The fall of the wall

OPINION: The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of those moments, surprisingly rare, when an outpouring of triumphalism has been able to withstand the scrutiny of time without seeming misplaced, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

The 20th-anniversary celebrations have given cause to look back not only in gratitude and appreciation, but also to consider the extent to which the hopes ignited by that day, November 9, 1999, have been realised.

The ecstatic Germans that day were not, it turns out, kidding themselves. While it is true that in the unified Germany the east is still disproportionately poorer, it is at least free of the worst excesses of that thoroughly bad regime – the tightly constrained freedoms, the scale of poverty, and the twin oppressions of a thuddingly bad government and a potent criminal caste, each capable of turning guns on the citizenry.

Communist East Germany had told its citizens that the wall first built in 1961 was an "anti-fascist protection barrier" though, as was painfully obvious, its real intent was to keep them in, not others out.

A hateful structure, then. But what happened on November 9 was not merely a pleasing piece of symbolism.

Germany remains unified, and the better for that, and so is Europe. Even more significantly, the end of the Cold War and the widespread collapse of communism that ensued were part of a chain of events well portrayed this week by the fall of giant dominoes, set tumbling by that supremely well-chosen figure, Polish trade unionist Lech Walesa.

Also highly honoured, by popular sentiment as much as official status, former Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev – himself a committed communist but pragmatic enough to know that when push came to shove, he shouldn't shove.

He was so right. His refusal to intervene militarily was a pragmatic decision as much as a decent one. The USSR, and its puppet states, simply could not afford to continue the Cold War, spending grotesque amounts trying to compete with the United States in the arms race. For its part the US had been ratcheting up the cost of keeping up with the Reagans to the extent that Gorbachev faced stark alternatives – the dismantlement of the political structures around him, or the more violent ruination of them

The cries of "Gorby! Gorby! that surrounded him this week should remind him of his honourable place in 20th century history. Frankly, Ronald Reagan, who had faults aplenty, shouldn't be overlooked in this instance, either.

We now have information indicating that not every leader was optimistic about the unified Germany. Papers released only recently portray an obsessed and bitter British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and a scowling French president Francois Mitterand, darkly warning one another of the "danger" represented by the potential for Germany to turn "bad" again.

Mrs Thatcher proposed not only vigilance, but also the enlistment of Gorbachev into their coterie of concern.

But Gorbachev had problems closer to home to worry about, as the communist regimes of Eastern Europe dissolved during the following years, and the Soviet Union unbolted itself.

Regrettably, parts of the Eastern Bloc have scarcely been reconstructed into models of democracy. Good old-fashioned brute force still plays its part. But by any standard, Germany, Europe and the wider world have abundant justification to look back on that day with careworn, measured, but still quite profound, satisfaction.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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