Abstract
Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall it is time for reflection, but it is also a time for us in the established nations of the European Union to express gratitude. We might not always appreciate the free nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but we owe them a great deal. Their success is shaping our future.
In the 1980s I often met with representatives of political parties created during the democratisation process of the early 1900s. I also met with exiled leaders of democratic governments established during the interwar years, governments which had fallen victim to either the Second World War or to the descent of the Iron Curtain across the continent.
The British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey is known for his prediction at the beginning of the First World War: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’. Grey lived to see the end of that war and the darkness that he foresaw. From 1914 it took three quarters of a century until the lights were once again lit and Europe as a whole would experience the development of democracy and national independence that would mark the turn of the century. By the fall of the Berlin Wall, Grey had been dead for 56 years.
From the perspective of Grey's remark, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked a more decisive historical shift than did German reunification and the fall of dictatorships alone. The fall of the Wall heralded Europe's return to a process of openness based on individual freedom, which unites both a European and a national identity. Aspiring nations that disappeared when new borders were drawn after the First World War, that perished in the Second World War or disappeared behind the Iron Curtain, are now part of the new Europe.
History has caught up with Europe and transformed society and geography into something completely different from what the political borders once led us to believe was self-evident. My country, Sweden, has gained new neighbours in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, as well as a united and open Germany. In the centre of Europe, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are two other new nations. For more than a 100 years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and during the existence of Yugoslavia, democracy in that region had been left behind and ethnic tensions preserved. Today, prospects for a peaceful development can be found in a continued European approach. Democracy and liberty are not defined by borders that represent obstacles to individual freedom; rather, borders preserve the independence of nations.
In my home town there is a pier, commonly known as ‘the end of the world’ simply because it is far from the city centre. In the past it was indeed, in a more profound sense, the end of the world. There, one world ended and on the other shore of the sea there was another world, with different societies, different people and a different culture. These two worlds never met, other than at negotiating tables and through trade agreements. Those who lived on the other side of the sea, in the other world, were isolated from our way of life. They were poor and oppressed, and, as part of the constant threat posed by the Warsaw Pact, they were also our enemies.
It was in their world that the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact planned military landings on Sweden's shores. They rehearsed invasions and we planned for our defence. They belonged to another world. We lived in a world defined by individual freedom, democracy and a market economy that gave us prosperity, innovations and cultural freedom.
Our world, the first world, was unchallenged in areas of economic advances, knowledge and science, and in the building of a sufficiently strong military capacity to deter external threats. Our world was based on values that shaped the rules of the international community. Socialist dictatorships did not set the rules; instead they adopted the language of democracy in an effort to persuade their people that they too lived in democratic societies.
Socialist dictatorships formed the other world, where people were subject to oppression of terrifying proportions. Through their ruthlessness and military escalation these regimes constituted a permanent threat to others.
In addition, there was a third world. It too was a consequence of borders drawn by the victorious powers of the First World War. Countries in this part of the world were independent, but their peaceful and democratic development was prevented by their dependence on former colonial powers and by the manner in which those powers had drawn their borders. This world posed a threat only to itself, in the form of ethnic conflicts and destructive regimes. In these underdeveloped one-party states people suffered from a lack of dynamic and peaceful change. Amazingly, the European Left portrayed these regimes as the most progressive of regimes.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the logic behind this world order became obsolete. The collapse of the Wall shaped a new world, with globalisation, democratisation, and openness across borders. It was a world that contained major variations, but also one where dynamic development was not limited in the way it had been in the old second and third worlds.
The fall of the Wall led to a unique historic development, the likes of which the world had never seen before. Never have so many taken the step from poverty to rapidly increasing wealth. Thirty years ago one billion people could enjoy a relative measure of prosperity; today four billion people are allowed to live in dignity thanks to economic growth.
Put in this perspective, today's economic crisis—as severe as it is—is only a dent in a long-term success story. Poverty remains only in parts of the world where religious fundamentalism has raised new walls, where globalisation and the market economy have not yet reached, or where oil has given ruling elites power to economically oppress their populations. The fall of the Wall not only gave more Europeans the market economy and the dynamics it provides; it also gave people all over the world opportunities and possibilities they had previously been denied.
The fall of the Wall was neither coincidental nor inevitable; it was the result of a force created by ideas of individual liberties, equality, the right to dignity, and a free and open society.
These ideas finally broke the legitimacy of the old order, even among the ruling elites. The Wall came down when it was no longer possible to justify the oppression, and when it was evident the regimes were not only morally corrupt, but could no longer maintain the illusion that they could provide any material or social advantage. The Wall fell not only as a physical divider of Berlin, but also as something that had come to mentally shape the world of its era. It would still be there if it had not been for all those who made the ideas of freedom and liberty their own, and had the courage to fight for them.
The Berlin uprising in 1953, the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Polish freedom movement of the 1980s are examples of how people stood up to oppression. Everyday resistance by dissidents, authors and others also made it clear that there were other ideas and ideals than those of their brutal rulers. The imprisoned, the deported and the executed were those who believed in the ideas of freedom and liberty, and we should not forget them. The Wall did not come down by itself; it was brought down by people who stood tall in the struggle for ideals the Communist regimes were trying to stamp out.
Today we may ask ourselves how the perverted ideology of these regimes, with such limited popular support, could have survived for decades and been allowed to define everyday life for an entire continent. There are several explanations.
