Fall of the Wall 35 years on: a new divided world?
On the evening of 9 November 1989, the authorities of the communist German Democratic Republic opened the border crossing points to West Germany and West Berlin. Less than a year later, Germany was unified and the East-West conflict seemed to be a thing of the past. The historic date prompts Europe's press to take a critical look at old and new dividing lines.
Deep rifts over values and mentality
The pro-Kremlin Izvestia emphasises how much still separates Germans in the east of the country from those in the west:
“Dissatisfaction with the German government's migration policy is growing in the east of the country in particular. Interestingly, according to German media, people in eastern Germany also clearly reject the idea of increasing arms supplies to Kyiv. ... Three and a half decades of integration of the East German federal states in which the specific values and mentalities of their populations weren't taken into account have deepened the division between east and west. ... The coalition that is still in power for now has only exacerbated this problem. The internal mental divide is likely to become a long-term domestic political challenge for the Federal Republic of Germany - regardless of which government replaces the current one.”
Enemies of freedom never rest
Democracy, which once triumphed with the fall of the Berlin Wall, is once again under pressure worldwide, Jyllands-Posten stresses:
“Russia's murderous and amoral war in Ukraine is being waged to deprive Ukrainians of the democratic rights and the opportunity for national self-determination that the citizens of the GDR gained in one fell swoop 35 years ago. China's totalitarian system, today led by Xi Jinping, ensured that China's wall against political change remained intact with the massacre at Tiananmen Square in early summer 1989. Today the Chinese and Russians, together with Iran and North Korea, represent a backward-looking international alliance that also exerts a pull on populists in Europe.”
Fear of nuclear war is back
The optimism after the fall of the Berlin Wall has vanished, La Tribune de Genève laments:
“The logic of the two hostile blocs had been overcome. The concept of nuclear war had been relegated to the realm of fiction or history books and the EU was expanding inexorably eastwards, promising lasting peace on the continent. ... Now, 35 years later, and even before Trump's return to power, the world is more polarised than it ever has been since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The war with Vladimir Putin's hegemonic Russia is at Switzerland's doorstep and the nuclear threat is once again weighing on the world. The optimistic phase that began after the fall of the Berlin Wall is over and the time of complacency now seems a distant memory.”
The breakthrough of globalisation
RFI's Romanian Service says 9 November 1989 marked a global turning point - at least for a while:
“The fall of the Berlin Wall was the beginning of a world of openness and freedom, with America as a beacon of democracy and human rights. A world in which international law would take precedence over brute force - under America's supervision. A world in which goods and ideas circulated freely. We called this phenomenon 'globalisation'. It wasn't perfect, but it freed billions of people from poverty and oppression. Today, democracy and human rights are in decline. Tyranny is spreading. Populism is on the rise. 'Globalisation' has become a dirty word.”