Strange Use of Crowds

Monday, November 09, 2009

Today’s Associated Press includes one of many stories world-wide about the 20th anniversary celebrations related to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

I spotted this paragraph, which piqued my interest:

• East Berliners streamed toward border crossings. Facing huge crowds and lacking instructions from above, border guards opened the gates — and the wall was on its way into history.

Think about that.

For 20 years, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, border guards have been turning people back, or shooting people, who tried to cross the border.

Suddenly, faced with “huge crowds” and lacking instructions, the border guards just let people through.

Was that all it took?

People in sufficient numbers?

Ask your self this, although the great mass of people were reacting to an garbled news story from earlier in the evening, what would have happened had that same “huge crowd” somehow just taken it upon themselves to swell towards the border the night before?

Two nights before?

A week before?

If all it took to open the flood gates was a huge crowd, the garbled newscast turns out to be no more than a catalyst.

And there is hope for us all yet!

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