Why the fall of the Berlin Wall may still be relevant

I read an excerpt in the Sunday Times of Peter Millar's '1989 The Berlin Wall: my part in its downfall' from Arcadia Books. Millar was a reporter in East Berlin for a number of years. There were 2 stories which I thought were interesting.

First, as a Reuters foreign correspondent in 1982, Millar recalls a story of where inadvertently he may have influenced political activity. A contact of his had vaguely mentioned the possibility of a demonstrattion in Dresden on the anniversary of the war time bombing. Millar wrote a short piece for Reuters, and it was picked up by West German television. When he attended the demonstration he became aware when talking to others that they heard about it via this television news broadcast. Millar realised that there was no actual grassroots organisation of the event, rather his news story had, in all probability, become self-fulfiling. I found this interesting, because I wonder now in how many countries access to such unathorised television would have a political mobilising impact? Not many I suspect. Rather, the Internet and other new technologies, as witnesed by the use of Twitter in Iran, are increasignly playing such a role.

Second, in describing the events of the opening of East Germany's borders in 1989, Millar suggests that the fall of the Berlin Wall did not represent a logical, coherent and rational political action, rather it was the result of accident and emotion. His support of the cock-up theory of history places a strong emphasis to emotion as opposed to rationality in shaping political decisions. I've always been more of the cock-up as opposed to conspiracy school, and I also believe that in the right circumstances emotion can be a very effective political determinant. Indeed, Drew Weston suggests that in terms of voters emotion plays a key role in choosing between candidates.