Der Mauerfall: one empire crumbles, another rises

How sadly apposite it is that twenty years after the fall of a Wall which symbolised imperialistic tyranny and failed ideology, Europe (and not just the East) is heading back towards the folly of bureaucratic centralisation led by grey men who brook little resistance to their carefully laid plans. I speak, of course, of the impending adoption of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1st 2009, a little over two decades after the collapse of a previous secular octopus at the hands of masses of proletarians who had grown tired of saying "Yes" to every socialist diktat. The EU is far more subtle in its methods, but no less determined than the Politburos of former communist states, to impose its will over hundreds of millions of people.

I was only four years old when the Berlin Wall came crashing down around the ears of Egon Krenz and the leadership of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). I wonder how old my own children will be when the European Nation being forged in Brussels is torn down by the "awkward squad" dissidents who can no longer bear to see national sovereignty eroded.