We must make use of the legacy of empowerment

The peaceful self-determination that marked the revolution of 20 years ago remains a valuable legacy that must not be tossed to the wind, writes the left-liberal Frankfurter Rundschau. Rather, the paper comments, it must be harnessed to face the challenges of the present: "In the still freshly united Germany it was the great East-diagnostician Joachim Gauck who developed the concept of 'empowerment'. ... Gauck's appeal to self-empowerment, to striking out anew on the path to a better life, is by no means outmoded. All of the celebrations would be empty pomp if the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall were not also used to ask: how can we, 'the people', apply the uplifting experience of self-empowerment to shape our own conditions in the present day? ... The people in East Germany who rebelled in order to empower themselves could not guess that they stood the slimmest chance of success. They had more cause for resignation than anyone who leans back nowadays 'because you can't change things anyway'. We will waste the legacy of the peaceful overthrow of Eastern Europe if we don't use it for the challenges of the present."

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