柏林圍牆倒塌二十周年紀念，在此地是件大事。
如同東德作家Jana Hensel的憂鬱情懷，我也認同，無須膚淺歌頌圍牆倒塌表徵，顯現唯我獨尊的“自由”意義。2009年11月9日的那一周舉凡各大平面媒體或是電視廣播，遍訪播放各方漫談自由真諦，在全球全速駛向毀滅的金融危機當兒，對“自由”二字的無限傾心和歌頌，似乎突兀地少了一份“政治正確”。或，循著Jana Hensel的思維來思考吧，東德價值真的一無是處到須要二十年來的禁閉沉默嗎？
圍牆倒塌這件事實，有著非常深遠的意義，非“自由”二字可以涵蓋。因爲11月9日那一天的柏林，是政治海嘯洶湧臨至的最後鋪蓋捲噬，所以，柏林成了這個時代精神的地標。但是它的巨大能量來自整個東歐國家乃至蘇聯的時代精神響應。
除了時代呈現的“東德第二春的憂鬱”，讀到的下面這一篇文章在我看來應該也算是對“圍牆倒塌”極具價值的探討。
Josef Joffe是德國時代周報Die Zeit的發行人。他也是史丹佛大學國際問題研究所（Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies，FSI）和胡佛研究所（Hoover Institutution）的學者。
他在2009年11月16日的Newsweek新聞周刊裏的文章“The Wall and the end of history”説明圍牆倒塌超乎1989年共產主義面臨結束的意義，它意味二千年來的血腥嗜殺的結束！
過去二千年的歐洲，印證了人性最優良和最醜惡的面相。
幾乎所有重要發明都來自于此：
從希臘哲學到羅馬法律
從文藝復興到傳真機器
從教堂穹頂設計建築師伯魯乃列斯基（Filippo Brunelleschi）到包浩斯（Bauhaus）
就在這裡發生全世界最恐怖的戰爭，殘殺數千萬無辜。
也在這裡孵育出泰半噬人魔的各番意識主義：
共產主義、法西斯主義、納粹主義
主義隨之而來的
古拉格監獄（Gulag）、蓋世太保(Gestapo)、奧斯維辛滅絕營(Auschwitz)
這一切過往的確隨著柏林圍牆而倒塌。
隨之而逝的還有
曾經從波羅的海到黑海的軍隊部署
曾經核子武器的佈置無數
德法不再爭議阿爾薩斯省的領土權
聯想意圖分裂波蘭或是以上帝之名進行屠殺
都不再可能、、、
圍牆之後的歐洲意味和平、社會民主和歐盟奠定。而，正於此符合馬克思的最後預言:“當一個社會最後的階級鬥爭結束以後，以權力統治人類的時代結束，而行政管理人類的時代降臨。於是規則代替革命，社會福利代替戰事解決。馬克思預言只錯在時機：人類用了140年的柏林圍牆倒塌來印證馬克思的共產宣言真諦。但是，這份等待是值得的。
這個很老很老的歐洲，沒有任何新意。有的是 – 對人類的反思。
原文如下：
Twenty years ago, a few months before the Berlin Wall fell, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted "not just the end of the Cold War … but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
He was wrong, of course, as were all the "end of" prophets of the past. Liberal democracy is hardly what inspires current forces like Iranian Khomeinism, global jihadism, the caudillismo of Latin America, or the neo-tsarism of Russia. But what about Europe?
The collapse of the 3.7-meter-tall monster in Berlin on Nov. 9, 1989, did bring about—or, more accurately, complete—a momentous transformation of the Old Continent. For the past 2,000 years, Europe had been the source of the best and the worst in human history. It invented practically everything that matters: from Greek philosophy to Roman law, from the Renaissance to the fax machine, from Brunelleschi to Bauhaus. But this was also where the world's deadliest wars erupted, killing tens of millions. It was in Europe that the most murderous ideologies were invented: communism, fascism, and Nazism, complete with the Gulag, the Gestapo, and Auschwitz.
That history truly ended with the Berlin Wall. Gone are the million soldiers who once manned a line running from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and so are thousands of nuclear weapons. The French and Germans no longer fight over Alsace-Lorraine, and it's impossible to imagine another partition of Poland, or mass murder in the name of the Lord, or a flood of refugees like the tens of millions who crisscrossed Europe in the 20th century. Yes, we recently saw ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, but that was a cottage industry compared with what Hitler and Stalin wrought, and it was quickly bankrupted by the U.S. Air Force.
Post-wall Europe, meanwhile, has come to mean peace, social democracy, and the EU Commission, which has made Karl Marx's prediction come true at last: after the final class struggle, "power over men" would yield to the "administration of things." So it has: regulation has replaced revolution, and the welfare state has trumped the warfare state. Marx got only the timing wrong; it would take 140 years from the Communist Manifesto to the fall of the wall.
But the wait was worth it. The wall fell without bloodshed; the Soviet Union was the first empire that died in bed, so to speak, with barely a shot being fired. The Velvet Revolutions that made Europe whole again truly ended European history as we knew it. Traditional revolutions beget counterrevolutions and new rounds of repression and revolt. That cycle was broken in 1989, a miraculous first that bodes so well for the future. Yes, conflict continues in Europe, but not the kind that sets fire to history. Today the clashes are over taxes and spending, zoning and shop-closing hours, the sway of Brussels and the reserve rights of national capitals, abortion and same-sex marriage. Politics hasn't been abolished, but the really touchy items have been safely outsourced to the courts—far from the streets and even from parliaments.
The fall of the wall did not create this brave new world; it sped it up and ratified it. But as a revolution without victims (except for the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was shot, and a few other leaders who served short prison terms), Nov. 9, 1989, deserves a towering monument in every European capital—a marker of something completely new under the European sun. Unlike in 1789, the promise of peace and liberty was truly delivered. Unlike in 1919, when the continent erupted in revolutions that spawned totalitarian counterrevolutions, 1989 brought an end to the worst part of European history. That's not bad when you consider the origins: a flustered East German functionary looking into the TV cameras and announcing, well, yes, as far as he knew, East Berliners could freely cross into the West—right now.
Elsewhere in the world, history continues in its bloody fashion. But if you want to know how to end it nice and smoothly, check out what Europe managed 20 years ago.
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