Our lives become more and more complicated and intertwined. We have to travel, to work in different time-zones. Sometimes to live apart.
The more this happens, the more I appreciate to call a place home.
Gian Matteo posted a deep analysis on the meaning of divided cities today…Old walls have been replaced by new ones. Visit Metapolis…
We’re just back from Berlin, after this fantastic long week-end dedicated to the fall of the wall. Our digital camera is in ER, so let’s hope that our reflex did a good job…photos in a few days, like in 1989!
The domino fall was fantastic, we were at Elizabeth Lueders Haus, opposite the Reichstagufer.
Actually, in the morning we were interviewed by RTL “What does Berlin mean for you?” “Were you here in 1989?”. Unfortunately not…that’s why we didn’t want to miss this 20th anniversary! In spite of an easyjet flight cancellation, wir waren dabei!!
Months ago MeinMann and I bought our flight tickets in ordet to “sei dabei”, to be there, in Berlin, on November 9th.
There are many reasons to it. The main one is to be physically there, since in 1989 I lived the events (fall of the Berlin wall, but also velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia) through the letters of my DDR and Czech pen pals but I wish I could have been there, side by side with my friends.
And of course we want to join the party, and live the Stimmung, the atmosphere of such a special day.
But there is also another reason. We want to escape to the viruses which are already incubating in Italy. I have already spotted extreme-right posters with the small icon in the corner: “against all walls”.
There are people here, in the Banana Republic, ready to hijack the celebrations. We don’t want to be in Italy on those days, even if we are very well equipped with firewalls against these viruses. We don’t want a beautiful day to be stained with Banana Republic rhetoric.
As Tabucchi says in an interview today “The end of totalitarian governments is a good thing to celebrate, but you have to be careful. Someone could use it to scrutinize other conquests and other freedoms”.
The laboratory of post-democracy, Italy, is not the place where I want to be on that day.
Looking forward to November’s celebrations in Berlin, I hope the city will remain – as many Italian bars in the German capital already are – a “Berlusconi freie Zone”.
A party-crash by Berlusconi would be another source of embarasment for many Italians (and not only). He should already have other parties on his schedule anyway.
Berlin invites all EU leaders to Berlin Wall celebrations
Berlin — Germany has invited all European Union leaders to attend ceremonies in November to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after an informal EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Merkel said: “I invited all colleagues from the European Union to take part in our celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Wall falling on November 9.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are among those expected in Berlin for the festivities, set to climax in a “freedom party” at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
The Soviet leader at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev, will also take part, as well as former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan.
One world leader not likely to attend is US President Barack Obama, who will be in Asia for a summit. Former president Bill Clinton will likely represent the United States instead.
AFP/Expatica
My friend L. is writing articles on the fall of the Berlin wall for her newspaper. Yesterday we talked over the phone and compared the best books we read on the topic, the best radio series we listened to…
This video feels just right now.
Two posts ago, we were the 1980s, the Cold War and the Iron Curtain were there and I was in love with both John Taylor and Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. Geez…I could not make up my mind! In Cold War attire, Le Bon had a bon enfant sovietique spy attitude.
So it seems quite appropriate, after last week’s full immersion on STASI’s Eric Mielke, to get to know more about Markus Wolf.
Listen to the whole story on Radio2’s “The STASI over Berlin”
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Thank you Mik for the heads up!
And well done to Radio 2 for the “View to a kill” cameo. After all, “a fatal kiss – is all we need”.