9 Nov 2009

Living Through History

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.  On this day in 1989, a tile in the “iron curtain” separating Eastern and Western Europe came down.  More than just a physical separation, it represented two different visions of what post-NAZI life should be like.  After the fall of the old older in Word War I, the organisation of state and values of society were very much up for grabs.  Whilst to a large extent they still are,  this remarkable event effectively saw the end of one era in this debate- the end of the “Cold War”.

That is the end of my analysis of the event itself or its historical implications.  Whilst I could do some historical research (which I haven’t) and come to an informed opinion, I could not reliably relate its relevance to those who personally witnessed it.  I do not, therefore, want use specific details of it to make specific (and possibly gerrymandered) philosophical or political points.  It will have meant different things, but no less dramatic, to people who do not share my political views.  It is best to leave interpretation to the primary sources (its witnesses) which are still being formed and recorded.  To do any different would take away from the event’s human element.

Nevertheless, it is safe to say that, for good or ill, history decided against the Soviet style state.  Whatever the relative merits of the new situation compared to old, or socialist state compared to a free market one, there is no doubting it was a turning point.  Yet, to think that this is something that has happened in my life time is truly mind-blowing!  As a four year old I wasn’t aware of it and even if I had, I wouldn’t understood the significance of it.  It is nonetheless difficult to conceive of something so ‘out of the natural order’ happening with in my natural life.  Seemingly world-altering or apocalyptic moments seem the stuff of history and distant memory.    They are just too discordant with my experience  of the world to process.

Part of the reason is that we pick out “historical events” that are discontinuous but experience our live as continuous.  We do not experience events as sudden jolts that can alter the fabric of existence but as transitions between what comes before and what comes after.  History is digital but we are analogue.  Due to this,  we (or maybe just I) are not left breathless by events such Crusades, because everything about their life seems different to us now.  It doesn’t seem odd that an event can change history when neither its predecessor or successor seem normal or inevitable to us.  It is the discontinuity amidst continuity that leaves me speechless.  How can one event be so life-changing when everything else is the same? 

To illustrate: It is hard to believe that the Holocaust was only 70 years ago!  It is hard to believe that [many of] the eldest generation of Jews are survivors and [many of] the eldest generation of Germans are perpetrators!  Why?  Because Germans life then is just so similar to our life now.  They listened to Beethoven as we do, attend university as we do, drive cars as we do, read a lot of the same novels and philosophy as we do and had many of our concerns.  How could they, who are so similar to us, have supported a NAZI state?  How could this 90 year old man, who is almost exactly like other 90 year old men, be guilty of war crimes?

It is just too hard to put into words those differences that are at once so slight and yet so massive.  It happened in my lifetime and yet is so other-worldly.   It is not yet something I can understand as history but not something that I can understand through my experience. I can only be silent in front of a Holocaust survivor or someone who was at the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Each person who gives an account may have divergent interpretations of experiences then and radically different political views now.  Yet one cannot argue with any person who was there about their interpretation (of course one can correct facts) of their experiences.  I can only be witness to what they have to say- people who in their very hearts and their very bones felt change.  They are the primary sources in the making.  Whilst I can only [and not yet] analyse history, they lived through history.