Walking down a sunny Munich street last week, I mentioned to Jamie that I would be thrilled if it was 55 degrees and clear on my birthday. Little did I know then just how thrilled I would have been.
Instead of being thrilled, I was chilled. And wet. And well... bored. And I don't think I was the only one. Most of the foreign dignitaries who bothered to show up for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Monday night gave flat speeches that failed to resonate with the sparse crowd of tourists who braved the miserable weather for a glimpse of such luminaries as Russian President Dimitri Medvedev, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the jumbotrons set-up around Pariser Platz.
In fact, in what Kaiser Jacob referred to as "King of the world" move, the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize couldn't even bring himself to visit the site of one of the twentieth century's most famous peaceful revolutions. While all of the other allies were represented by heads of state or heads of government, Barack Obama sent his secretary (of state) on his behalf. Of course, President Obama couldn't bring himself to stay away from the festivities completely; instead of attending in person, he sent a video-gram of himself sitting in a nicely upholstered chair in a cozy room somewhere in the West Wing. The rest of the world's leaders had to content themselves with the warmth of the crowd on a raw and rainy Berlin night.
What was billed as a "Festival of Freedom" turned into more of a celebration of how little anyone even cares about the freedoms gained by Eastern Europeans after the fall of the iron curtain. In fact, only Dr. Angela Merkel, who grew up in East German Mecklenburg and rose through the ranks of the CDU after German reunification was able to make a believable claim to having been moved by the events of November 9, 1989. The contrast between Angie's speech and the lackluster contributions of Brown, Clinton, Sarko, and Medvedev hinted at what was really missing from this Festival: the words and thoughts of people who made the wall fall and whose lives changed forever in November 1989.
Sure, Thomas Gottschalk conducted interviews with two East German dissidents, and Lech Walesa was recruited to knock over a small branch of the chain of 7 foot tall dominoes that stretched from the Spree to Potsdamer Platz, but not even Gorbi himself was allowed to give a speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
Instead, the allies got a chance to pat themselves on the back one last time, and Bon Jovi made a musical contribution to the utter emptiness of the "Festival of Freedom."
Oh, and did I mention that it was cold and wet?
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