Mmm…  The task of writing about the festivities in Berlin this week, is indeed a difficult one.  We have not been sure as to how to approach the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall in blog format, so here we go with an entirely too brief reflection on what it may mean.

Twenty years ago last Monday, Berliner’s East and West took to the some 140 kilometer cement barrier with pick-axes and joyous liberation, and with every segment chipped away, so to chipped away at the presence of communism within Germany and indeed, greater Europe.

The wall, constructed in 1961, encircled the US, French & British occupied zone – West Berlin – in an attempt to prevent East Germans under Soviet rule from escaping to the Democratic West. The wall also included “The Death Strip,” a stretch of land edged with razor wire and covered in raked gravel, a rather macabre tactic employed to assist in catching the “traitors” attempting to flee to the West.

The official numbers of those who perished attempting to escape to their freedom is still deliberated, and the impact of the physical and psychological barricade can still very much be felt within the country.  Even as an immigrant to the city of Berlin, one can’t help but feel a little moved each time they cycle over the inconspicuous pavers demarcating where the wall once stood and would have – as little as twenty years ago – stopped them from going any further.

Sadly, barriers and barricades continue to pervade the world, both physically and in varying metaphysical forms. In commemorating the fall of the oppressive reign of extreme Communism in Germany, spare a thought for the people of the world living under regimes that keep freedom out by closing the people in.  In the time when we remember a wall that came down, perhaps we should all try a little harder to campaign in bringing down another.





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