Fall of the Berlin Wall, 9.11.1989.

How much of the Berlin Wall is still present in Europe?

Today, November 9, Germany is celebrating 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was followed by the fall of communist regimes in other countries where it ruled. Since then, the wall has come down and marked the end of a dark era, but only physically. Namely, several more generations (researches say 75 years) will pass until that wall falls in the minds of the citizens of the countries that were created by the collapse of communist regimes and switched to a democratic system!

And we still struggle with these walls today, they are our true obstacles, challenges, brakes on development, progress, well-being and understanding and living democracy to the fullest!

In the end, the fall of the Berlin Wall was only symbolic and should have been an incentive for changes in our heads, in our mindset and in changing our behavior. It should have resulted in a feeling of full and true freedom, the breaking of the shackles of the communist regime and a step towards democracy. 

So back in 1987 in Berlin, the 40th American President Ronald Reagan in his speech with acting skills and in the manner of a "great communicator" called with an inspiring message: Let's tear down that wall! Reagan was known for taking a hardline stance on the Soviet Union, increasing the military budget, which some believe played an important role in ending the Cold War. 

The fall of the Berlin Wall was supposed to pave the way and lay the foundations for capitalism, a free market economy with as little state interventionism as possible, the development and encouragement of the private sector, and in terms of the material mentality lead to the eradication of corruption and clientelism, which was one of the main characteristics of the communist regime, to the delight of those who remained in the former Yugoslavia and, unfortunately, the Croats persecuted after 1945, whom neither corruption nor clientelism would help, but were a trigger for political emigration. And even today, there are again, much more than economic reasons. Entire families leave.

Since the Homeland War, when we had donations from the Croatian emigration with missing checks, among other things, conversions in Croatia, embezzlement, evasion, we have gone through the Golden Youth, tycoons, get-rich-quick, then scandal after scandal until today.

Affaires based on corruption and clientelism are almost no longer an occasional occurrence, but rather have become a lifestyle at all levels and in all parts of everyday life. And it tries to find its justification in this spread, elevating it to the pedestal of normality. Tragicomic, roughly like Nušić's play Gospodja Ministarka.

We could say that not only defenders, civilians, cities, towns died in the war, the war killed the normal value system in us, perverted it and twisted it to the point of inhumanity.

Corruption is the destruction and cancer of the wounds of this society that does not build the state, does not lead to economic growth, does not lead to development in all sectors. Moreover, he gasifies it, slows it down and finally collapses it. This collapse is visible in all areas, from health, education, and beyond.

Immersed in some crony-capitalism, nepotism, clientelism and the complete absence of that business ethics characteristic of the countries of the political West and a crisis of leadership, the Berlin Wall has not yet fallen in these areas. A leadership crisis that is a consequence of social factors and a collapsed value system since the end of the Homeland War, shaping leaders who ruined the companies they headed, thus bringing the economy and the state practically to the brink of collapse! And they don't care.

Therefore, as long as there are remnants of the Berlin Wall, there will be no real freedom, because only from freedom, a healthy value system that shapes true leaders and the final adoption of Western business ethics, the organization of a state at all levels can emerge. The rule of law directly depends on it, and on the rule of law, the impossibility of corruption appearing at all, and if it does appear, it is punished most severely.

We have to demolish those remains of the Berlin Wall, they date back to the time when freedom was an ominous omen that undermined the regime's state foundations. In the end, however, he collapsed, despite all prohibitions and repression.

However, what can collapse democracy and freedom, what can bring the country to the brink of economic collapse, is precisely that relic from the past - nepotism, crony-capitalism and the lack of basic business ethics combined with a crisis of leadership arising from a completely perverted, twisted value system.

The crisis of humanity is a crisis of morality. And in every crisis lies a new opportunity...

Anita Prka Đurašić