Archive: Freedom! The Berlin Wall

• Share

(7 of 7)

Yesterday, with the Wall still locking people in, such talk might have been hard to believe. Today, with the barrier chipped, battered and permeable, it is a good deal easier to accept. In the end it does not matter whether Eastern Europe's Communists are reforming out of conviction or if, as one East German protest banner put it, THE PEOPLE LEAD -- THE PARTY LIMPS BEHIND. What does matter is that the grim, fearsome Wall, for almost three decades a marker for relentless oppression, has overnight become something far different, a symbol of the failure of regimentation to suppress the human yearning for freedom. Ambassador Herder declared that the Wall will soon "disappear" physically, but it might almost better be left up as a reminder that the flame of freedom is inextinguishable -- and that this time it burned brightly.