Voice 1
Hello and welcome to Spotlight. I'm Marina Santee,
Voice 2
And I'm Steve Myersco. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
"Around me scores of people have arrived to watch this first incision into the Berlin Wall ..."
Voice 1
This is a BBC reporter reporting on a very important event in history. It happened on November the 9th, 1989. It was the fall of the Berlin Wall - and it is the subject of today's Spotlight.
"Any second now the Berlin Wall will be broken into! A huge cheer is going up. This huge digger is angling itself alongside the Berlin Wall."
Voice 3
‘The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall is an important time to remember. Our thanks must go to brave people who worked for reform in the old East Germany. They worked hard for democracy and freedom. For people in the East and West, the fall of the Wall was an event of joy. It was an event that was a symbol of the whole of Europe reuniting. That is why it is right that we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin.'
Voice 2
This was the message of Klaus Wowereit. He is the mayor - or leader - of the city of Berlin. The people here are celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. For 28 years it divided the city. It was also a symbol of the divide between East and West Europe. But twenty years ago the wall came down.
Voice 1
After World War Two, Germany was divided into two countries. But the two countries developed very differently. West Germany became a rich democratic nation. East Germany was a communist state. Many people living in East Germany wanted to move to the West. They could see that life was better there. There was more money and more freedom. Over two million people left East Germany in the first twelve years of the country existing.
Voice 2
This was why the East German government decided to build fences along their western border. Berlin was in East Germany, but half the city was under the control of western authorities, so the East German government built a huge wall around West Berlin. All this made it almost impossible for people to escape to West Germany. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961. It was just a small part of all that separated the communist countries in the East of Europe from the rest of the world, but it is the most famous part.
Voice 1
By the late 1980s people living in the Eastern European countries were becoming very unhappy. Many people in East Berlin went on to the streets to protest. They were angry with the poor living conditions. They wanted to leave East Germany. In November 1989 the East German government announced that it would let some people cross the border. Immediately, thousands of people tried to cross into West Berlin. The border guards could not stop them. So people were free to cross into West Germany. The Berlin Wall had fallen.
Voice 2
Over the next few days, people worked to destroy the wall. Some people just used basic tools, others had machines. This was the beginning of the process that united the two parts of Germany. One year later, in 1990, East and West Germany became one country again.
Voice 1
People remember the fall of the Berlin Wall as the event that opened Eastern Europe to the rest of the world. In the next few years the other communist countries in Eastern Europe began to change. They became free and independent nations.
Voice 2
This year, the authorities in Berlin have planned a big celebration for the anniversary on November 9th. The main event will be a very special domino rally. A domino rally normally involves small domino pieces. These are small flat pieces with numbers on that are used to play the game dominoes. To make a domino rally, people stand the domino pieces up in a line. When one domino piece falls over it pushes the next one over. In this way all the dominoes fall over in a line.
Voice 1
However the Berlin Wall domino rally will be different. These dominoes are all two and a half metres tall! They have also been painted, by people from all over Berlin and many other places in the world. Together they will make a line of dominoes one and a half kilometres long. It will follow the line where part of the Berlin Wall used to be. It will include one thousand large dominoes. Each one will be painted with a different design.
Voice 2
A German organisation sent about twenty of these large dominoes to seven different nations around the world. The organisation is the Goethe-Institut and this project is called ‘The Wall in the World'. Artists from these countries painted their designs onto the dominoes. The idea is to remind people that there are still barriers like the Berlin Wall in other parts of the world today.
Voice 1
For example, some dominoes went to South Korea. Here a military border divides North and South Korea. Others were sent to Israel. Israeli and Palestinian children worked together to design and paint their dominoes. Other dominoes were sent to Cyprus. This island country is divided in two. Half of the country is governed by the Turkish Cypriots, the other half by the Greek Cypriots.
Voice 2
In Cyprus, two boys painted a domino. They are Anthony and Deniz, and they are both sixteen years old. They each painted one side of the same domino. This shows how they live on two different sides of the same city. Anthony lives in the Greek part of Nicosia. Deniz lives in the Turkish part of the city. Anthony has never been to the Turkish part of Cyprus. But he told the Goethe-Institut,
Voice 4
‘I really want to go there. I want to know what is happening there. I want to know how the people live.'
Voice 1
Deniz painted two words on his side of the domino. These were "peace" and "empathy", which means understanding.
Voice 2
The two boys have never met before. They grew up on different sides of the barrier, but they both want the same thing:
Voice 4 and 5
‘We want the country to be reunited!'
Voice 2
The finished domino pieces have now been sent back to Berlin. They will be part of the domino rally. The dominoes falling after each other represent what is called the ‘domino effect'. One event leads to another event - just as one domino pushes over the next. It shows that the fall of the Berlin Wall did not only change Berlin. It changed Germany, Europe and the rest of the world.
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