32nd anniversaries are not normally chosen for particular remembrance but what the heck, this is the grand moment of the past half-century.
From Conrad Schumann’s jump through to the Pan-European picnic there was a vileness that cut across Europe. And then on the 9th of November 1989 there wasn’t. Yes, the system, the entire countries condemned to oppression, more can be said about all of them but this specific and particular symbol finally fell.
Mr. O’Rourke:
The East German border guards didn’t interfere. Instead they came up to openings in the Wall and made V-signs and posed for photographs. One of them even stuck his hand through and asked would somebody please give him a piece of concrete to keep as a souvenir.
The hand of that border guard - that disembodied, palm-up, begging hand…..I looked at that and I began to cry.
I really didn’t understand before that moment, I didn’t realise until just then - we won.
…
We won. And let’s not let anybody forget it. We the people, the free and equal citizens of democracies, we exemplars of the Rights of Man tore a new asshole in International Communism. Their wall is breached. Their gut string is busted. The rot of their dead body politic fills the nostrils of the earth with a glorious stink. We cleaned the clock of Marxism. We mopped the floor with them. We ran the Reds through the wringer and hung them out to dry. The privileges of liberty and the sanctity of the individual went out and whipped butt.
It’s possible to track it down to one specific moment too. In all those miles of videotape that exist out there of that night. Just before the barriers came up. The Border Guards had not been informed about the change in policy even as crowds were arriving to take advantage of it. A small group were, umm, discussing events with an officer of that Border Guard. Stating that the news was out, they could cross. He, that officer, insisting that he had no directions. So, if they tried then there would be repercussions. Possibly shots, as with so many hundreds before. All should go home and await formal announcements etc.
At which point the citizenry laughed. And that’s the moment, that’s the ripening of the glorious stink of that body politic. When the man in the street - here quite literally, not a euphemism or synonym of any kind - laughs in the face of the bastards with the guns then it’s all, finally, over.
There are times when there’s just nothing for it but the Happy Dance.