After the Wall

American Journalism Center ^ | November 13, 2009 | Geoff Lewis

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After the Wall

Geoff Lewis, November 13, 2009

Twenty years ago the Berlin wall that divided Germany from freedom and communism came down. At a recent event at the Heritage Foundation, panelists reviewed the “pulse” of Europe twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, publics of former Iron Curtain countries generally look back approvingly at the collapse of communism,” according to “The Pulse of Europe 2009,” a study released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2009. “Majorities of people in most former Soviet republics and Eastern European countries endorse the emergence of multiparty systems and a free market economy” stated the study.

However, the initial widespread enthusiasm about these changes has dimmed in most of the countries surveyed; in some, support for democracy and capitalism has diminished markedly. In many nations, majorities or pluralities say that most people were better off under communism, and there is a widespread view that the business class and political leadership have benefited from the changes more than ordinary people. Nonetheless, self-reported life satisfaction has risen significantly in these societies compared with nearly two decades ago when the Times Mirror Center first studied public opinion in the former Eastern bloc, said Richard Wike, associate director of the Pew Global Attitudes Study, at the event.

“The acceptance of- and appetite for- democracy is much less evident today among the publics of the former Soviet republics of Russia and Ukraine, who lived the longest under communism. In contrast, Eastern Europeans, especially the Czechs and those in the former East Germany, are more accepting of the economic and societal upheavals of the past two decades,” stated the study....