South Africa: 25 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Is the World About to Change Course On Capitalism's Triumph Over Communism?

analysis

This year, 2014, heralds 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. It's a momentous anniversary for Germans who are commemorating 25 years of reunification. But just as the 20th anniversary of South Africa's democracy unleashed a flood of bittersweet reflection on the unfulfilled dreams of our post-apartheid era, so too is 25 years of reunification in Germany being observed not just with celebration, but also with contemplation.

The fall of the Berlin Wall has had an impact far beyond Germany's borders. Its collapse in 1989 heralded the end of the Cold War signalling the triumph of Capitalism over Communism. In that historic moment, East Germans gained their individual freedoms, but along with the rest of the world, they also lost an important counterpoise to rising neoliberal Capitalism, which exploded in the aftermath of Communism's decline.

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