American Views Abroad

 
The Berlin Wall fell 15 years ago yesterday and all I remember is sleeping through that night unaware of something monumental taking place. In fact the next morning's radio news didn't get much reaction from me other than a silent thought: Tell me another one. It took about 20 hours and scenes on the evening TV news to give me a jolt into the new reality. Anne Applebaum, a columnist on the opinion pages of The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com writes today in A German Lesson for Remaking Iraq about how quiet Berlin seemed back then when she arrived there after driving all day and much of the night. She comments on how scared some East Germans appeared while standing in front of a McDonald's on the western side. What I remember is how so many came flocking into Hamburg and how dazed they were by what they saw. One scene in particular stands out on the Saturday after the fall. A small, primitive East German car with young people standing next to a big Mercedes with well-to-do citizens waiting at a red light. The windows were down and those in the two cars were chatting away and I wondered how long such a dialogue was going to take place.

Applebaum gets to the core: 'Even if it is possible to get every political and economic element right....the psychological transition to liberal democracy from a regime ruled by fear is one that takes at least one generation, if not two.' I experienced up front how timid the first East Germans were with surviving the traffic flow or coming to terms with the difference between what beverages cost in a restaurant as opposed to in a supermarket and then having to explain why it wasn't accepted practice to bring your own bottle of Coke. Two very small things we simply take for granted. I remember being at a school board meeting listening to a discussion on whether or not that particular elementary school should "adopt" a school in the "other" part to help them learn the new ways. It was another jolt to hear many opposing the idea vehemently because of their own very unpleasant associations, most likely from family stories handed down, on being 're-educated.' It was a thorny subject, took hours of debate and was finally approved by the slimmest of majorities.

There was a revealing commentary in a Berlin newspaper last Friday by a writer who lived in the US for over twenty years and has now moved back to Berlin. 'The Bride Wears Black' discusses the long love affair between Mr. America and Miss Germany. Hungry, thin, grateful and traumatized Germany in 1945 falls in love with well-fed, very generous and sexy America. The honeymoon was fantastic but like in many marriages, after a while the wife starts feeling dissatisfied and starts taking a closer look at the relationship. The glamour is gone, the idol has gotten older and tougher, and like the pictures of Elvis show through the decades, America has changed. In its own way so has Germany and the rest of the world. The writer doesn't come out directly for divorce, instead, she toys with the idea of a same-sex marriage with Hillary in four years time.

- posted by Gloria @ 6:43 PM