It is magnificent that Latvia, as the next host of Eurovision, will have the same golden opportunity that Estonia just enjoyed to put its best foot forward and, hopefully, attract some intrepid European tourists to this beautiful country.
But the most important thing about Marie N's victory is what it says about the future of civil society in Latvia - to wit, that an ethnic Russian teen (or twenty-something - Marija has been a bit cagey about her real age) who calls Latvia home did a damn good job representing her country to the world. It rather suggests that she - and thousands like her - not only belong here, but also have something valuable to offer.
Beyond the obvious creative skills, Naumova is educated, articulate and holds a law degree. She is fluent in four languages and cosmopolitan in a way that the best and brightest of Latvia's younger generations must be to carve out their own niches in this increasingly tiny world in which we live.
There's a veritable army of young people like her in Riga and, increasingly, in cities such as Ventspils and Valmiera and elsewhere who are graduating from Latvia University or the Stockholm School of Economics or from universities abroad who are clearly the cream of intellectual and professional society here.
Many, like Naumova, are multilingual, which gives them a decided edge on their counterparts from richer nations like the United States and Great Britain, and most of them are proud Latvians, in the civic, rather than the ethnic sense of the word.
During Eurovision, nobody referred to Maria N. as "Russian." She represented Latvia, waved the Latvian flag as the votes poured in and, after winning, gave one of her first interviews to a crew from Latvian television in Latvian, while eager Eurovision journalists waited impatiently for her to switch back to English.
Back home, though, Naumova, like hundreds of thousands of other Latvian citizens, are classified as different by the state right on the first page of their passports. There, glowering under the odious heading of "nationality," is "Russian" or "Ukrainian" or "Belorussian" or "Jewish." In other words, something different, something other than "Latvian."
With recent European history in mind, one might expect a modern state to be more sensitive to such crude ethnic labeling. If all countries used this method, which by the way, was most famously employed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - my U.S. passport should list me as a kind of mongrel Italian-English-Irish-Dutch guy who happens to be an American citizen.
About 18 months ago, when she was asked about ethnic identity in an interview with Diena, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said, "Latvian is everyone who speaks Latvian, who is a citizen of Latvia, and feels a sense of belonging to the Latvian state. His ethnicity is something else - ethnic Latvian or something else. I must admit, this desire to change the definition is a result of the influence of Western democracy. In a democratic country, for example, if you are a citizen of France, you are a Frenchman, regardless of whether your ancestors are Hebrews, Spaniards, Italians, Moroccans, Algerians, or Senegalese. It is not the purity of our blood or genetic makeup that identifies us as citizens of the Latvian state, as individuals who care about the fate of Latvia, as individuals who link our future to this land."
Indeed, Latvia needs all the able, healthy, intelligent and civic-minded people, irrespective of ethnicity, it can get to link their future with this land if the country is to survive.
But they all need to feel that they're wanted, that their contributions and talents are valued.
With a parliamentary election just around the corner, there would seem to be a chance for a politically astute Latvian to elaborate on Vike-Freiberga's sentiments and make it clear to the cream of society that they're contributions are wanted.
Not only would it break the hold that political dinosaurs on the right and left have on segments of the population, but it would be signal that someone is willing to court the Maria Naumovas of Latvia before it is too late. o
Steven C. Johnson is a freelance journalist based in Riga.
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