East Meets West

By: Gowhar Geelani

November, 2009

The German capital Berlin is abuzz with celebrations. It is the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall. Exactly twenty years earlier, the entire world had witnessed this historic fall, and eleven months later in October, 1990, the re-unification of East and West Germany.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the German capital. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are amongst other dignitaries who will attend events at Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Such is the importance of the event that in her maiden speech in the US Congress recently, Ms Merkel - who grew up in East Germany - thanked America for her role in the fall of the Wall and the subsequent re-unification.

Many South Asians living in Germany at that time had also witnessed the fall. Some had watched it on television screens and others listened to the great news on radio sets.

Amjad Ali, a senior broadcaster, was one among them. Ali, originally from Lahore, Pakistan, recalls when in his apartment in the colourful city of Cologne, he saw the footage on television. "All I could utter was 'unbelievable!'" he says.

Ali had come to Germany in 1982 for studies. Before moving to Cologne he had been studying in West Berlin for many years.

Like many other foreign visitors, the Wall would attract him. Recalling the pictures, paintings, slogans and messages inscribed on the Wall, he says: "The slogans were mostly about the liberation movements of Africa, Latin America and Asia. Some paintings showed people from East crossing over to the West and vice-versa through an imaginary hole. Messages were mostly about the possible re-unification of East and West."

"The wall was a symbol of terror and fear. For me the pictures inscribed on the walls were unbelievable. I also remember seeing slogans about former Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. I could touch the wall from the West side. I still remember many pictures, slogans and cartoons," he says. "Afterwards it was amazing to see many South Asians selling the pieces of the same Wall near the world famous Brandenburg Gate as souvenirs," he adds.

Modern-day Berlin bears few reminders of the concrete walls, barbed wire, observation posts and the 'death strip' which ran through its centre until 20 years ago.

Ali says that he has uttered the word 'unbelievable' only twice in his life so far. On the fall of Berlin Wall and September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. "These were the events when people believed that the world will not be the same again." It really wasn't.

In West Berlin, Amjad Ali would often visit the iron curtain. "At some places I could see the soldiers of East and West in eye-ball to eye-ball contact. From the West side there was not much restriction, but on the other side there were many."

Ali says when he came to Germany the existence of East Germany and West Germany was a reality. Nobody would believe that this will change, but it did.

Arunava Chaudhuri, a German national of Indian origin, was 13 at the time of the fall and was studying in Kolkata, India. His parents broke the news to him on phone. "Even as a child I was politically very conscious. I made it a point to record the news of the fall of the Iron Curtain on my school note-book," recalls Chaudhuri.

Had the world really changed after the fall of Wall? Well, Germany had changed for sure.

"When I came back to Germany in 1990 there was a different mood here. A feeling that we are united and sort of unbeatable," says Chaudhuri. Now in his early 30's, Chaudhuri recalls the feeling amongst his young West German friends about East Germany before the fall. "East Germany: the evil brother. And then I hear the news about re-unification and oneness. It was a great feeling for my parents who originally came from West Bengal. Bengal, too, had suffered greatly because of the pain of the Partition in 1947. My parents fully understood what the separation and re-unification meant."

These days Chaudhuri works in Berlin. "You always see and witness history in Berlin. In a certain sense it is still divided." But, Chaudhuri has plans to celebrate the event with his friends Monday evening. "Yes, it will be celebrations all around!"

Despite re-unifications some scars remain intact.

Kishwar Mustafa, a Pakistani journalist working in Germany, says that though the physical wall and barrier don't exist anymore, the mental barrier remains very much intact. "Even after the re-unification many East Germans believe they're being discriminated against by West Germans. The mental barrier hasn't vanished," she says. "In West Berlin many believe they are economically on a higher pedestal and intellectually rich, while in East many say they are deliberately being left out," says Mustafa.

In an interview with Spiegel Online, Mr Lech Walesa, the man who led 'Solidarnosc' (the first non-communist trade union movement) says that the collapse of European Communism actually started in the Polish shipyards and that it was good that Mikhail Gorbachev was a 'weak politician'. Mr Walesa later on went to become the president of Poland. Former Russian president Gorbachev, and former Polish opposition leader and President Walesa, are also due to attend the celebrations in Berlin.

So this is the good news from Europe but the news from Asia is not so pleasant.

In 1989, when the world saw the end of European Communism, the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and barriers and borders vanishing, the Indian side of Kashmir witnessed an armed rebellion in the same year.

Twenty years hence, not much has changed. There are no celebrations in Kashmir! The line of control (LoC) dividing two parts of Kashmir remains there. Big promises were made to make it irrelevant. In April 2005, after a yawning gap of 58 years, the trans-Kashmir Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road was re-opened and the 'historic' bus service started to ensure that divided families meet; but the pace of peace process tested patience. Not much has changed.

Critics say that the tense relationship between India and Pakistan has rendered this bus service only a 'symbolic gesture'. Will the time ever come when like Berlin Wall, all curtains and barricades dividing a son from his mother, a brother from his sister, and a daughter from his father will vanish and become irrelevant to make this world more peaceful and prosperous?