Earlier this week, thousands in central Europe marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — a spontaneous and bloodless revolution that that led to the reunification of Germany and served as the watershed moment in the collapse of the former Soviet empire in what was then known as the Communist Bloc.
Even two decades later, the opening of “Die Mauer” — brought about by a sequence of events that included a declaration of non-aggression from then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, growing “prayers for peace” protests in East Germany and a faux pas on the part of a state official who declared without authority to do so that travel restrictions were being lifted “immediately” — resonates as one of the most joyous moments in our collective memory. Until then, we had always imagined that the dismantling of the oppressive state apparatus in the German Democratic Republic could only occur if accompanied by tanks and significant loss of life. The fact that it — and the fall of communism in other East Bloc countries — occurred with nary a shot being fired was nothing short of miraculous.
If only it could be so always and everywhere.
Certainly in the past half century, significant progress has been made in advancing the cause of peace. Europe, over which our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers fought twice during the 20th century, and several times before that, is now bound together by an economic and political union in which national leaders sit down and discuss their differences. Many of those former East Bloc countries are either part of that union or are applying for membership. While problems exist, by and large Europeans seem determined to never again be drawn into the sorts of conflicts that wipe out whole generations of young men, leaving millions in mourning.
But flashpoints remain elsewhere, perhaps nowhere more troubling than in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the past six years, some 140 Canadian soldiers have died defending Afghanistan’s fragile democracy against the tyrannical and oppressive Taliban, a group bent on imposing its extremist interpretation of the Koran on the population. Citizens of the United States, which is in the process of pulling its troops out of Iraq, are only now learning about the perils of the conflict in Afghanistan and in neighbouring Pakistan, where government troops have recently attempted to regain control of certain outlying regions now under Taliban control.
Like the author of the poem on the opposing page, we, too, wish that it could be otherwise. Yes, it “somehow just does not seem right/that over our beliefs we fight.” We wish that all wars were the wars of past generations and that instead of fighting and dying to resolve our differences, humans could do so through negotiation.
But as long as injustice, tyranny and oppression exist, as long as those who hold extremist views are willing and able to take up arms in their attempts to impose those views on others, we must be willing and able to take up arms to protect the freedoms over which those of past generations fought and died. While we can argue over which war is the right one and which is wrong, there comes a point where we must heed the warning of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Poppies for peace? Sure. Perhaps in many cases, peace can be achieved through soldiers laying down their arms and walking away, as did the East German soldiers 20 years ago. Sadly, sometimes that’s not an option, and either way, we’ll continue to pause, bow our heads in silence and acknowledge sacrifices past and present through the wearing of poppies — red ones — on Remembrance Day.
