Belinda Cooper
In the heady days of autumn 1989, I lived in West Berlin, working closely with an East German dissident group and traveling around Eastern Europe as a journalist and fixer for Western media. I was privileged to have a front-row seat as East Germans rose up peacefully, the Wall fell, and people all over the region demanded their freedom. Even though the Egyptian context is different in many ways, the events unfolding there in recent weeks have had a joyful, if sometimes anxious, familiarity. Yet my observations in Germany two decades ago also bring some sobering thoughts amidst the rejoicing.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2011/02/15/german-lessons-egypt