wfn.org | WCC FEATURE: The Berlin Wall fell in many places

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For immediate release - 05/11/2009 14:15:09

>THE BERLIN WALL FELL IN MANY PLACES
>By Stephen Brown (*)

The political and social shock waves caused by weeks of
pro-democracy protests in East Germany and then the fall of the
Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, were felt around the world. 

The South African theologian John de Gruchy recalls how, while
spending a sabbatical semester at Union Theological Seminary in
New York that year, he had been asked to play host for a few days
to the director of an East German institute for Marxist-Leninist
studies. 

The irony of a Marxist professor from East Germany being hosted
by a white Christian theologian from apartheid-ruled South Africa
was not lost on de Gruchy, who for many years was active as a
theologian in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. 

Sitting together in New York watching the news on television,
the East German and the South African saw reports of the growing
crisis in East Germany and of the simultaneous escalation of
protests against apartheid in Cape Town, de Gruchy's home town.

I knew that "meant the beginning of the end of apartheid. […]
For without the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it was
unlikely that change would have taken place in South Africa," de
Gruchy said a few years later in a speech in the eastern German
city of Leipzig, one of the centres of the democracy protests in
the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that followed prayer
services in churches.

"Some even claimed that these events were the prelude to a new
world order," noted de Gruchy in his speech in Leipzig. "Even if
we are somewhat sceptical of this claim today, these events have
undoubtedly changed the course of history, no matter how we
evaluate them."

It was not only in Eastern Europe and in South Africa that
changes were taking place. In Latin America preparations were
under way in Chile for elections marking the end of the rule of
Augusto Pinochet, the last of the continent's military
dictators.

Whether in Leipzig or in Cape Town, pastors and church activists
were often among the leaders of the protests, de Gruchy noted. 

In East Germany, the World Council of Churches (WCC) process for
Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC) was a main
catalyst for dissent. In advance of the European Ecumenical
Assembly in Basel in 1989 and the World Convocation on JPIC in
Seoul the following year, the churches in the GDR organized an
Ecumenical Assembly for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of
Creation in April 1989. The final session of this assembly made
unprecedented demands for the reform of the GDR. 

For Werner Jarowinsky, then the communist party secretary for
church affairs,these demands represented "a complete programme
for the installation of a sort of opposition movement". Indeed,
the demands of the East German assembly also provided a template
for the citizens' movements and new political parties founded
later in 1989. 

Today, two sections of the Berlin Wall stand in the garden of
the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland where the WCC and
several other ecumenical organizations have their offices. The
pieces of the wall were a gift to the Conference of European
Churches (CEC) from the first freely-elected government in East
Germany as a sign of recognition to the role churches played in
the peaceful revolution there.

>A different look at epoch-changing events

Still, the East German Protestant theologian Heino Falcke, who
played a key role in the churches mobilization that led to the
peaceful revolution, noted recently how East Germans themselves
had little time after the opening of the Berlin wall to reflect
on the significance of these epoch-changing events. Instead, they
were fully consumed by the "breathtaking processes" in their own
country that led to the unification of Germany, 11 months later,
in October 1990. 

The events that led to the end of the Cold War in Europe have
often been portrayed by Western politicians as a victory of the
economically and technologically superior West over the East,
said Falcke, now retired. "But there was also another way of
looking at them," states the theologian.

"Mikhail Gorbachev in his 'new thinking' said the Cold War
needed to be ended because the one humanity could not afford it
but needed to learn the art of how to live together," said
Falcke. "But this paradigm shift towards global responsibility
will not take place if people believe that they are the victors."

The legacy of the Ecumenical Assembly for JPIC in East Germany
offers a way forward, suggested Falcke. According to him, the
assembly was not meant only to be a gathering calling for
political changes in the GDR, nor was it a question of "a change
of system from socialism to democracy and the free market, but
rather a transformation of both systems within a globalizing
world".

"In the Ecumenical Assembly", said Falcke, "we faced the
profound challenges related to achieving sustainable peace, a
global society that promotes social solidarity, and an ecological
lifestyle, and we saw this as corresponding to the biblical
invitation to repentance and conversion." 

>[836 words]

(*) Dr Stephen Brown, managing editor of Ecumenical News
International, recently completed research on the role of the
WCC's process for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation as
a catalyst for dissent in East Germany in the 1980s. 

>See also: 

Opinion piece by Konrad Raiser on 

"The fall of the Berlin Wall and its meaning for the ecumenical
movement"
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/the-fall-of-the-berlin-wa.html

WCC general secretary's comment on the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/lessons-from-the-fall-of.html

Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect
WCC policy. This material may be reprinted freely, providing
credit is given to the author. 

Additional information: Juan Michel +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363 media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
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