Writer's Block: Day of German Unity

[author_by_night]

[Error: unknown template qotd]Yes, waking up one day to find out you can't see your sister because a government-made wall has been built in the middle of the city is simple. Fearing that you'll be arrested under suspicion of communism is simple. Thinking the world will blow up is simple.

I'm twenty three, so I can't feel any nostalgia anyway, but from what I know, nothing was simple.

I mean, I guess there were ways in which the time period itself was more simple. A can of coke could be bought for five cents, and you didn't get sued for asking a loud customer to leave your store.

You know what, though? If it means a black man can run for president, if it means my friend's dream of being a doctor won't be taken away because of her gender, if it means people in Germany won't be shot for wanting to see loved ones on the other side of the wall, well... I'll take paying extra for a can of coke.

Yes, we have a long way to come. The world is still a mess. But those times were in no way, shape or form more "simple."

Honestly... what happened to Writer's Block questions making sense? Though at least the other ones were generally inoffensive.

Comments

[tina-berlinbear.livejournal.com]

I am old enough to have been there, when the Wall was built (I'll never forget that day, even though I was just 6) AND when it finally came down again.

I cannot find any simplicity in the times of Cold War - even though we had to get used to it, if we wanted or not.

I still am elated, when we drive out of Berlin through any street we want, not having to go through ridiculous "face-controls", being searched for "forbidden material" and having to pay money for "money-exchange" - as if we weren't visiting our own country and people, but entering a Zoo or such like where you have to pay entrance fee.

Many of those "Ostalgia" people are moping about "injustice" "2-caste-society" and that the "good old times were better" - forgetting that we "Westerners" had to work for our "Paradise" as hard as everybody, not having the "grilled chicken fly into our mouths" like many of them thought about the west.

Many things could have gone better - but we "Wessis" (especially West-Berlin) have been loosers at least as much as many Easterners say that only they are.

It is so good, that we are together again. The problems have grown bigger everywhere - but I at least do cherish the freedom to go where I want and to think and speak out what I think without having to fear oppression or even worse.

Did you wathch the movie "Das Leben der Anderen", which won an Oscar last year, on TV. That was GDR's reality - how can they forget what an ugly dictatorship that was? Many of those "moping" people had privileges at those times, and, yes, living was easy and cheap. But woe to everyone who dared to swim against the stream! Maybe some of those "Oastalgics" should read their "Stasi-Akten". Maybe they would "tumble out of all clouds" when they see how even those true to the SED, and some of their officials where spied out and "dancing on a fine line " between good life and desaster.

We kept close contact to our relatives in the GDR, and even had friends there, during the "Wall-times". We've seen their reality and ours, and the "golden pictures" many of them had od the West. One very good friendship died shortly after the Fall of the Wall - a very ugly affair involving Stasi activities against us from a side we'd never have thought of.

Ostalgia? Simplicity of the Cold War? No thanks! Those people really don't know what they're talking about - or choose to block off the bad sides, which were so many, but some subtilely hidden.

When I hear people say "Not everything in the GDR was bad" I ahve to agree - but there was a lot of bad, and It would be a terrible sin to forget that.