THE PARTY WE NEED

On Halloween night, Oct. 31, Old Riga was full of masked young people playing trick and treat. True, they were not seeking candies, more booze and fun.

Halloween, along with other American festive traditions like Valentine's Day, has gradually established itself among the traditions of contemporary Latvian society since the restoration of independence ten years ago.

A relic of an old Celtic festival for the dead which was incorporated into the Christian holiday of All Hallows' Eve, the night preceding All Saints' Day has found its place not only in stores selling Halloween items or in restaurants offering pumpkin pies. The otherwise reserved Latvians seem to enjoy the opportunity to hang around dressed as witches and warlocks wielding pumpkins, making the bars of Riga downtown look as if two Friday nights were happening in one.

Latvia's two Baltic sister nations, Latvia and Lithuania, have each taken their own slice of this tradition - Lithuanians go for a more calm and sober All Saints Day which commemorates the dead.

Even some Latvian government ministers seem to be inspired by the ancient Celtic tradition. Their embrace of the latest reality TV craze also betrays a taste for masquerade. The decision by one of Latvia's big political players, the Peoples party, to install video cameras in the offices of its ministers so people can observe them working via the Internet, is a poor contribution to the reality genre. Rather than having to survive on a lonely desert island as the contestants in the first Baltics' reality series, The Robinson Show did, the Latvian finance minister merely has to survive in his own office. This might not be too hard a job since the view we usually get is an empty ministerial desk with a sign saying the minister is either in a Cabinet meeting or attending some other very important event.

The message the Peoples Party's campaigners were trying to deliver clearly missed its target. As Latvia has been placed among the most corrupt countries in the world by a World Bank report, and the government's ratings are consistently negative, it is naive to think that such "reality shows" alone will change people's minds either in Latvia or abroad. The only publicity they received was sharp criticism at home and slightly sneering stories in the Western press. But perhaps they're happy to be mentioned at all, because for politicians you're alive if you're on the front page.