9 November 2009 Ottawa, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement on 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:
"We are here today to commemorate and to celebrate the beginning of communism's end and the triumph of the principles of freedom and democracy.
"As the Ambassador noted in the lobby of this building, the Government Conference Centre, where, incidentally, talks relating to German reunification were held in 1990, there is a piece of the Berlin Wall.
"The significance of this day is that the Wall, of which this slab was once a part, could no longer contain the yearnings of a people demanding to be free. Of course, it did not happen all at once. But, the point of no return was reached 20 years ago today, on November 9, 1989. That is when, with the world watching, thousands of Germans from the east poured across a border that would soon cease to exist. They chose with their feet the principles long upheld by Canada and our allies: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Border guards at first uncertain in the face of so many, became unwilling, and quickly unable, to stop them.
"The life had gone out of the communist system. It was a day of joy in Germany, and of relief in Europe. No more would a people be kept apart. No more would Europeans fear that the division of their continent would lead to nuclear war. No more would the state seek to deny the dreams, to suppress and to torment its own citizens.
"This piece of concrete is a tangible reminder of that. It reminds us that life in East Germany, the so-called "German Democratic Republic," so impoverished the soul, that the Communist government required a wall to prevent its own citizens from leaving.
"It stands here now, not as a barrier, but as a tombstone for the regime that built it. Once, however, there were 160 kilometres of concrete like this around West Berlin, to keep East Germans from entering. It was topped with barbed wire and protected by guard towers. It shielded a wide area of raked sand – a kill zone – in which guards were under orders to shoot to kill so-called "traitors," anyone who might try to escape across it.
"And, what happened when somebody tried?
"Not long after the wall went up, a young man named Peter Fechter decided he would no longer live as just a creature of the state. With all the burning passion of youth he determined to cross the wall and live as a free man, like the people he could see, and hear, just metres away over the concrete and barbed wire in West Berlin.
"A city of light it must have seemed to him. There he would find no commissars, no secret police, no torturers. And surely the job of a border guard was just to check passports, not really to stop people from leaving. For, my friends, thousands of people tried everything to get out of East Germany and the other hostage nations of the East Bloc. Nobody, nobody jumped this wall to get in.
"So, Fechter and a friend hid near the wall in a carpenter's shop. The wall was only two metres high at the time – half the height it would eventually reach as the Communists became increasingly desperate to hold back their restless people. Freedom looked so possible, so close.
"Choosing their moment carefully, Fechter and his friend ran. Shots were fired. His friend made it over. Fechter did not. Hit in the pelvis, he fell back. And there, at the foot of the wall, his government allowed him to bleed to death. No doctor came, no commissar took charge, no border guard dared walk a few short metres to give first aid. In agony from his wounds, Fechter took an hour to die.
"Peter Fechter was just one of almost 200 people thought to have perished along the wall over the years, in their bid for liberty. And just one among countless hundreds of thousands of eastern Europeans who lost their lives in those terrible decades, in purges and prisons, yearning for the free and democratic society in which we as Canadians have always lived.
"Peter Fechter was only 18. I tell his story to remind us all of what was overthrown that day the wall came down. The wall the Communists built was more than a physical division. It symbolized another darker view of life. Beyond the wall, people lived in freedom, exercised democracy, experienced justice.
"On the Communist side, there was no freedom. Individuals did not matter. Justice and law were only what best served the interests of the state. People belonged to the state, and served it. It was the difference between whether the people choose who governs them or the government chooses the people by choosing who will live or will not. The difference between a system that is good and a system that was evil.
"Because we should acknowledge Communism for what it was, not a flawed or inefficient system, but, like its totalitarian cousin, fascism, the antithesis of our highest values, one of the two great 20th-century threats to the very existence of our civilization, an evil to be understood so that it may never again be repeated.
"It is profoundly wrong to condemn whole populations based on class, just as it is to condemn them based on race. And it is profoundly evil to seek to resolve political debates through the annihilation of the other side whether it is called a "final solution," the "end of history," or any other such euphemism.
"This evil comes in many forms and seems to reinvent itself with each generation: the promise of a perfect society, if only those unworthy are first eliminated. The inferior races. The class enemies. The infidels.
"This is an evil that Canada has always resisted. As Canadians, as Conservatives, as Liberals, as others we are opponents, but we are not each other's enemies, we are each other's fellow citizens. We battle with ballots, not with bullets. One side wins and accepts the rights and the responsibilities of government. The other lives in opposition and in freedom to fight another day. And so it has been for over 140 years and even longer, and we are all better for it.
"But we have done more than just experienced and lived under freedom and democracy. Our forebears have fought and died that we may enjoy them. That is why a million Canadians joined in the fight against fascism. It is why more still then went to Korea. It is why our young men and women today risk their lives to stop the spread of terrorism from and to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.
"And it is why, through four decades, tens of thousands of Canadian service men and women confronted Communism in Europe at the Wall, and at the Iron Curtain, until the great day came twenty years ago today that made it no longer necessary.
"Friends, the Berlin Wall divided a nation. But its fall united a continent in a hopeful future. Today we reflect with pride on the part Canada played in that downfall. And we celebrate the triumph of ideas that liberate the human spirit over those that bound it in chains: the free and democratic ideals of Canada and its allies.
"I am pleased to announce that this section of the wall will be relocated to the Canadian War Museum, as an important relic of the Cold War. There, it will honour the men and women of the Canadian Forces who served during that confrontation. It will also complement the memorial to the Victims of Totalitarian Communism, planned for the capital region by Tribute to Liberty. Alide, I want to congratulate you and your bipartisan group on getting this done.
"It shall stand as a reminder that all political systems are not the same, that our democracy, that our freedoms are to be cherished, exercised and protected.
"This is our history and our inheritance and may God help us ensure that it will always be so."
