The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s exactly 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The dramatic demolition on that chilly November night in 1989 symbolised liberal aspirations for a world soon to be remade in the image of America and Western Europe. For the political theorist Francis Fukuyama it was ‘The End of History’ and a decisive victory for the global democratic project. But history didn’t end in 1989 and understanding the reasons for that is perhaps the moral imperative of our age. Democracies are shaking, America is polarised, Russia is meddling with Western elections, China is crushing democratic protests in Hong Kong; then there’s 9/11 and its aftermath of Islamist terror. Where has it all gone wrong? Some see it as a moral failing on the part of the West that it did not seize its moment of triumph. Others believe the West was arrogant in expecting the nations of Eastern Europe and the Middle East to adopt its version of capitalist democracy. What are the lessons? The capitalist and communist ideologies may not be as entrenched as they were during the height of the Cold War but neither have they gone away. Today it’s fashionable to argue that only a resurgence of international socialism will keep the ‘evils’ of global capitalism in check. Others think that totalitarianism never died – it merely morphed into a new kind of political and moral orthodoxy that now dominates our institutions. Where do we go from here? Should each nation be left to work out its own destiny, or do we need a new global project? Featuring Anne Applebaum, Chris Bambery, Paul Mason, Dr. Alan Mendoza.

Producer: Dan Tierney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a programme from BBC Radio 4.
0:03.9	Good evening. 30 years ago this week was for many the high watermark for global optimism.
0:09.0	This was the week the Berlin Wall came down. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and the political
0:13.7	theorist Francis Fukuyama was moved to announce that history had come to an end.
0:18.5	It was not as foolish as it now sounds. He was careful to distinguish the
0:22.0	historical climate from the political weather, but what he meant was that liberal capitalist
0:26.7	Western democracy had not just triumphed, but that its victory was total and final. The clash of
0:32.6	moral as well as political worldviews, the long argument over how best to organise human affairs was over.
0:39.6	Three decades on, those democracies are divided and uncertain. Populism is on the march,
0:44.8	an authoritarian Russia meddles. China is more totalitarian, not less. The Arab Spring
0:50.7	ended in violence, not democracy. Global measures of civil liberties, government function
0:55.9	and political pluralism have been sliding for more than a decade. What went wrong? Was it a moral
1:02.2	failure of the West not to capitalize on its advantage? Was it hubris to think our way of life and our
1:08.1	values were so obviously superior that everybody else would rush to adopt them.
1:12.6	Do we still think the world would be a better place if we, if we shaped in our image?
1:17.7	If we failed then, can we succeed now and what would success look like?
1:21.1	That's our moral maze tonight.
1:22.2	The panel, mainly Phillips, social commentator on the Times,
1:25.0	the historian Tim Stanley, Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the
1:28.3	RSA and the author and guardian columnist Nezreen Malik. Tim Stanley, if history really had
1:34.3	ended, you would have had to study media studies at university, wouldn't you?
1:37.7	I've probably been making a lot more money right now. I think there's a temptation to say
	...

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