The Wall

"You must have been so happy when The Wall came down."

Must I?

Well, I was not particularly happy for the banal reason that I was asleep. How ignorant of me. How could I live not even half a mile away from the Berlin Wall and sleep through its destruction?

I say, while smiling, "Sorry, I am such a historical disappointment."

Your warm smile starts to fade a bit.

"I was asleep.", I say.

Your smile is gone.

"How could you just sleep through it, you missed the most important moment of our times."

I feel it is necessary to justify myself, to comfort you.

"Well you know, nobody I knew had a phone back then, I didn’t even have radio or TV and usually went to bed quite early, since I worked as a mailman."

Now you look sad, ready to cry out with compassion, "Oh my, I forget how terrible life must have been under the communist dictatorship".

I see myself through your eyes; hungry, barely clothed (or at least utterly unfashionable - which seems to be almost the same) shaking in the harsh wind coming from Siberia. Having no phone turns into an evil Stasi-monster ripping the phone lines out of the socket, grinning sinisterly while stealing my little short wave radio as well.

Who am I to destroy your fairy tale world vision; your pretty illusions about a world black and white? Your ideas about the Cold War seem so utterly unfazed by real events and time. Doctor Zhivago meets the dancing-on-The-Wall pictures from 1989, mixed with moments of newer movies like Good Bye Lenin or The Life of Others.

You work in the film business and yet you want to believe in the authenticity and singular truth of created images. You made it through the first 40 years of your life without changing your world view too much. Maybe I am a tiny bit jealous. Living in oblivion must be so splendid.

But then you spoil it all by continuing to tell me how I should have felt. Funny, I never get the urge to tell others how they should feel. Maybe the problem of modern western democracy is, that its backdrop is mainly Christianity, an extreme proselytizing belief system.

You watched the Berlin Wall fall on TV and this certainly made you an expert in other people’s feelings. You even felt some guilt about having your mind occupied by wondering how you could get laid, while I together with millions of other people was trying to shake off the chains of oppression (your words, though I doubt there are really your words).

I start laughing and see that I hurt you. I bring it down to a giggle and try to explain: that getting laid was big on my agenda too, that the opening of The Wall was not the happiest moment in my life, that it did not start the peaceful revolution, but rather ended it, that I had other problems and concerns and that traveling to West Germany was not something I particularly longed for.

Paris, on the other hand, would have been something else.

"But", you protest, "finally you got freedom, and life must have been terrible without it."

Suddenly I feel very tired. Is it really my job to kick you out of thought-wonderland?

"When was the last time you felt terrible because somebody took some freedom away from you?", I ask.

You look confused, doubting that this has ever happened.

"Anti-terror laws, surveillance, information collection computer programs, political correctness used to forbid satire, jokes and criticism...", I try to help.

"But, that is different", you insist, "it is for our own protection, and it is not fair to hurt the feelings of millions with tasteless jokes"

"That is pretty much what the communists told us."

"You can NOT possibly compare that!"

"Why not?"

You insist that you are interested in my opinion, but you tell me, "You cannot compare an evil communist dictatorship with our open, free society."

It confuses me that lots of people born in the western world have a very distorted idea of freedom, also most of them do not listen.

"I actually did not compare the two systems, even though I cannot see any reason why this would-be taboo. I only showed that the argument for pushing through an infringement on public and personal civil liberties always seems the same. The use of fear is very popular if you want people to give up their freedom. Also, I do not think that the hurt feelings, mostly of religious people, are a good excuse for forbidding satire or any other form of expression (never mind that religious people often hurt much more than just somebody’s feelings). Freedom of speech, by the way, does not mean that you have to agree or even like what is said. It means that you tolerate it, nothing more.

To quote Rosa Luxemburg, a German communist, some of whose books were forbidden in communist Germany, “Freedom is always and foremost the freedom of the people who think differently” (my translation from German).

Now I feel exhausted. Oh, good old times when alcohol was still my friend…

"But you did not have this freedom when you grew up!", you almost desperately yell.

"No, I did not have it, maybe that's why I value it so much. That's why I see how much of this freedom you have already given up. That's why I do not believe that giving up freedom makes our society safer nor that giving up criticism and satire makes us more tolerant."

When I ask you if you ever indeed doubted that you are on the right, on the good side, you are speechless.

Thank God, we have to go back to work. I really need a break.