American Views Abroad

 
There are rare moments in politics so riveting people struggle accepting them, at first. Immediate reactions are disbelief and shock though signs of change were there. However, most don't expect change to happen at a fast pace. The US has been trying for 50 years to get some sort of health care for all its citizens to no avail, until now perhaps. Then there are those scenes that defy the imagination. The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of them. Basically most of Europe was asleep and the news the next morning on the radio was simply not believed. It took a couple of hours to get it to seep in and it took more than words spoken, it took images on TV before one realized it had happened. The Wall was opened ---- by normal everyday people. Opened almost by political exhaustion, it seemed. A movement too great to stop and it wasn't only a German one. The central eastern Europeans paved the way that summer.

They are now taking a well deserved walk down memory lane this week and why not. It's rare to have something good and peaceful to celebrate. It was the end of the Cold War which was painful and dreary and called for sacrifice, but it was certainly better than a devastating military one. A couple of years after the fall, in Cottbus, a town in the eastern part of Germany, and one is sitting around a table discussing what life was like on both sides of the Wall. He had been in the East German army on the border. On the other side was the US military. Strict orders were given never to return any basketballs which landed on the wrong side. The urge was too great. When the officers weren't looking, they made a point of returning them.
- posted by Gloria @ 6:45 PM