Impediments to Freedom...25-Years After the Berlin Wall

Sunday, November 9, 2014, will mark the 25th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall - that monstrously constructed barrier erected in 1961 as a demarcation between constraint and freedom - communism and democracy. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 allowing access to freedom for millions of East Germans, who were harnessed behind the Iron Curtain, and who were eager to reintegrate with their brothers and sisters in West Berlin, a free and economically flourishing city enjoying the prosperity of democracy.

But as the World celebrates the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the curtailing of the Iron Curtain, today, stark events and doctrines of barriers to freedom still remain in place. In Hong Kong, communist China continues to deny universal suffrage to the electorate of the former British colony in a harsh endorsement of the people restraint policies that led to the erection of the Berlin Wall. On Mainland China, the Beijing government maintains an iron grip upon all aspects of speech that advocate twenty-first century freedoms.

In Ukraine, Russian actions of meddling into the affairs of an expressed Western democratic nation has brought agitation, death and sovereignty concerns to Ukrainians. On and under the waters off Sweden and in the air over Europe, Russia, with a view to resurrecting a bygone empire, prowls seeking instability upon which to pounce. 

But history must not repeat itself. The destruction of the Berlin Wall ushered in a great leap to freedom by humankind. The crumbling of the wall also served notice that humankind elected freedom over ideological propaganda. Hence, twenty-five years from now, a celebration of the freedom of the people of Hong Kong, Ukraine, Syria, Russia, Myanmar and China would be most fitting.