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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR
The changing rhetoric around a wall
The Berlin Wall was a frequent actor in rhetoric between the two blocs but
how it was used changed somewhat over its existence. Maybe not too
surprisingly the media in East Germany blamed the construction of the
Berlin Wall on the actions of the West but during the early period after the
wall had been constructed there was also debate in the Western press about
whether the wall was a result of a western failure as not enough had been
done to stop the construction (Bruner 1989:321). This attitude changed,
however, and in his 1963 speech Kennedy claims “… we have never had to
put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us” (cited
in Bruner 1989:324) suggesting that the wall was in fact proof of eastern
failures. Also during Reagan’s speech in Berlin in 1987 the wall is used as
evidence of failure of the Soviet Union and victory of the West (Bruner
1989:325). During its later years the way the wall was instead portrayed
more as an anachronism, emphasising the absurdity in its existence (Bruner
1989:325). In contrast in East Germany the fortified border with the
capitalist West became the focal point during celebration ceremonies
(Figure 2). Following its fall it instead became a symbol of freedom and the
victory of the people on both sides. This meaning of freedom has also come
to extend outside the Cold War context and images of the fall of the Berlin
Wall has found its way into other settings such as for example during the
2003 invasion of Iraq where images of the fall of the Berlin Wall was used in
news coverage to illustrate images of liberation (Manghani 2008:59).
The picture of the Berlin Wall has become a recurring image in the
media and was constantly used to represent the ideological divisions in
Berlin and in Europe. Critical theorist Sunil Manghani (2008) makes the
point that the media images of the fall of the Berlin Wall were not used to
critically investigate the exact goings on but rather they were used to
maintain an already popular and dominant interpretation of the events
(Manghani 2008:59). Although Manghani has studied images of the events
of 1989 in Berlin rather than the erection of the wall in 1961 his discussions
can also be extended to how previous images of the Berlin Wall were used.
It demonstrates how powerful images can be and how prevailing the story
they convey can become. Manghani also uses other examples to show how
this type of reporting, and in effect also history writing, is constantly occurring
in other places, such as the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in
Baghdad’s Firdos Square in the summer of 2003. This event was immediately
broadcasted across the globe and even if the toppling of this statue
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