Albert Mohler: Moral Clarity and the Fall of the Wall

Monday, November 09, 2009

The twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is an important landmark in human history. That wall, one of history's most heinous symbols of oppression, stood for as a physical reminder of Communism's essence. The Wall was not built to keep invaders out, but to imprison a people within. In the singular interest of avoiding its own evacuation, the Soviet-backed government of the German Democratic Republic erected that wall and murdered those who attempted to cross it.

The passage of time is so swift that today's younger Americans are only dimly aware of the Wall, if at all. Their historical horizons collapse anything before their birth into ancient history. As with all historical losses, this one is costly. We must remember the Wall in all of its ugliness and murderousness. We must remember the gun towers and barbed wire, the broken glass and mines, the sight of human beings shot dead simply for seeking to flee a regime that crushed the human spirit.

History is never uncomplicated. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, several insights come into focus. We now know that the Communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc had for some time been losing confidence and the will to maintain order by any and all means. The epic economic and social failures of Marxism were impossible to deny. Too many eyes had seen over the Wall, and denial of the obvious grew ever more costly. the rest image by onlinehero