“Even those you are taught to fear can become great friends and any barrier can be overcome if human courage is strong”. This piece here is truly inspirational

Eduard

I do so remember those days and all the getting under the desks and drills – along with commercials to not leave your roller skates on the stairs because the Grandmother who lived with you might fall down the stairs.

Thank you for this great post and for honoring the Fall of the wall and the perseverance of courage and diversity action.

Fear is so hard to overcome.

I am on kindlike.us too! Great stuff these days…and I just signed Architect Rachel Armstongs Charter for Compassion..
Seems like the world is changing for the better – good ideas

Thank you Bunny for sharing my story, and to all for the kind words of encouragement. When I realized it had been 20 years since the Brandenburg Gate was opened, I started having all sorts of memories. I had some vacation time on my hands in early December, and there was still so much going on in Berlin. I nearly jumped on a plane just to see it for myself. Instead I spent a week in London and Dublin, which also turned out to be a fascinating experience–but I’ll save that for another blog post.

Tim

Tim, Although I am not westener, I have read about the Cold War and how fear was a dominate factor. It’s hard to believe how we -humans- were thinking and some of us still think in this way, but at last the The Berlin Wall fell down and hopefuly for other walls too worldwide.

Thanks Bunny for introducing this post for us, the readers

Hicham, fear is an emotion that many of us do not understand. There is rational fear, when harm is imminent, and irrational fear, when harm is conceptual. People fail to see the difference and react to irrational fear as though their very life was at stake! I only wish that people could see how scare tactics are used to manipulate them because fear deters kindness. It is difficult to be kind toward that which you fear.

Tim

I lived 19 years in communism, in Romania. The Romanian Revolution caught me in the middle of the events, as a soldier in Timisoara. I can totally relate to what you write here. I found that a lot of what I endured during the cold war and harsh years of communism prepared me to become a better person now.

Dragos, I would be very interested in hearing stories of your life in Romania. Do you blog? I think many people would be interested to learn more about Romanian culture.

I hosted concerts in my home for several years and one of the guests, Victor, emigrated from Romania and became a good friend. Victor brought me a bottle of Tuica once–oh, my. It’s potent stuff, but delicious!

Tim

Hello Tim and Bunny.

Tim, I agree with most of your sentiments here except that enforced socialism (government forced) is wrong. I favor a free society where any group that wants to band together and live however they want is fine as long as every other group is allowed to make their own choices as well. The is that enforcing a single way of life on hundreds of millions, or in the case of some countries now, billions of people is wrong.

I think technology and travel and the internet is going to make it all irrelevant soon anyway. Governments can no longer keep up with the people. They move to slow to control people that way in the future.

Stephen, I think what I would prefer is a government that organizes our society enough to provide for the common good, but stays the heck out of our personal lives. A government ideally functions as a tool of the people, rather than the people being a resource for the government.

I’m not able to offer views of other cultures and their governments, such as that in China. I have a western view, but I’ve been outside of my own culture enough to know that my perspective is skewed, and thus I do not fully trust it. China has a state-controlled media. We have a business-controlled media. Is one really any better, or different than the other?

Hi Tim

I grew up in the Uk during the 70’s and 80’s so probably had a similar brainwashing about the threat of the Soviet Union. The main difference was that the system was called ‘communism’ rather than ’socialism’ for the probable reason that in Western Europe, socialism is very widespread.

I’ve lived in Eastern Europe (Poland and now Romania) since 1994 and it became clear to me that the main problem in so-called communist countries was the form of government – ie totalitarianism. How communism was operated was far from perfect too, but that was secondary to the rule of fear, control and state intervention in pretty much every decision.

I completely understand why this form of government is so alien to countries such as the USA, but have always been baffled why ‘communism/socialism’ seems to stir up so much bad feeling. It’s hard to find any reasonable debate about it as it stimulates such hatred. Seems to be a pretty bad insult to call an American a ’socialist’ to say nothing of callign them a ‘communist’!

I think part of the Western propaganda ’success’ was to deliberately mix up two very different concepts – totalitarianism and communism (or socialism). So that when many people think of socialism they automatically associate it with force and loss of freedom. It’s just as possible to have enforced capitalism or right of centre policies (I’m thinking Nazi Germany in the 1930’s).

Anway .. I for one am delighted the Wall came down or I wouldn’t have the chance to live here.

You make some excellent points, Ian. It’s interesting to consider that a pure communism isn’t really that different from a direct democracy in that whomever chooses to participate in the decision-making process has a voice in the outcome. The difference has more to do with wealth and property, and communism definitely disfavors the wealthiest citizens.

Personally, I favor a direct democracy, and I believe that we live in an age when it’s not unrealistic for everyone to vote on issues that matter to them, rather than electing a representative who campaigns on promises of supporting popular views. But if we could have another form of governing that cultivated abundance and equality, I’m all for that. It won’t happen in my lifetime, but perhaps we can get our kids and grandkids thinking about the possibilities.

I’m very impressed with the quality of the community and discourse here on Bunny’s blog. I would like to personally extend an invitation to all of you to see what Bunny did to create a profile and RSS feed of her blog on http://www.KindLike.Us as another channel for reaching other readers. It’s not a huge community yet, but I am building for the future–the long-term goal is to create a network of kind, compassionate, and thoughtful people. I don’t need it to happen overnight.

Tim

I want to thank Tim for this wonderful article and I’m truly touched by all these comments.
War is a horrible thing but those who survive their country being invaded or taken away have known the fear and did what was necessary to survive.
I watched a German movie over the weekend and for those of you who know the language or don’t mind reading subtitles, I highly recommend it.
It is based on the true story of a woman journalist. Marta Hillers, who chose to remain in Berlin during the Soviet invasion.
A Woman In Berlin
In my personal life being born in America, I feel a compassion to all countries that have had a history of war but a respect for those who survived.
In past conversations with friends there is a sigma still for those who have a family history to reflect upon. Bitterness for some generations later. For others they only want to get past it and look at a brighter future.

Marta’s memoirs were first released in 1954 but anonymously. Do to the negative reaction of her book, it was only after her death it would it be published again. In 2003, Marta Hillers became known as the author.
Thank You all ~
Bunny

For further reading: http://historytodaymagazine.blogspot.com/2008/10/woman-in-berlin-fate-of-german-victims.html