Crystal Camp Fire (part 3)

Tell us about how the news affected a day in your life.
I am looking for a big news day -- 9/11, Columbine, JFK's assassination, death of Princess Diana, etc. Just share how one of these big moments in the news ended up affecting the rest of a day in your life.

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My first obvious thought was also for 9/11, a day where I felt 100 % I was American, but you guys did a better job as i could ever done, so i will tell you about what was my second choice.

Cause sometimes a major historical or political event can bring tears in your eyes but also happiness in your heart.


I was 21 years old when it happened, that's the age where you wonder how you will situate yourself in politics (time for your Greek lesson : politics, word from Polykos, "from the city" ); Should i be voting like my parents ? should I vote like my best friend who was recommending a Revolution , like this other friend who thought that all the poilticians should go to Hell ; anyway, the age of wonder and interrogations... you've been all there or you will

In the past few months, Mikail Gorbatchev had oppened Russia to more Freedom, Lech Walesa was elected president of Poland, the Russians were leaving Afghanistan, and Tchecoslovaquia was slowly going to change too.

You could tell that something was changing.

November 1989, at the beginning of the month,end of afternoon, i turned the TV on ; It wasn't my usual TV show but a special news flash. Listening to the journalist, it took me a few minutes to realise what was going on, I thought first that people were fighting, that it was a riot, but not at all.

The reporter mentionned that "we are living a page of History right now, everyone seems so happy, we even saw a few soldiers helping the Germans population". I listened more carefully

Yep, They were destroying Berlin's wall !!!!!!

I couldn't believe it, i started to call all my friends on the phone, some of them were already watching TV, the others couldn't believe what i told them, my friend François started to cry on the phone as he was watching the news.

A scene I will never forget : They got a hole somewhere in the wall, and a citizen from West Germany was shaking hands with an East Germany citizen through that hole.
For 40 years, this "wall of shame" separated friends or families who couldn't reunite with their love ones, for 40 years this f****** wall was the symbol of the Cold War between the Russians and the USA, for 40 years those bricks and barbed wires killed many people who were just expecting more freedoms.
And in a few hours, it was GONE !


they opened the frontier between the 2 Germanies 2 days later, and you could see more powerfull and moving scenes.A lot of the French, English, Americans and Russians soldiers were sent back to their countries
That night, I was still wondering what I can ever do to change this world (still haven't find the answer 15 years later), but since that day i have realised that for a JFK, a Gandhi, a John Lennon or a Martin Luther King who were murdered, for all those innocent victims of the terrorism in New York, Madrid, Israel, the palestinians teritory or Indonesia, for the wars and genocide in Armenia, Rwanda or Serbia where we shamely closed our eyes, we still have walls that we can destroy, and sometimes ONE day in History where you're proud to be a citizen of the world.

Sorty