Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was of course bound to inspire lots of commentaries and op eds. Here’s a quick guide to a few of them:
bq. Jeffrey Simpson of _The Globe and Mail_ writes on “Why we celebrate the fall of the Wall”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/why-we-celebrate-the-fall-of-the-wall/article1354729/
bq. Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev writes on the parallels between the fall of communism and the fight to stop climate change in _The Times Online_ in a piece entitled “Tear down this wall! And save the planet”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6908798.ece.
bq. On the _NY Times_ op ed page, Slavoj Zizek writes of the enduring phenomenon of anti-communism under the heading of “20 Years of Collapse”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09zizek.html.
bq. In the _Washington Post_, Anne Applebaum calls for more attention to Eastern Europe’s successes in “After the Wall Fell”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/08/AR2009110817809.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
bq. In _Deutche Welle_ Mark Koch writes on how “November 9th was Germany’s – and the world’s – lucky day”:http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4873553,00.html, arguing that the day ought to be made into a national holiday.
bq. In addition, I have a piece in _The New Republic_ addressing the stark difference in the fate of democratization across different post-communist countries entitled “Building Blocs”:http://www.tnr.com/article/world/building-blocks.