Life Before and After the Fall of the Berlin Wall
If there is one geopolitical event that has stayed with me over a span of 50 years it was the fall of the Berlin wall. Sure, 911 has its place in every North American’s lexicon. That day is sharp and raw and very uncomfortable for many of us to remember. In North America we were not used to quarrels on the other side of the world. However, everybody could understand what the Berlin wall represented at the time. It was a stark reminder of good versus evil in the world and was a blatant barrier to freedom for a vast amount of people.
20 years ago tonight the Berlin wall fell. I remember it very well. I was a university student at the time and my East-West sidekick Enamul Haque and I were back in Dresden for the weekend. We were always news junkies and so when it came over the news that the Berlin wall had opened we were both shocked. I remember calling Enamul to the television. Seeing something, which we had thought to be completely indestructible suddenly, fall was beyond what we could think up.
If you think that is a bit of a stretch try to think of it from my standpoint as a guy born in 1959. I had a bit of this conversation with editor John Gardiner last week. He had asked me what I thought about the times in which we live. I told him that I felt that these times were better than the times we grew up in. I told him that because when I was a kid we lived with the specter of nuclear assured destruction. Growing up in Southwestern Ontario meant we always knew that there were several Soviet nuclear ICBMs targeted on Detroit. Our lives could end at any time.
For many people in their youth, that must be very hard to understand. For instance I think even members of my own family don’t really get it. What the Soviet Union represented at that time in our geopolitical world is almost un-describable today. For instance how can I really describe how formidable a country was when it ceased to exist in 1991? The point is that at that time when I was young up until the time the Berlin wall came down the Soviet Union was the most powerful enemy the West had. They were aggressive, well armed, and paranoid and they had a political and economic system that didn’t make a lot of sense. They didn’t like us and all those nuclear weapons proved it.
If you think I am being a bit spectacular with my descriptions let me give you one example of that time. In 1962 I was only a child of three years old. As all of you know that was the year that the Soviet Union and the United States faced off over missiles in Cuba. The world nearly came to nuclear destruction over a poor island in the Caribbean. To put it simply, life was very tense. My father told me he remembers very well going to Windsor on the day when things were coming to a head. He openly wondered if he would get to Windsor and whether the world would be here, as he knew it when he got home. In other words he thought the possibility of nuclear destruction before the end of the day was a real possibility.
Compare that to 2009 where we are downloading music from the iTunes store and we are “twittering” about things relevant to us around the world. It’s almost out of the twilight zone. The dichotomy is as massive as the Himalayas. That is the world that we lived in back in the 1960s and 1970s and when the Berlin wall came crashing down 20 years ago today, much of all that came crashing down too.
So I find myself over the last few days being very nostalgic. I don’t want to discount Remembrance Day this year because that is very important. Many of the men and women that fought tyranny overseas had to live with the specter of Soviet tyranny, which came after. It was just the way it was and when the first inklings of the Berlin wall coming down came onto our television screens, I knew the world had changed forever.
Up until that time I had always wanted to travel to Berlin to see the wall. To me it represented the ultimate in good versus evil. I remember 20 years ago thinking I will never see that wall. However I cannot describe how incredulous I was when it came down and all the hope I have that night for the world ahead. It was like freedom had burst onto the world stage and everybody wanted to reach out and grasp for just a little of it.
The challenge in 2009 in 2010 is to keep that thirst for freedom alive. There are many other walls in the world today in places like India and Pakistan and Palestine. It’s all about good and evil. You might not think it’s going to change but if 20 years ago in Berlin proves anything, it’s that freedom wins every time. It’s a lesson for the ages.