Russia’s exclusion in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine and asked why a different standard was being applied now. The EBU, for its part, has emphasized the contest’s non-political ethos and introduced new rules aimed at insulating Eurovision from government influence.

But in the public sphere, the argument is not purely procedural. It is moral and comparative: if Eurovision can act decisively in one case, why not in another?

Constructivism predicts that institutions struggle when the norms they rely on no longer align with the moral intuitions of their audiences. That is exactly what this crisis reveals.

Digital activism as a legitimacy engine

If this controversy had happened twenty years ago, it would likely have moved more slowly, mediated by newspapers and official statements. Today it unfolds in a real-time digital public sphere where narratives travel quickly across borders and reputational costs escalate fast. Online mobilization—through petitions, artist statements, and hashtag campaigns—helped turn Eurovision into a symbolic battleground, pressuring broadcasters to respond to highly visible moral claims.

Two effects matter most. First, digital dynamics accelerate moral consolidation, which means once “selective neutrality” becomes a dominant frame, hesitation itself is read as a political stance. Second, institutions face continuous visibility. Decisions are no longer a single event but an ongoing justification process, renewed by viral moments and high-profile protest actions linked to Israel’s inclusion.

For cultural diplomacy, this shifts the logic of soft power from image-making towards moral credibility under public scrutiny.

Withdrawal as cultural diplomacy

Withdrawal from Eurovision is, in a strict sense, symbolic. But symbolism is precisely what cultural diplomacy trades in. The act of leaving, particularly when done by public broadcasters, served three strategic functions.

First, moral signalling, which meansbroadcasters and states communicated alignment with humanitarian values and a refusal to normalize perceived injustice.

The second one is reputation management.  In a digital environment, silence can be more costly than action. Withdrawal can reduce domestic backlash and preserve trust in public institutions.

Last, this is ethical positioning as soft power.  The logic of soft power is shifting from colorful branding to ethical coherence. A state may gain credibility not by appearing “fun,” but by appearing consistent with its professed values.

These functions help explain why the controversy is bigger than Eurovision. What is being tested is the idea that cultural platforms can remain insulated from global crises. Many audiences no longer accept that separation.

The EBU’s dilemma: rules, legitimacy, and consistency

The EBU now sits at the center of competing demands. On one side is the institutional need for predictability: rules that keep Eurovision from becoming an arena for state-to-state confrontation. On the other side is the public demand for moral consistency: rules that do not appear selective or politically convenient.

The EBU’s recent approach of avoiding an immediate exclusion decision while adjusting rules—may be defensible from a governance perspective.

Yet governance solutions do not automatically restore legitimacy, because legitimacy is also emotional and relational. It depends on whether audiences believe the institution is acting in good faith and applying standards fairly.

This is where cultural diplomacy meets a hard truth: neutrality is not simply declared; it is earned. And in the digital age, it is re-earned continuously.

What this means for Europe’s cultural diplomacy

Three implications stand out.

First, moral expectation is becoming structural.  European publics increasingly demand moral coherence not only from governments but from cultural institutions as well. Cultural diplomacy is being asked to carry ethical weight.

Second, “European values” are being operationalized. They are no longer abstract slogans. They are used as benchmarks to judge institutions and to accuse them of hypocrisy when they fall short.

Third, public opinion has become a strategic force, not background noise.  Digital mobilization can shape state behavior indirectly by pressuring broadcasters, artists, and institutions that sit at the heart of national identity.

Policy takeaways

If the EBU seeks to protect Eurovision’s legitimacy without turning it into a geopolitical tribunal, three steps would help. First, it should clarify participation principles by defining what “neutrality” means operationally and what thresholds trigger institutional action. Second, it should build a credible consistency mechanism, as audiences will continue comparing cases and demanding transparent reasoning. Third, the EBU should treat the digital sphere as part of governance: proactive engagement and rapid clarification now shape institutional survival as much as formal rule-making.

Conclusion

Eurovision 2026 is not simply a cultural controversy with political noise attached. It is a case study in how identity, norms, and digital activism are reshaping Europe’s cultural diplomacy. Constructivism helps explain why withdrawal became not only possible but, for some, necessary: it aligned state-linked institutions with the moral expectations of their publics.

Eurovision was built to bridge Europe after war. Ironically, its newest crisis shows that unity today is conditional: audiences increasingly expect cultural institutions to be transparent, consistent, and ethically credible, especially when global suffering is impossible to ignore.