2 days later will be the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall.


Not to say that it has anything to do directly with me or where I come from.

But I am amazed, at the burden that West Germany holds up to today.

My friend, Ji Ching, proposed that one of the reasons Germany today joined the EU was because they still feel the guilt of initiating WWII, the Holocaust and destroying the lives of many people. She said that up to today, people feared the rising of another holocaust, whatever the form or whoever it is against.

Boy, I think she has a point.

By joining the EU, Germany subjects themselves to many things - giving up the previously strong Deutsche-mark, exchanging their currency for a low Euro rate due to conservatism, equaling themselves to other countries which now exposed, do not have a good economic record. Now, they have to bail out other EU countries ladened with Euro debt - Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain (also known with the acronym, PIGS, :S).

Germany is one today. Why still the distinction between the West and East?

West Germany bear the burden of the destruction during WWII, while East Germany renounced ties with the Nazis. Young East Germans do not feel the burden to give aid to the whole of Europe at a time of trouble, a time like this. But West Germans do.

According to an article in the International Herald Tribune (A united Germany confronts Europe. You should read it to get a snapshot of East & West Germany, the guilt that West Germans still from WWII, etc), East Germany got it easy in joining the EU, while ex-Soviet-bloc countries like Poland, Latvia and Lithuania had to fight hard, prove themselves worthy, to join the EU.

At times like this, should Germany still bear the burden of saving whole of EU? Should they still help EU, out of guilt?

The issues that happened in Germany and Europe in the 1900s to 1945 are very interesting. It gives you a sneak peak into how great speeches and powerful idealogies can control massive amounts of people. Killing thousands. Millions. I cannot imagine such a thing happening in my world, the region I live in, today. (Maybe in the country above from where I am now. Hurhurhur)

I can't imagine too, something like this happening in my world, my part of the world. Being passionate to help people, countries, because of guilt. I live in a world of apathy, of pursuing ones own gains before the collective society. That is, I know, putting it to an extreme. But it is true, to a certain extent.
Now the question discussed in the article in IHT is whether the responsibility that old West Germany has towards the whole of Europe should still be beared today to ensure the unity of the whole of EU. Should it or not?

I realised how apathetic we are, Chinese Malaysian, Chinese Singaporean, in this part of the world. Well, we were not initiators of world wars, nor did we kill millions of people (in fact, the opposite happened), but I can't help but think what would happen to me and how would my thoughts developed if Malaysia or Singapore were bearers of massive evilness of mankind.