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November 9, 2009

Fall of the Wall + 20: Promises, Promises

Berlin Wall 89.jpg

The web is awash in images today commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This shot, from November 11, 1989, shows East German border guards looking through an opening from a section pulled down by demonstrators near the Brandenburg Gate. As it resonates today, the picture delivers a huge nostalgia payoff with its heavy dose of Western cool, even if — in the midst of our world-wide recession, and the painful/no-going for all immigrants, political and otherwise — it’s not exactly the promised land.

(Photo: Lionel Cironneau/AP)

  • Bill

    As the Bible says, the Promised Land is 40 years away, i.e. a generation. At least we’re back on the right track, more or less, after a lot of wandering in the Republican wilderness.

  • desertwind

    It’s shallow of me, I know, but… the beautiful fresh-faced young East German guards look like actors in a Passolini film & the tired, bloated, hungover mustachioed West German guard (bottom lower left, looking at the camera) is a dead ringer for Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
    It really is a remarkable photo.

  • jtfromBC

    As Hillary Clinton celebrated the Fall of the Berlin wall and preached about tearing down all walls I saw this clip on the BBC
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8350939.stm