The tale of the unexpected fall of the Wall

Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy contends that with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall a new myth is being created: that of the "fall-of-the-wall-that-no one-predicted." In the liberal daily Corriere della Sera he says this myth aims to deliberately distort the facts: "We are in the process, in other words, of leisurely confusing two things. Cowardice and blindness. ... We are in the process of confusing that with, on the other hand, the apparent silence, the long, silent, angry murmur of people who, on the ground, had understood for a long time and who were only waiting for the final spark to dare say that the king, or in other words the dictatorship, was naked. This confusion is more than a mistake; it is a fault. It is worse than a legend; it is disinformation. ... Sick of, yes, the banality, the clichés, rehashed ad nauseum; and honor to those who, with their minds or with their feet, saw the collapse approach and hastened it."

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