Insley jose Wickham Nunez

The Berlin wall

LIFE AFTER THE BERLIN WALL" Live from the Berlin Wall on the most historic night in this Wall's history, it is perhaps the most important announcement made in Central Europe since the end of World War II. Everything seemed really simple on November 9th, 1989. In 1989, communism's iron grip weakened as uprisings took place from Berlin to Beijing, with vastly different results. Everybody thought China would get more liberal as it became richer; no one thought it would go the other way. The People's Liberation Army was gunning down protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square; it was like being in a war zone. But while the forward momentum could not be denied, there were new complications yet to come. The economy was in shambles. In the end, I think that was what created the opportunity for Vladimir Putin. Tiananmen Square is why today China has a real dictatorship. Back in 1989, we envisioned a world free of Cold War tensions; that's not the case today. History has a kind of fluidity that, when we think one thing is going to happen, results often end up anything but what we expect. The world as I had known it all of my adult life changed and changed fundamentally beginning in 1989. In man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over.