A great day for liberty

OPINION:

Nov. 9, 1989 - 20 years ago Monday - should be remembered forever as a truly great day in the course of human history.

Few could believe the exhilarating fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, without a shot being fired, just a little more than two years after President Reagan audaciously demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

How was this advancement of human freedom achieved? Through resolve and unity of purpose of people, motivated by the visionary leadership of Reagan and steadily supported by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the unique moral respect of Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

Lovers of liberty all over the world were in solidarity with the cause of Lech Walesa and the shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland.

A visit these days to Berlin does not provide one with the reality of the Berlin Wall. In 1983, I was a newly elected delegate serving in Thomas Jefferson’s old seat in the Virginia General Assembly and was honored to be selected to join a bipartisan delegation of young leaders (with the American Council of Young Political Leaders) for an East-West Study Tour in Germany. Near Hamburg, we listened to the perspectives of many Germans, including the desire and goal of reunification of Germany. That goal seemed impossible when our delegation drove through heavily armed security checkpoints on the East German border and the Berlin Wall.

More telling than any lecture were the faces of the people in East Berlin who stood passively in long lines to acquire a few vegetables. This impoverishment was in contrast to the station of East German officials and communist Cuban generals, who were protected by goose-stepping troops at a soldiers memorial when they arrived in Mercedes autos.

With thick concrete walls and barriers, rolls of barbed and razor wire, land mines, German Shepherd attack dogs and sharp-shooting border guards in towers - all to keep people from escaping - the Berlin Wall was a brutal monument to the inferiority of the repressive communist system. Any government that uses such massive guarded barriers to prevent people from leaving for freedom gives testament to the abject oppressiveness of its depraved system.

Many people lost their lives trying to get out of East Berlin and the Soviet bloc. Sadly, it seemed likely that any uprising or revolt would result in hopeless slaughter of unarmed people. There was a resigned, hollow look in the eyes of the hundreds of drably dressed men and women standing in the long lines to get a few carrots or potatoes.

However, since the momentous fall of the wall and the Iron Curtain, an exhilarating breeze of freedom and opportunity has invigorated hundreds of millions of liberated people from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea.

It is heartening that on this 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, students across America are rallying to tear down a mock Berlin Wall at the exact time the wall opened in Berlin, at 4:30 p.m. The colleges include Arizona State University, the College of William and Mary, Florida State, the University of Connecticut and Cornell, among many others.

These young conservative activists are warning their peers about the endless misery, rationing and despair that results from socialist policies and are advocating the principles of freedom, responsibility and opportunity.

This initiative, part of Young America’s Foundation’s Freedom Week program, is designed to remind students of the lessons of the Cold War, lessons all too often lost in history and policy discussions these days. Each year, two significant events are overlooked on many college campuses: the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Veterans Day in appreciation for those men and women who have served in our military.

The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the collapse of the Soviet empire, tangibly symbolizing the failures of repressive, centralized economies. Though Marxist and socialist ideas have been soundly repudiated, some regimes and leftists still fervently preach them. It is encouraging to know there are young men and women on college campuses who have learned and appreciate the lessons of recent history and are willing to advocate for liberty and opportunity. If people all across America and the world remember the Berlin Wall, we will confidently choose to plant and grow new trees of liberty throughout the world and here at home.

George Allen is a former Republican governor of Virginia and U.S. senator. He is the Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar for the Young America’s Foundation.