donderdag, november 12, 2009
More Walls to Fall
OSCOW – The German people, and the whole world alongside them, are celebrating a landmark date in history, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not many events remain in the collective memory as a watershed that divides two distinct periods. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall – that stark, concrete symbol of a world divided into hostile camps – is such a defining moment.The fall of the Berlin Wall brought hope and opportunity to people everywhere, and provided the 1980’s with a truly jubilant finale. That is something to think about as this decade draws to a close – and as the chance for humanity to take another momentous leap forward appears to be slipping away.
Mikhail Gorbachev
Read on | Project Syndicate - More Walls to Fall
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Labels: 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev, Project Syndicate
- posted by DD @ 8:58 a.m. Perma Link/Print (0) comments
dinsdag, november 03, 2009
What’s Left After 1989?
EW YORK – Twenty years ago, when the Berlin Wall was breached and the Soviet empire was collapsing, only die-hard believers in a communist utopia felt unhappy. A few people, of course, clung to the possibility of what was once called “actually existing socialism.” Others criticized the triumphalism of the “new world order” promised by George H.W. Bush. And the way West Germany rolled over the wreckage of its East German neighbor seemed almost like an act of cruelty.Still, 1989 was a good time to be alive (except in China, where the democrats were put down). Many of us felt that we were seeing the dawn of a new liberal age, in which freedom and justice would spread, like fresh flowers, across the globe. Twenty years on, we know this was not to be.
Xenophobic populism is stalking democracies in Europe.
Ian Buruma
Project Syndicate - What’s Left After 1989?
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Labels: 1989, Ian Buruma, Project Syndicate
- posted by DD @ 11:43 a.m. Perma Link/Print (0) comments
maandag, november 02, 2009
Twenty Years After the Wall
ERLIN – Those who witnessed that night 20 years ago in Berlin, or elsewhere in Germany, will never forget what happened – the night the Wall came down.History in the making is all too often tragic. Only rarely is it capable of irony. November 9, 1989, was one of those rare moments when irony reigned, because East Germany’s bureaucratic socialism died as it had lived – with a bureaucratic snafu.
Joschka Fischer
Read on | Project Syndicate - Twenty Years After the Wall
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Labels: 1989, Germany, Joschka Fischer, Project Syndicate
- posted by DD @ 11:17 a.m. Perma Link/Print (0) comments
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