The Meaning of 1989 Today
BUCHAREST — This week, Europe is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — the seminal event that also proved to be the beginning of the end for the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. The winds of change had begun to blow a few months earlier, when the landslide victory of Solidarnosć on June 4th in Poland, unresisted by the Soviet Union, quietly buried the Brezhnev doctrine. By the end of the year, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe had liberated themselves from the stranglehold of communism and were charting their own political futures — free to treat their citizens decently, to respect their rights and freedoms, and to give them new hope for the future. For a brief and joyful moment, it seemed as though history had truly ended, geopolitics had died, and a serenely peaceful vision of a prosperous and safe Europe reigned.
But we East Europeans soon realized that another wall had been left standing after the physical and political barriers disappeared: the mental divide between the two halves of Europe. Pulling it down has been laborious and painful. And the task remains unfinished to this day.
The achievements of the past 20 years are incontestable: Central and Eastern Europe is now safe, secure, and relatively prosperous. It still lags behind Western Europe, and it has been hard hit by the global financial crisis. Then again, the political and economic reconstruction of Europe “whole and free” was always going to be a project for at least a generation, if not longer. There have been governments, it’s true, that have tended to honor democracy and good governance more in the breach than in the observance; but the norm is unquestionably established. The region’s record on minority rights and diversity is more troubling; but here, too, the firm embrace by the EU and its institutions has helped to set clear standards. Indeed, the most powerful motor of change and progress in the “new Europe” has been exposure to values, principles, and norms long-suppressed in Central and Eastern Europe — and this, more than any material support, has helped to break down the last, invisible barriers. Still, the region’s civil societies and political activists continue to need all the help they can get.
Meanwhile, we have also seen new walls going up — mostly on the Eastern borders of Europe. In 1989, we believed that Europe and Russia (then still the Soviet Union) would in the future cooperate with each other, and with the United States, on the basis of shared hopes for peace and prosperity, and at least some shared interests. But the reappearance of geopolitics has shown this to be (mostly) an illusion. The eastward expansion of EU and NATO has irritated Moscow and has cooled off U.S.-Russian relations. Conversely, Russia’s aggressive assertion of a “sphere of influence” along its Western periphery — the Brezhnev Doctrine returning as a zombie — has created a de-facto cordon sanitaire, in which countries are officially independent and sovereign nations, but are de facto clients of Moscow. Sometimes, this new assertiveness actually takes the shape of military intervention (Georgia); in most cases, shrewd political maneuvers are enough to keep the neighbors in line, as recent events in Ukraine and Moldova show.
Worse, realpolitik has returned to Western diplomacy and rhetoric where Europe’s eastern periphery is concerned — from “strategic relationships” (Germany-Russia) to “reset” policies (U.S.-Russia) — while the language of democracy and human rights seems to be fading. On the whole, the United States seems to have downgraded its relationships with the countries of Europe’s East. The EU, for its part, has been distracted by its own inability to digest the last round of enlargement in 2004; and even with a Lisbon Treaty, EU policy toward the region remains ambivalent and incoherent. Has anyone in Brussels noticed, for example, how much worse the relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan has become in recent months – and that this is key to any progress on the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which is supposed to help Europe diversify its gas supplies away from Russia?
Is there any perspective for the coming 20 years that might inspire Eastern Europeans with the kind of enthusiasm kindled in their neighbors to the West by the events of 20 years ago? Yes; if the countries of Central and Eastern Europe — those who liberated themselves and thereby unified Europe — take the lead this time in shaping a coherent, courageous, and at the same time realistic strategy for the Eastern neighborhood. They should do so not just for the sake of history. It is in their interest to reach out to the East because current political and economic conditions there are a permanent source of instability. But it would also be a fitting testimonial to the enduring appeal of the values they chose in 1989.
Alina Inayeh is the Director of the Black Sea Trust and of GMF’S Bucharest Office