Today marks the 20th of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To celebrate the incredible impact of the event, Canisius College and 27 other colleges and universities provided faux Berlin Walls in visible sections of campus to remind students of how the world changed that day.
Canisius applied to take part in the project through the German Missions in the United States' "Freedom Without Walls" campaign. Each of the 28 college campuses are to offer faux Berlin Wall replicas, lectures, workshops, and aims to emphasize the importance of the fall of the world's most infamous Wall. The campaign also encourages students to decorate the walls. The best art will be chosen by the committee, and the winner will receive a trip for two to Berlin.
Prominent institutions like Columbia, Georgetown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and others were given permission to take part in the project.
Canisius College's National German Honor Society and Modern Languages department worked together all semester in preparation for the weeks events.
David Hasselhoff and Mikhail Gorbachev are featured on the Wall.
Students were allowed to put "sanctioned graffiti" on the Wall with administration approval.
Both sides of the wall were decorated by students.
The wall is about 56 feet long. One section was blown over last week.
Not all the "graffiti" required artistic training or paint. This student decided words were just as good of a memorial.
A Canisius College student takes it in.
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Canisius applied to take part in the project through the German Missions in the United States' "Freedom Without Walls" campaign. Each of the 28 college campuses are to offer faux Berlin Wall replicas, lectures, workshops, and aims to emphasize the importance of the fall of the world's most infamous Wall. The campaign also encourages students to decorate the walls. The best art will be chosen by the committee, and the winner will receive a trip for two to Berlin.
Prominent institutions like Columbia, Georgetown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and others were given permission to take part in the project.
Canisius College's National German Honor Society and Modern Languages department worked together all semester in preparation for the weeks events.
David Hasselhoff and Mikhail Gorbachev are featured on the Wall.
Students were allowed to put "sanctioned graffiti" on the Wall with administration approval.
Both sides of the wall were decorated by students.
The wall is about 56 feet long. One section was blown over last week.
Not all the "graffiti" required artistic training or paint. This student decided words were just as good of a memorial.
A Canisius College student takes it in.
The falling of the Berlin Wall is a celebrated occasion for the West; however it is not seen in the same light by people of Eastern Europe. Life was much better for many under communism, and many who lived in Eastern Europe lament the falling of the wall as a negative turning point in their lives. The collapse of the wall meant unemployment and the loss of housing for many, it meant that essential items were now scarcer than under communism. To many, the influence of the West has left them unemployed, disconnected, and left behind. Capitalism and Western Culture only benefits the few at the expense of the many. You can open almost any page of any American newspaper for numerous examples of the rich getting richer while the middle class slips closer to poverty and destitution. More Americans go jobless every day, they lose their homes, struggle with education and medical expenses, and have to sacrifice for basic essentials of every day living. There is scarcity under communism, but there is also parity and equality. This does not exist today in what we consider to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Your comments always make me laugh, thanks for another gem!
Seriously though, your ignorance of the ruling elite class that developed in Eastern Europe under Communism is interesting. Hopefully it's intentional.
Heather, three easy questions to help disabuse you of your rose colored outlook on communist economies:
1.) IF so many citizens of former communist nations lament the economic reforms that the fall of communism brought, as you claim, then why aren't there ANY formerly communist nations choosing to turn back the clock and re-embrace central planning? Shouldn't there be big political movements demanding a return to the old ways? Why aren't there?
2.) Why did the DDR (E. Germany) find it necessary to build this wall in the first place? Why was it considered so horrible to the communist rulers for their citizens to escape to the West? If, as you fantasize, the east had so much fairness to offer, so much social egalitarianism, then why did those citizens risk life and limb to escape? And why weren't any of the West Germans fighting to get into East Germany? If life under communism was so good, how come eaterners were all scheming to escape to the west and nobody in the west was bothering to defect to the east?
3.) Imagine you are Korean. Would you like to live in North Korea, where everyone (except for the tiny ruling clique) is treated equally? Or would you choose to live in South Korea, where there is great income disparity but at least no one starves (unlike millions in the north who are at risk of literally starving to death every year)? Follow up question: to what do you attribute the staggering difference in standard of living between North and South Korea?
'IF so many citizens of former communist nations lament the economic reforms that the fall of communism brought, as you claim, then why aren't there ANY formerly communist nations choosing to turn back the clock and re-embrace central planning? Shouldn't there be big political movements demanding a return to the old ways? Why aren't there?'
There have been a number of polls within the past year in formerly Communist countries that don't place capitalism in a positive light. (Our banking crisis certainly didn't burnish capitalism's reputation.) There is an interest in the Chinese model of controlled capitalism within a central government-planned structure. Can you deny the impact of sovereign wealth funds?
Big political movements aren't necessary to turn back the clock. Russia is a perfect example.
Russia may be turning back the clock politically speaking (repressive, strong state apparatus), but they are hardly doing so economically. The notion of 'to each according to his need, from each according to his ability' is long dead in the former USSR. It's more of a jungle, economically speaking, than the West.
As to China, despite the political monopoly, the economy has been unleashed by good old capitalism. There is wild disparity in wealth within China, something the communist founders abhorred. Deng Xiaoping famously decided that it was okay for some enterprising citizens to 'get rich first', en route to a society in which all would get rich. Comparatively speaking (compare the standard of living thirty years ago to today), the country has grown rich, particularly in the south. No longer does the state plan the whole economy. Private ownership is not only allowed, it's impossible to escape. Wages are set by private enterprises, not the government.
I'm not a laissez faire capitalist. I believe government has a central, vital role to play in leveling the playing field. But there is quite a difference between leveling the playing field and leveling outcomes. Every comment I have ever seen from Heather indicates someone who believes in leveling the outcomes. That is a recipe for economic catastrophe. I'm all for fair distribution of income, but that hardly means equal distribution.
I'm hoping this is a joke, usually I "Get" sarcasm, but in this case I need a sarcasm font or something.
There's no intentional sarcasm in her statements; she's very consistent in her posts. She's simply genuinely blinded by ideology, that's all. Part of being young and stupid, I guess.
Why anyone would cling to such thoroughly disproved economic theory is a wonderment in itself, but Heather marches on, intentionally oblivious to reality. Evidently she prefers daydreaming than studying history or economics.
My relatives lived in Poland through the communist reign and would take great offense to the statement that their lives had 'parity and equality'. Even with the problems of capitalism, they tell me they are much, much happier now and would never return to their former lives.
NPR/WBFO is airing a series this week during Morning Edition called 'After The Fall: 20 Years After The Berlin Wall'. The series documents individuals who were there during that time.
Saying that the falling of the wall is lamented by many in the former East is just blatantly ridiculous. There are older residents of the former GDR that lost stature and privilege as a result of the collapse of communism but they were complicitors with a state organism that routinely spied on every citizen for decades fueling an atmosphere of immense fear, mistrust and tension as the economy sputtered and failed to meet many basic needs as well as the heightened expectations. Hardly a fond memory. And your critique of capital is so tired and outdated as to parody itself. It's the familiar 'cult of victimhood' that was promulgated by second-rate revolutionaries to stir class resentment and revolt in the first half of the last century. But thanks for playing.