First, there are those who believe oppression is justified. Totalitarian ideologies provide their followers with a belief that they have a right to use violence without respect for human life and dignity. Nothing matters but the fulfilment of the totalitarian ideals. Peoples' dreams are deemed a nuisance in a society aspiring to be perfect. That is why Communist parties in the West kept saluting their comrades in Eastern and Central Europe, continuing to sending telegrams of well wishes until the postal addresses ceased to exist and the messages were returned.
Second, although the oppression and the brutality could not be hidden and the failure of the socio-economic experiment was obvious, Communists in the West could always find signs of progress in the East. To them the values of freedom and democracy were of minor importance compared to other goals and ideals. Without doubt such support helped to maintain the oppression. The debate in the West on the success and advantages of Communist dictatorships concealed the true extent of the oppression.
Third, totalitarian regimes prosper and survive through fear and terror. They are led by psychopaths who do not hesitate to use deadly force against innocent people. This encourages the psychopathic strain in others. Those who are ready to kill and destroy always have an advantage over those who only want to discuss and question. Those who do not consider human life and freedom as important exercise power over those who believe in human dignity and the right of people to shape their own lives. A small minority who are ready to kill can therefore oppress the majority.
It is a basic instinct for us human beings to adjust and rationalise our own reality. Tell us often enough that freedom is oppression and oppression is freedom, and we will begin to act as if it were true. We can be fooled because we want to be—in order not to risk the lives of family members, for example, or in order to avoid going through life knowing we have been subjugated.
A fourth reason why the oppression could last such a long time is that its faults and insufficiencies were excused as inevitable; the regimes were reaching higher goals and greater ideals. Means justify the ends. Some will have to kill their lives in order to accomplish the great common project. Every society has traitors, driven by self-interest masquerading as pragmatism, who will claim they are doing good.
We all lose out when one person's freedom is killed for a greater cause. We all have a right to individual freedoms simply by being individuals and citizens. The rule of law is based on our rights as individuals, not because we are always right, but because we all have rights.
In the 1980s, when I worked with supporters of various Baltic independence movements, it struck me how concerned they were about the independence of their states and the legal acts which once constituted the foundation for their independence. At the time this felt irrelevant to me, since independence was no longer a reality for them. The real issue, I thought, was Soviet oppression. With the arrogance of a dictatorship, the Soviet-supported regimes ignored any legal perspective. But to those who lived under this oppression, legality was something to hold on to; they had the law on their side and saw it as proof they were right. The lesson to learn from those who stood up against oppression is that even if the rule of law is trampled, this cannot be accepted and there must be no room for compromise. It was this refusal to compromise that brought down the Wall.
In the West the Left used to portray the demand for free and fair democratic elections in the East as unrealistic. Compromises had to be made. A way should be found to co-exist within a system promoting common security. In Sweden, many on the Left denied that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied countries and believed that people in those countries only desired a bit more cultural independence. Some were even impressed by the Communist regimes' capacity to create wealth that equalled that created by market economies.
Many were ready to compromise on freedom, at least other people's freedom. But to compromise on others' freedom is to compromise on freedom itself. This is what we must learn from the era of the Wall and the Iron Curtain. By compromising, some in the West contributed to continued oppression; they gave the dictatorships an aura of legitimacy.
The Wall came down because enough people told the truth. The Wall was built upon the justification of oppression leading to humiliation and poverty. If a sufficient number of Central and Eastern European dissidents had not had the courage to express their views, the Wall would still exist. If they had not been seen and supported by us in the West, they would not have had the strength to do what they did.
In Europe it was our political family, our political parties built on ideals of freedom and liberty, who insisted we had a responsibility to stand up to oppression and to support those doing so in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Socialist and Social Democratic movements in Western Europe did not share this view. If not enough people on both sides of the Iron Curtain had exposed the Communist system for what it was, it is likely some dictatorships would exist to this day.
All of this is worth remembering when we look at the walls of our time. The decline of democracy in Russia is creating new tensions and conflicts. People are being oppressed and humiliated by fundamentalist and despotic Islamist regimes. If we do not see the oppression for what it really is, and if we do not force the oppressors to view themselves in light of what they really are, then the lack of respect for basic freedoms and rights can spread to other countries. All around the world new walls are being built between peoples and countries.
Today's conflicts between democracy and dictatorship are more out in the open than before. What we have learned from the events leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall is important as we prepare for future battles for freedom and justice. Political movements placing freedom first are those best equipped to protect and defend our civilisation and human dignity. This is a heavy responsibility.
This is why we feel gratitude towards the people of Central and Eastern Europe—not only to those who stood up against the oppression, not only to those who tore down the Wall, but also to all who in the past 20 years have helped to build new and free societies. We in the old West have learned much from their experience; they have forced us to rediscover some of the ideals on which our own societies are based. They have caused us to value anew all that we have taken for granted: the very essence of democracy, the importance of the rule of law and the respect for human dignity and individual freedom.
In a mere 20 years they have built prosperous societies with growth levels that Western Europe has not seen in decades. It is true that the current economic crisis has affected the whole continent, but there is reason to believe the turn-around will be faster and stronger in those economies that are characterised by low taxes and limited regulations. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe have given the rest of us a lesson in the superiority of the market economy as a creator of wealth. Enterprises in the West have faced fierce competition, but this has created incentive for them to restructure and become more efficient. This, in turn, will give them an advantage in an ever increasing global competition.
Finally, the enlargement of the European Union is changing the EU's agenda from protection of what once was to forward-looking policies of deregulation and, where essential, cooperation. The 10 new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe have renewed the EU and will continue to do so. By setting an example they have made all of Europe better.