
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 26, 2009
4 Tamuz 5769
Lessons From a Past Protest
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
BERLIN The righteous rage in the streets of Tehran is
familiar to Berliners. They recall their own demonstrations that doomed the
hated Berlin Wall two decades ago. Berliners, hopeful and sympathetic, see
lessons in their past for the demonstrators in the Iranian capital.
Films and photographs at exhibitions throughout the city
document how "power to the people" can sometimes beat extraordinary odds.
The exhibitions were planned long before the protests in Iran were a gleam
in the eye of candle-carrying Iranians. Nobody here discounts the odds
against the Iranian masses the turmoil can lead to the results of
November 1989 in Berlin or to the tragedy of Tiananmen Square.
History in the making lacks the clarity of history recalled, but
similarities of circumstance are nevertheless striking. Visitors to the Sony
Center in Potsdamer Platz, for example, watch with widened eyes at a
videotape of John F. Kennedy's speech on June 26, 1963, poignant in painful
remembrance, expressing solidarity with the residents of a divided city.
His dramatic assertion, "Ich bein ein Berliner" "I am a
Berliner" rings in the ears of Berliners today. So, too, Ronald Reagan's
exhortation at the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the founding of
Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
Several of his closest advisers argued against making such a
dramatic declaration, for fear of antagonizing Mikhail Gorbachev. But the
Gipper knew that his words would tell people far beyond Berlin that America
stood with them, and would take heart.
President Obama heard similar appeals to timidity this week in
Washington he shouldn't risk antagonizing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the
mullahs in Tehran if he wants to parley with them. Like Reagan, the new
president showed a little spunk at last, finally asserting solidarity with
the demonstrators. There was none of the Kennedy bravado or Reagan
dramatics, but it was nevertheless welcome.
The debate now focuses on the nature of Barack Obama's
leadership as he faces his first crucial foreign policy crisis. Germans,
like Americans, argue over whether his measured approach will actually work,
or whether his caution will be taken in Tehran for weakness and
irresolution. They compare the Obama approach with Angela Merkel's mettle in
demanding from the first a recount of the votes.
For all of his admired rhetorical flourishes and reiterated
outrage, President Obama sounds more unassuming than assertive, more like a
well-meaning appeaser than a tough-minded analyst. Many Germans concede that
the president's Cairo speech probably inspired the demonstrators in Tehran,
but some of his remarks since have seemed to float like mere magic bubbles
blown from a wand, popping harmlessly when they come to earth.
Confronting tyranny requires courage. The sweep of history that
took Berliners to a triumphant dance on the wall at the Brandenburg Gate was
long in the making. The lesson for the Iranians is that dismantling a
corrupt and oppressive government requires not only courage, but patience
and above all persistence.
Germans in the east marched against rigged local elections in
May 1989, weary of the same hacks the government put up for "democratic"
validation of a popular election. It was those demonstrations, Merkel
observed not long ago in a ceremony commemorating the East German
demonstrations, that marked "the beginning of the end."
The end did not come quickly or easily. Young men and women
here, as in Tehran, risked their lives to confront the government, smuggling
out stories of government brutality. No one knew they were creating a
revolution. Like the Iranians, the German revolutionaries represented many
different points of view. Some craved personal rights, others broader
election choices. Others simply wanted the right to leave. But they were
unified against a common enemy.
If Reagan's description of the "evil empire" once sounded over
the top in the West, it was not so behind the Iron Curtain, where it was
appreciated as an accurate description of what they endured every day.
Gorbachev's glasnost, which led to the crumbling of both the wall and
eventually the Soviet Union, was to the evil empire what Twitter, Facebook
and YouTube may eventually become for the Iranian government. President
Obama was right to ask the administrators at Twitter to keep its
communication channels open in Iran during the marches, sustaining the
demonstrators just as smuggled videos bore witness to oppression here two
decades ago.
The longer the Iranian protests last, the more sweeping the
indictments will become. The demonstrators have already changed Iran the
men and women in the streets of Tehran threaten to change the Middle East.
That may be wishful thinking, but you can't say the Germans haven't been
there and done that.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|