A ‘pan-European picnic’ helped defeat communism. This time the enemy is populism
On 19 August 1989, just outside the small Hungarian city of Sopron, in a meadow only metres from the barbed wire and armed guards at the border with Austria, civil society representatives from east and west held a “pan-European picnic”, a day in the country that aimed to put an end, through small symbolic steps, to cold war division. In a small though surprising gesture of openness, this “déjeuner sur l’herbe” was authorised by the communist government. Nobody expected, however, that thousands of people, many of them East German citizens on holiday in their “brother nation”, would decide to join the gathering and head towards the line of demarcation, intent on peacefully breaking through the iron curtain.
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Continue reading...from US news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NjlKUn
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