The Muted Celebration
By Mitch Berg
It was 25 years ago yesterday that the Berlin Wall fell.
I was in a not-so-great place in November of 1989. But I watched the news – as I’d been watching the gathering disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, and of the “Second World”.
And seeing the stories of the swirling vortex of history into which Communism was falling…:
…even I, a simple nightclub DJ from northeast Minneapolis, knew something big was going on.
Even today, watching the footage, and watching Germans celebrating, I feel moved. It was one of the most amazing events of my lifetime.
Of course, I had a dog in the fight:
That dog was, of course, freedom. I was on the side that supported it.
For years, though, the mainstream media always seemed torn about the fall of the wall, the fall of communism. I remember in 1992, Tom Brokaw reporting on economic problems in Poland – after three whole years of freedom, after 45 in slavery – and solemnly declaring that Eastern Europe’s experiment with economic freedom was a failure.
I wondered if it was merely myopia. But no – it seems the American media had trouble processing the fall of the Wall because they largely supported the wrong side.
November 10th, 2014 at 11:57 am
I’ve long wondered if the media was more upset that Communism failed with the fall of the Berlin Wall, or that a Republican president was the one who pushed the Soviets into the abyss.