it was twenty years ago today

The Berlin Wall was brought down. 9th November 1989. What a powerful time it was to have lived through. I remember that as being the moment I came to political consciousness. It was the end of something terrible and the start of something powerful, the start of anything seeming possible. I feel like my generation can never be entirely cynical, entirely pessimistic, because we were old enough to grasp something of the Cold War and its pain, but we also saw it collapse in front of us, and we were young enough not to remain stuck in the bleak, divided past. That was an important day. I'm glad I lived through it, and am here twenty years later to reflect on it, and be re-energised by the memory that a different world was possible, and still is.