November this year – 2009 – will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. No doubt there will be epic celebrations in memory of the event, as well there should be.

November this year – 2009 – will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. No doubt there will be epic celebrations in memory of the event, as well there should be. For more than twenty years friends, family and loved ones were separated against their will, people died for freedom and the world watched with apparent apathy.

On November 9th 1989 the people had had enough. Their patience snapped, the wall was cracked and folk began tearing at it like furious animals backed into a corner. I was four years old and sat on the sofa next to my momma with my older sister and brother who were occupying the other chairs in our living room. We were all watching the news and I managed to pick up from my family’s conversations that something very important had happened. However, being four years old coupled with the fact that whatever it was that had happened didn’t involve me or my immediate family; I was somewhat unconcerned with the quiet anticipation of whatever it was.

I remember watching the news on TV every evening with my family, usually after supper and I sometimes paid attention to it but mostly I’d be entertaining myself with a book or a doll or some lego as everyone else watched with interest. This particular evening, however, my curiosity was invoked as my sibling’s eyes lit up and my sister pointed to the screen, “This is it, they’re going to show it”.

I watched as the news reporter sat at his desk in the studio and declared that the Berlin Wall had fallen, that the people were in the streets and were uncontrollable. I then watched in awe as we were shown images portraying thousands of folk shouting and leaping; it seemed like they were rioting. I saw some armed with basic weapons – sticks and stones – it all seemed chaotic. Rather taken aback, I asked my mum why they were doing that and where was it happening? She said “That’s Berlin. It’s in Germany. And they’re taking that wall down.” She smiled.
“Yup,” my sister agreed.
“That’s amazing,” my brother stated seemingly engrossed by the report.

I remember feeling utterly confused. The people in Germany, to me (or at least most of them), were acting crazy and they were adults. I’d never in all my life (at that point, all four years of it) witnessed adults acting in such a way; their actions seemed uncoordinated, thoughtless and furious. It frightened me, the fact that sensible, all-knowing grown-ups could act that way. And then there was the strange reaction of my mother and my older siblings. If their comments and general demeanours were anything to go by, I’d have thought that whatever was happening was a good thing. Either that or every single adult on the planet had decided to go crazy at the same moment.

“But what’s happening?” asked an oblivious four-year-old XHellcatX. “Why are they taking That Wall down?” Huge chunks of it were already lying scattered on the ground, the people I saw in Berlin wept and some of the angrier ones had climbed on top of it. Folk had begun smashing away at the wall and the ones on top were helping others climb it.

I remember a whole section of that divide smoothly - almost in slow motion - fell down in one neat piece as if it had been blown over like a domino. The people in Berlin roared and their tears flowed freely.

“Why are they so upset? It’s just a wall. Can’t they just build another one?” I was – although I didn’t know the word at the time – incredulous. All this fuss over a wall? Didn’t these people have anything better to do than to act so crazy for the sake of a few bricks?

It was then explained patiently to me that it was indeed a good thing that had happened, that the people were happy, that they had needed to be that angry and act seemingly crazy-like in order to do the right thing. The wall had been a barrier against people coming together and that now friends and family that hadn’t seen each other in decades were able to find each other and that the people were crying because they were happy.

And that's why they didn't build another one.