Is it really 20 years ago today, that the Berlin Wall fell?
and Sargeant Pepper came to play?
I remember exactly where I was, do you?
Me, I was sitting on a sofa (probably with
an empty Ben & Jerrys pot beside me,
and before I knew it was made with pure cream)
watching CNN on the television in the lounge
of the Visiting Scholars House at Brown University,
somewhat amazed. My mouth fell open.
I had been to Hungary several years before in a VW Beetle,
in a dash across europe to visit a Hungarian scientist friend,
(courtesy of a 2 hour passport renewal by Canada House)
so I knew the iron barrier was real, that Trebants were classics,
the brick museum was only open on the first Monday of the month
the British Embassy was advising not to eat the honey
(aftermath of Cernobyl) and Hungarian people were stoic
and inherently friendly.
The Eastern Bloc border guards were also efficiently active with their prod
wires on the way out at Hegyeshalom; and the electric eyes
in the toilets, the question was a man or a woman watching?
Back at Brown Scholar House that night
The thing I remember the most was my fellow house guests
as they returned home from their various evening
occupations..an international crowd as it happened,
about 15 minutes apart the reactions were all the same:
A pair of Russian lady economists from Moscow State University:
"What? Unbelievable? and their mouths dropped open, amazed.
A single Chinese lady
"What?" her mouth dropped open, amazed,
after a while of silence
"You know we had something like this happen in China."
'Tiananmen?" "You knew about this, I didn't know?"
An individual American and an individual Brazilian chap, I think,
both their mouths also opened wide, equally amazed.
The Russian ladies were the same ladies that had been taken
to the Mall with me as a favour by my sections secretary
the previous weekend, and were convinced the lines of cars
for sale on 'Auto-mile"on the way to Fall River was a US plot,
an elaborate piece of propaganda.
"These cars are awaiting delivery?" "No they are for sale"
"These cars are not already promised?" "No they are available
to buy now." "They are on a waiting list?"
"Nobody owns them", "So these are SPARE capacity, Nooo?"
"This is a western trick". "No, you can walk in with dollars,
buy one and drive off".
"Yes." One was convinced and the other was not.
One of these economists suggested this would cause big problems
if people at home in Russia knew. Well the surprises were
coming thick and fast that week.
The Wall was of course the really big news
and I heard faint talking into the night.
Twenty years on, I am not the Ivy league academic,
or even employed, and not even sure Capitalism survived
looking around at the government supported
economics of the present order:
Capital gains and socialist losses!
What I do know is we now have more pressing problems
than rival national political ideologies, though the consequences
were real enough for those that suffered under the Soviet regime.
The pressing things now are resources, finite earth, population impact,
atmospheric pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity
and potential collapse of food systems such as honey bees,
salmon and tuna;
the food-chain predators are the mine canaries now
...the new world order is in disarray so far
and looks like a rocky road to come;
Why do economists insist on growth, when steady state
is what we are really after?
Why do we grow and burn biofuel when we should bury it
in order to remove CO2 from the atmosphere?
Tough love but we have nuclear and tidal-wind renewables.
There are still many challenges in Eden,
twenty years after the Cold Wall came down.
