Note: The following is a translation of an editorial which first appeared in Southern Weekly on Nov. 5.  The original can be found here.

What came down was the wall and what stood up was the people



By Shi Zhe (史哲)



Do you think the reunification of Germany was a good thing?  Are you satisfied with how things are for them today?  Public opinion surveys on this topic in Germany over the past few years have often gotten negative results.  Former East Germans complain they are not treated fairly and those from the west complain they’ve been set back, having lost job opportunities,  and they even criticize those from the east for not being content.

In addition to public surveys, various cultural and artistic figures have not held back in unleashing all sorts of abuse since reunification.  For example, Gunter Grass openly criticized the gap between the rich and poor 20 years on in his recent work The Road from Germany to Germany.  He said that the flow of East Germans out of the east has turned it into a wasteland, and that East Germany today is a capitalist colony.  Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl who vigorously supported reunification said that with hindsight he feels it may have been a little hasty.



It has been almost 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  As the distance from those days which excited or even terrified the whole world becomes greater, Germans have grown cooler and their criticism has grown stronger, such that it has created a certain unavoidable illusion: the near spontaneous reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall may have been a “historical mistake.”

Can this be true? 

One has to admit that ethnicity, nation and sovereignty are still lofty concepts in present day Europe, but they have lost the sacred luster they had in the past.  In a Europe that has already unified its markets and trade, and given freedom of movement to workers, the sovereignty of states has been largely weakened.  Moreover, Germany has learned from painful experience early on in a Europe that has gone through the baptism of two world wars.  By realigning the relationship between the strong and the weak it has made it easier for those countries defeated in war to rejoin the world system.  It was fundamentally unnecessary for a defeated Germany to return to the glory of its former empire to win the respect of the international community.  If its separation once felt like an insult to the Germans, its cause was not fundamentally in the separation of the country but through the manipulation of two larger countries.  They had no recourse to decide their own fate while caught in the forefront of nuclear blackmail.



The resurgence of Germany after the war was achieved by each and every person living in a misshaped land.  In the end it was regular people that were the main reason West Germany was able to win the peaceful competition between two systems.  Their hard work day in and day out the proved themselves to the world, redeeming the dignity of the entire ethnicity.  Outsiders usually like to evaluate the Berlin Wall from the vantage point of geopolitics, competing powers, social systems, ideology and economic base, but the legacy of regular Germans is a story permeated with humanity and the freshness of life.  There are sad, joyful and even funny stories, such as the first youth to try to sneak over the wall who was shot to death.  Germans have countless stories like these.  In fact, all you have to do is take a look at the variety of graffiti on the Berlin Wall which often has nothing to do with politics and you will know that this is the true historical memory.



When the wall fell, it turned a page in history and one must admit that the way it was turned was quite beautiful.   Never mind the superiority felt in the minds of West Germans at the beginning of reunification and whether or not they looked down on those from the east or that the East Germans suffered because of their defeat.  One after the other, East Germans have been able to integrate with the west without obstruction, living and breathing freely with opportunities and success.  This right here says everything.  Today hundreds of thousands of East Germans live in the west.  The East German soccer player Matthias Sammer has become the athletic director of the German Football Association.  Angela Merkel who is also from the east is now the chancellor.  And the East German Herta Mueller has won the Nobel Prize in literature.



Is there anyone who would really like to return to the time before the wall fell?  Of course there are.  There are some East Germans who remember the so called national honor and equality of the past.  This is despite the fact that their economy lagged behind the west for a long time; in the near 30 years the wall stood there were an average of eight arrests each year for the crime of “damaging national security;”  and an average of one in 66 people worked as informants for the secret police, which far exceed that of the Gestapo and KGB.  However, none of this will stop them from using the past to openly express their dissatisfaction about the drawbacks of the present.



History has already engulfed the dust of the Berlin Wall.  As the dust began to settle, in their indifference Germans had no country,.  They just had each individual.  Now that there is no wall, if they envy prosperity or they want to express dissatisfaction, at least they do not have to worry about losing their freedom or even their lives.  The gates are open.  This is all in the past.



It has been said that when the Berlin Wall was being built, they borrowed a Chinese phrase for the project nickname: The Second Great Wall.  What is unfortunate is that this wall was actually built for their own countrymen.  No matter how unsatisfied Germans are with the present situation, no one will ever use this pretense to defend the Berlin Wall ever again.

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