STRIVE January 2018 | Page 9

very different hand .
We know whose hand that was , and the terrible history that followed . We know the Nazis used the technological and industrial powerhouse of Berlin as the headquarters of their genocidal super state , to devastating effect . And we know that World War II destroyed the Nazis – and the city . The defeat and division of Germany was embodied by its capital city , which was stripped entirely of its industrial power and strangled by the Berlin Wall , built to prevent the free movement of East Germans into West Berlin . It had come to this : The technology that was used to build the powerhouse of Weimar Berlin was the same technology that allowed the policing of the Iron Curtain , that enervating and destructive frontline of the Cold War between communism and capitalism .
As I observe the rapid development of ‘ techie Berlin ,’ I find myself wondering what a Berlin Wall would have looked like if it had survived into the present and was controlled with our current technology . I imagine a Berlin Wall guarded by drones . I imagine a Berlin Wall equipped with smart technology , processing endless streams of data to read the movements of citizens on both sides . I even imagine a future Berlin Wall , perhaps in 2030 , where smart walls and holograms have replaced the mucky concrete and barbed wire of the 1980s , and AI robots have replaced young men with guns as enforcers . Virtual reality programming replaces prison time , and the omniscient power of the internet giants , transplanted onto a totalitarian state , means that people might feel free and experience pleasure even as they have all their choices made for them , one click at a time .
I emerge from this rumination into a bright Berlin day and I am immediately calmed . The Berlin Wall has fallen .
Photo by DayTraders Project © andy rumball . 2018
The streets are pulsing with movement and sound . I see an installation by a Syrian artist in front of the Brandenburg Gate . I see posters offering free German lessons to refugees . I see cafes and clubs brimming with the young . Berlin is always clamoring for the future , and away from its dark past . Who knows what great technological innovations may emerge from this city in the twenty-first century ? Perhaps here in the viscous present , the inspired thinking of Berlin ’ s techies will build a freer future . Yet , as the poet Yeats wrote in 1914 , “ in dreams begin responsibility .” In Berlin , the past is the constant reminder of those responsibilities .
Dr . Lauren van Vuuren is a South African historian and writer based in Berlin . She has taught and researched across a range of subjects from the history of warfare and violence to representations of the South African and German past in film . Her current research and teaching focus is Berlin . A prize winning short story writer , she has found in this city a place where past and present constantly struggle against each other to create unique , powerful , and often excoriating stories for our time . She is currently collaborating with photographer Andy Rumball on a book about Berlin .
Dr . Lauren van Vuuren vanvuurenster @ gmail . com www . daytradersberlin . de
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