Stone walls do not a prison make; nor iron bars a cage. - Richard Lovelace

HISTORY IS REPLETE with many examples that demonstrate in no uncertain manner that resilient people cannot be imprisoned or enslaved against their will, no matter how much brute force is used to control and demoralise them.

In more recent times there was a failed experiment in Grenada, and our own people suffered the indignity of slavery for a very long period. The greater tragedy is that there are many among us who allow our ancestors' experience to imprison us. The reality is that you should not own property and think like a slave.

On Monday, there was the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that divided Germany and symbolised the decline of communism. It is not yet dead as an ideology, but its appeal is limited.

Nobody doubts the world changed on that night in Berlin. Since then, hardly anyone under about 40 remembers communism. It was an idealistic creed promising equality, freedom from exploitation and the creation of a new perfect humankind.

Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot turned communism into the bloodiest social experiment of all time. We have no doubt that history will indeed mark November 9, 1989, as the "event that gave Europe freedom and progress and became a turning point for the fate of the world".

As we look back, it is noted that less than a generation ago one-third of Europe was under military occupation by the Soviet Union, which had about 750 000 troops stationed in central Europe and hundreds of nuclear missiles aimed at Western cities.

On the other hand, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) countries had hundreds of missiles targeted at Budapest, Warsaw and so on. Two generations were brought up to fear the Soviet monolith. There were nuclear scares [such as the Cuban missile crisis] and the Cold War fuelled proxy wars on other continents.

All that changed in 1989. It may have been coincidence, but the collapse of communism inspired liberation elsewhere, most dramatically in South Africa, where apartheid reigned supreme. Nelson Mandela was released from prison three months after the wall fell.

The result was the opening of the floodgates to geopolitical changes that shook the world and changed the map forever. The revolution that started with the fall of the Berlin Wall didn't stop in Germany. It had a cascading effect across Eastern Europe stretching right up to Moscow, the bastion of the mighty socialist empire built by Lenin and Stalin.