I have a piece of the Berlin Wall which I won in a contest, shortly after it came down, some essay contest in Middle School having to do with freedom. I was 13. I remember reading such inspiring tales of bravery, people being packed into trunks to be smuggled through the checkpoints, and the description of a cold and grey East Germany, and a warm, colorful West.
I wish I could come visit, Fran. I would love to have you and Gab as guides. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:07 PM, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote: > > An Exhibition has just opened in the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt" in > Berlin with the title, "Globale Geschichten - Global Stories", whose > basic theme is the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. > > Yesterday evening, the historian, Timothy Garton Ash presented an > historical hypothesis. Up to 1989, Berlin played a central role in > global political symbolism. On top of the ruins of the centre of Nazi > fascism, one could travel in ten minutes from a liberal western > democracy to a communist centre. The fall of the Wall in November 1989 > was an event in which Berlin reached a symbolic climax as a world > focus. The aftermath saw the beginning of a new era in which the world > was no longer determined by the conflict of European ideologies, > centrally in Europe, and became simultaneously more united > (globalisation) and splintered into multi-polar interests, politics > and cultures. The Age of European Ideologies, beginning in 1917 with > the October Revolution, was over, and the world-wide significance of > Europe - and Berlin as a symbol of the clash of ideologies - had > disappeared. > > (For those who understand German, the following podcast goes into more > details: > http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2009/02/20/dlf_20090220_1752_1c92165e.mp3) > > The basic function of historians is to structure the past, to discover > (invent?) structures, lay out connections of significance and thus, by > putting forward interpretative hypotheses, help us to understand our > world(s) and ourselves better. There are always many more than one > model available in history and it is the interaction of various models > and interpretations which keep historians in work, discussion, and > controversy with each other. > > I find new historical models and interpretations fascinating because > they can give us a sudden new view on the world as it was and as it is > today. Garton Ash's interpretation, for example, takes us beyond many > conventional views of historical structures (from a European point of > view) which focusses our attention on eras delineated by the two world > wars of the 20th. Century. If we follow his model, WWI is better seen > as the last gasp of the 19th. Century world order and WWII as the > cataclymic military expression of an ongoing experiment in defining > the world according to ideology. I remember having a similar > experience while reading Fernand Braudel's masterpiece, "The > Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II." > > From the point of view of the historian, the events since 1989 are too > recent to seriously comment on. Trends and structures develop over > time, and we need a certain distance before we can recognise patterns. > Still, I suspect that future historians will at least be organising > one chapter into (working titles);1989-2008: Globalisation, Phase I, > or, 1989-2008: The Dominance of the Dollar, or 1989-2008: The Period > of the Mighty Financial Markets. > > Francis > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
