Berlin's Walls and Their Purposes

Both sides of the Berlin Wall in 1986. This was the same year I first arrived in Old West Berlin. Cite.

It seems that Germany has very bad luck with walls, not to mention the concept of freedom.

Berlin’s newly constructed “safety area” for women, could not prevent several sexual assaults during the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

At this moment, at least 13 cases were reported to the police and seven suspects were arrested in the German capital. Police refused to provide information about the ethnicity or the nationality of the perpetrators.

Of course they did.

The creation of the safety area was heavily criticised by a German police union boss. He said it communicates a “devastating message”:

“By doing so, one is saying there are safe zones and unsafe zones” for women, a message that could result in “the end of equality, freedom of movement and self-determination”, he said.

There is nothing wrong with walls, of course. Even the homeless build them to isolate themselves
from other persons, animals and weather using things like canvas and cardboard.

It’s the purpose that counts.

The Berlin Wall’s purpose was to hinder East Germans from voting with their feet. It seem to me that these “Safe Zones for Women” are the progeny of the old Wall: they are an acknowledgement that unhindered freedom for Germans in the New Germany has been greatly diminished by its government. On purpose.

Again. And again.

Happy New Year.

(Thanks to Robert Spencer)

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