View from your window
Posted in View Out of Your Window on May 30th, 2008
Riga, Latvia, 9:30 p.m. Send in yours to aleks - at - allaboutlatvia.com
Archive for May, 2008
View from your window
Posted in View Out of Your Window on May 29th, 2008
Riga, Latvia 12:30 p.m. Send in yours to aleks -at - allaboutlatvia.com
View from your window
Posted in View Out of Your Window on May 28th, 2008
Gimhae, South Korea, 8:40 a.m.
Send in yours to aleks - at - allaboutlatvia.com
Horses build self-esteem, don’t they?
Posted in identity on May 27th, 2008
RIGA – For 18 years since independence, Latvia has tried to prove to the rest of the world that it’s a real country. It’s not one of the former Soviet republics. Nor is it one of the new EU member states. It’s Latvia.
In 2006, the tiny Latvia hosted the Ice Hockey World Championship. It was seen as a sensei stamp of approval of this little kingdom of ours by the rest of the hockey world. In 2003, Latvia hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, signifying Latvia’s arrival into the glitzy and glamorous European world of pop songs. Joining the EU and NATO, in 2004, definitely signified that Latvia indeed was somewhere on the map - you just need to look closely.
Latvia, you’ve finally arrived.
Hosting the ice hockey world championship drew crowds of foreign hockey fans to this small country of ours. The tourism industry saw a boom which now dwindles down under stories about drunken nude British people roaming around town and Latvians’ displeasure at behavior of foreign visitors.
After hosting Eurovision, Latvia became one of those boring European countries that sends parodies of songs, like the Pirates of the Sea, to vie for the European approval we no longer seek.
Joining NATO and the EU meant that reforms that brought us into these two exclusive organizations can be shelved.
But that low self-worth persists in our lives. Even the defense minister Vinets Veldre had to place restoring national traditions (presumably the honor guard) at the bottom of its top 15 priorities. That’s below equipping our military and, perhaps, learning to fly jets to patrol our own skies. And below sports.
Because horses will make us feel like a real country - like that Great Britain where the change of the Honor (or Honour) Guard is watched by millions of tourists every year. Or like Denmark where the change of the guard takes place while a beautiful military orchestra plays contagious marches.
Never mind that economically we’re still near the bottom of the EU food chain. Never mind that our economy appears to be heading toward some kind of crisis. Never mind that unlike Estonians, we cannot even utter the phrase economic crisis – much else to take blame for it.
We need horses. That’s right - horses. The defense ministry plans to pay Ls 2,000 per horse for its 28-horse and, presumably, 28-men honor guard that would restore our nation as it as before. So that we would finally feel like a people, like a real country, like we matter. Perhaps not to our big partners like Germany or Russia, but certainly to ourselves.
But if joining NATO and EU, hosting events of international magnitude didn’t put us on the map, why should the honor guard bring honor to this country?
Recent Comments