Re: [xmca] Berlin Wall

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

thanks for the memories, bruce.
I assume that there is no possibility of communicating with next generations
about this. And so it has always been? Or are there some
optimists out there who can recount counter-examples? I hope.
mike

On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Bruce Robinson <bruce@brucerob.eu> wrote:

> Interestingly, tonight I went to a seminar on the fall of the wall and what
> has happened since with five German speakers. One, an interesting character
> called Gerd Koenen related that he was working with an American NBC news
> team. He said that when the news came that the border gates had been opened
> in Berlin, the Americans instantly believed it, while the Germans were
> extremely sceptical and their news teams didn't appear on the streets until
> a bit later. He also spoke about the different attitudes, with the Americans
> thinking something like 'Hurray, we knew we beat communism one day'. Several
> of the speakers talked about how far apart the two lots of Germans had grown
> over the 40 years of the GDR.
>
> I was in Berlin at New Year 89-90 (as I was in 88-9 and 90-91) and managed
> to get hauled up onto a bit of the wall just behind the Brandenburg Gate. I
> also took a photo of a smiling young East German border guard looking
> through a hole in the wall and talking to the people on the Western side.
> There was also a clear presence of dissident slogans and organisations in
> the exhibition area under the Fernsehturm on the Alexanderplatz. An amazing
> atmosphere but also a feeling that nobody was really in control of what
> would happen next, which led to the initiative falling to those who seemed
> to provide the most immediate solution.
>
> Bruce R
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Whitson" <twhitson@UDel.Edu>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 10:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Berlin Wall
>
>
>  I just saw a brief TV clip, which got me wondering:
>>
>> I don't know this in any scientific way, but I would not be surprised if
>> people in the USA are under an impression that the Berlin Wall came down
>> because of Ronald Reagan.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 9 Nov 2009, David Preiss wrote:
>>
>>  Dear colleagues
>>>
>>> Does anybody know of a good poem to remember the (fall of the) Berlin
>>> Wall?
>>>
>>> And / or the Stasi and the damage of / to the human soul?
>>>
>>> I was looking for some but was unable to find.
>>>
>>> 20 years is too early, maybe?
>>>
>>> Or, beyond the fireworks, did we already forget?
>>>
>>> David Preiss
>>> ddpreiss@me.com
>>> http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>>
>> Tony Whitson
>> UD School of Education
>> NEWARK  DE  19716
>>
>> twhitson@udel.edu
>> _______________________________
>>
>> "those who fail to reread
>>  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>>                  -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>>
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>
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