Monday, 9 November 2009
Adieu, Lenin
A woman in East Berlin has a heart attack when she sees her son arrested by the police in an anti-government protest in 1989, and lapses into a coma. When she awakens it is 1990, but on doctor's orders, her family decide not to tell her about the collapse of the East German regime while she is convalescing and confined to bed, in case the shock is too much for her.
But in a free society, no-one can hide the truth forever.
If you haven't seen it before, I heartily recommend Goodbye Lenin!, which takes a light-hearted but thought-provoking look at the changes wrought by capitalism and freedom - changes both good and, yes, bad.
Is liberty easy, after a lifetime of servitude and fear? Is it all IKEA and BMWs, shit and giggles? Of course not. Relying on the State is, in one sense, easy; freedom is hard. But it's also fucking important. That this is undoubtedly a banal and trite observation doesn't render it any less true. I think of all the people I have met, from Estonia to Serbia and from Russia itself, most of whom are young enough to have little memory of a time before they could do, and be, whatever they wanted. I try to imagine those friends growing up, living, and dying in the perpetual twilight of Communism but, fortunately, it's normally at that point that my imagination fails me.
Once people's creative spirits are unleashed, it's damn difficult to bottle them up again. Difficult, but - if history teaches us anything - sadly not impossible. It's just a shame that there remain, almost unbelievably, idiots out there who hope that it was merely auf wiedersehen to Lenin, rather than adieu. And a tragedy that there are still millions of people in the world who continue to suffer from his baleful legacy. May they, too, soon be free.
Labels: Civil liberties, Scumbags
Comments:
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Well said. Freedom is difficult and slavery comes in many forms. It's never a case of 'job done' it seems.
Theodore Zeldin had some interesting things to say on this:
'The sting in the tail of [the] history of slavery is that once free, people often become robots, at least in part of their lives. There has been a great reluctance to abandon all forms of slavish behaviour...[T]o live outside the protection of someone more powerful than oneself was too frightening an adventure.... It is important to remember that it is tiring, and trying, being free; and in times of exhaustion affection for freedom has always waned, whatever lip-service might be paid to it...[F]reedom is not just a matter of rights, to be enshrined in law.'
More here if you're interested.
Theodore Zeldin had some interesting things to say on this:
'The sting in the tail of [the] history of slavery is that once free, people often become robots, at least in part of their lives. There has been a great reluctance to abandon all forms of slavish behaviour...[T]o live outside the protection of someone more powerful than oneself was too frightening an adventure.... It is important to remember that it is tiring, and trying, being free; and in times of exhaustion affection for freedom has always waned, whatever lip-service might be paid to it...[F]reedom is not just a matter of rights, to be enshrined in law.'
More here if you're interested.
Very true about the good and bad. I've had friends in the East for years and they now insist upon calling themselves east Germans.
They are so disappointed with unification. Not the fact the countries are joined now, but the fact that the west has such low standards in comparison with themselves. Education is one area in which both specialise and the dumbing down is most evident now they insist.
New World Order? You bet. Keep 'em stupid.
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They are so disappointed with unification. Not the fact the countries are joined now, but the fact that the west has such low standards in comparison with themselves. Education is one area in which both specialise and the dumbing down is most evident now they insist.
New World Order? You bet. Keep 'em stupid.
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