When the Wall Came Down

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down ending nearly half a century of division and became a symbolic hallmark of the end of the Cold War. With the fall of the Berlin Wall it also signaled the 'victory' of democracy over communism. Though I was young I can remember President Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate imploring Premier Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall' and it was amazing to see that within a few years that's precisely what happened. The wall came down and an era of tension and potential 'assured mutal destruction' came to an end. And although there were droves of people dancing in the streets at the end of communist rule and a divided Germany, I was fascinated to read that not everyone was happy about the fact that communism came to an end.

As today's anniversary of the fall of the wall came closer there were some articles posted in various papers from around the world that had interviews with people who had lived and worked in what was once known as East Germany (or the communist side). And although the opinion of most of us who were on the side of democracy and were 'fighting' to free East Germany and the rest of Europe from the yoke of communism, it seems that not everyone was happy to see it finally come to an end. There were several interviews that I read in which people said that the popular conception that communist rule in Europe was completely restrictive was not at all true. Many claimed that rule in communist Europe was actually better than many people gave credit for.

There are now towns in Germany that have completely disappeared simply because their function or support was no longer needed. These towns that were once vital to the survival of East Germany became redundant under a unified nation and soon fell into decay and eventually extinction. So then what happens to the people who lived and worked there? They struggle to find work or a means of surviving. It's hard not to think about these things but we often do it regularly. In the quest to defeat one 'enemy' we often have collateral damage and in this case one of the main casualties were the people who had been employed by the East German government for vital supply and services.

Government workers who may not have necessarily agreed with communist dictum or the oppresive nature of the government that ruled them nonetheless could not deny the fact that they were provided for by their government (no matter what they followed... democracy or communism). I'm not saying or implying that communism was a better system but it's unfortunate (though not unexpected) that even so many years after the fall of the Berlin Wall there are still people who are suffering the effects of the failure of one governmental system and the implementation of another. As the world continues to struggle onwards to better places and becoming a more unified place, we should also remember the changes that have affected us in the past and how they can affect the future as well.