FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS At the Eurovision competition in Rotterdam one of the finalists is a nineteen year old singer representing Sweden. Tousin Chiza, stage name Tusse, a celebrity in the Scandinavian country since he won a talent show and then the Melodifestivalen, the selection to designate the Swedish Eurovision candidate.
Tusse has a complicated history behind him, despite himself, and the fact that he sings for Sweden has sparked controversy in a Country that sees the extreme right grow and anti-immigrant populist formations.
Tusse born on January 1, 2002 in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and at the age of five his family had to leave the village due to armed clashes between militias. In the flight he lost his parents, and an aunt cared for him in a refugee camp in Uganda, where he lived for three years. I was afraid of wild animals, but it wasn’t a bad time. I went to school, and I started singing in church. My passion for music and singing was born.
In 2009 Tusse arrived in Sweden with refugee status, and after a phase in a shelter, a family finally welcomed him. In 2015 he found out that his parents were still alive, and he was able to speak again with his father, who lives in Goma, Congo, and his mother, who then disappeared the following year.
It was the Swedish adoptive mother who started his musical career, surprisingly enrolling him in the Swedish talent Talang where he reached the semifinals, before winning a year after the other talent Swedish Idol.
Tusse now represents Sweden, nearly fifty years after Abba’s victory over Waterloo. Sweden was the best home for me that I could have. I grew up and was educated here, and I love the Swedish family who took care of me. Giving my best on the Rotterdam stage because it will be my way of thanking Sweden.
Tusse’s Swedish family lives in Tallberg, a small village between the forest and the lake, where there is also the headquarters of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi formation. Tusse went on despite the racist slurs, and last March he won the Melodifestivalen with nearly three million votes. But the divided country, and if it were for the Swedish Democrats, Jimmie Akesson’s far-right party that wants to break with the Swedish tradition of welcoming refugees, Tusse would not only not represent Sweden at Eurovision but would never even make it to Scandinavia.
May 22, 2021 (change May 22, 2021 | 12:36)
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