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November 9th 1989.
Im sitting on my living room whatching the news as usual. But what I see today is not the usual.
I see people jumping, I see people drinking, people hugging, people crying, people shouting.
Images of hundreds of faces are caught on camera. All smilling, all overtaken by some colective urge to party.
Beneath some of them and in front of most them there is this very high wall.
I had seen that wall before. Just a few weeks earlier there had been a special about the divided Berlin. And then the wall was shown. Tall, white, cruising in weird curves and bends in the heart of an european city. That was a true testimony of opression. I felt fear when I saw it on tv. The feeling of opression was amplified by the guards spying the camera. Although the crew was probably safe as long as they stood in the west part, it really felt like you could be shot down by just trying to get closer.
But now the wall looked harmless. It was no longuer a menacing white giant. It was just a wall being pierced by all sorts of cutting tools. Soon the crude pickaxes and hammers are replaced by a faster and more powerfull demolition machine (only later I realised it was actually a big pulley). Suddenly the wall is breached. People rush to the other side like rats. Cheers are heard as the detached piece of concrete is held still in the air like a ballot paper. Flashes ensue. I say to myself "Wow! This is history happening!". More happy faces are shown. The party goes on for all night and continues the day after.
This is my memory of that day. And although I am not german I experienced those moments with an unexplanable feeling of happiness.
I was only nine years old back then. Back then it was just the most cool demonstration of freedom I had ever seen.
But now as I have more background on what happened I have an even higher consideration for that day.
It was said that it could not be done in our life time but it was. But most important of all was that all this was achieved in the most unexpected way possible. People pressured for changes. And the old leaders were forced to accept.
It was just like in the song. A wind of change blowing straight in the face of time. From there to the end of the cold war it was only a matter of months.
While the later events were not so happy I would like to mark this day that will forever stay in my mind. If there would a place where I would have loved to be in the 80's that would be the Berlin of November 9th 1989.
It is common for people to create associations of words with images.
From that day on my image of freedom was the image of common berliners taking down the wall by their own means.
Im sitting on my living room whatching the news as usual. But what I see today is not the usual.
I see people jumping, I see people drinking, people hugging, people crying, people shouting.
Images of hundreds of faces are caught on camera. All smilling, all overtaken by some colective urge to party.
Beneath some of them and in front of most them there is this very high wall.
I had seen that wall before. Just a few weeks earlier there had been a special about the divided Berlin. And then the wall was shown. Tall, white, cruising in weird curves and bends in the heart of an european city. That was a true testimony of opression. I felt fear when I saw it on tv. The feeling of opression was amplified by the guards spying the camera. Although the crew was probably safe as long as they stood in the west part, it really felt like you could be shot down by just trying to get closer.
But now the wall looked harmless. It was no longuer a menacing white giant. It was just a wall being pierced by all sorts of cutting tools. Soon the crude pickaxes and hammers are replaced by a faster and more powerfull demolition machine (only later I realised it was actually a big pulley). Suddenly the wall is breached. People rush to the other side like rats. Cheers are heard as the detached piece of concrete is held still in the air like a ballot paper. Flashes ensue. I say to myself "Wow! This is history happening!". More happy faces are shown. The party goes on for all night and continues the day after.
This is my memory of that day. And although I am not german I experienced those moments with an unexplanable feeling of happiness.
I was only nine years old back then. Back then it was just the most cool demonstration of freedom I had ever seen.
But now as I have more background on what happened I have an even higher consideration for that day.
It was said that it could not be done in our life time but it was. But most important of all was that all this was achieved in the most unexpected way possible. People pressured for changes. And the old leaders were forced to accept.
It was just like in the song. A wind of change blowing straight in the face of time. From there to the end of the cold war it was only a matter of months.
While the later events were not so happy I would like to mark this day that will forever stay in my mind. If there would a place where I would have loved to be in the 80's that would be the Berlin of November 9th 1989.
It is common for people to create associations of words with images.
From that day on my image of freedom was the image of common berliners taking down the wall by their own means.
Feel the power of the 
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