Rummaging around some old keepsakes today, I found a letter that I had written in my teens on a visit to Berlin. It was interesting not just because I had forgotten it, but because I commented on the Wall. The visit was in 1971 when the Cold War was very much in force. I reprint the relevant comment here:"The Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the Wall are very frightening. It is only when you get near them that you feel the real evil of autocracy -- communist or otherwise. You can see people perhaps a hundred yards away who cannot so much as walk over to you and ask for a light. It is very depressing, yet strangely enthralling -- I could look at it for hours."It is good to know some 38 years later that that particular evil is no longer there. But Cyprus remains divided, Iran is cracking down on dissent, Aung San Suu Ky is locked up, women cannot go out alone in some Arab countries, gays can't marry in most places, and poverty and starvation are worse rather than better.
We all have a long way to go. But at least that East German can now walk over to the West and ask for a light.
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