1989 is defined by the breach of the Berlin Wall, the surge by hundreds of thousands of people into the west of the city and the marvellous scenes of celebration which accompanied those events ten years ago today. Germany's partition symbolised Europe's division after the end of the last world war. Chronologically other changes came first, setting the scene for the Berlin events - most notably those initiated by the Soviet leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, and in Poland right through the 1980s. Once the change happened in Germany it took only days to sweep through the rest of central and eastern Europe. The Cold War, based on competing superpower protectorates on the continent, came to an abrupt end. The consequences were global, but so far not self-evidently positive in terms of political stability or ethical progress.
The dismantling of the Berlin Wall is nonetheless worth continued celebration in the light of subsequent events on this continent. Europe is, all told, safer and more free as a result, because it is more united. Many of the values and norms associated with the revolution ten years ago have been built into subsequent events and political structures. Non-violence, democratic inclusion and human rights are central to the picture. The European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe have joined global organisations, pre-eminently the United Nations, in ensuring that this is the case. Beside the disaster of ex-Yugoslavia and the current opportunist Russian war in Chechnya must be put solid reconciliation between Germany, Poland and Ukraine, between Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and between Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
But it has been an ambiguous trade-off with political realities. Yesterday's ceremony in Berlin involved Dr Helmut Kohl and Mr George Bush - but not the street and civil activists whose advocacy of a third way carried many East Germans with them during the prolonged confrontation with barracks Stalinism that led to the end of the German Democratic Republic regime. That was a pity. The two men achieved miracles of statecraft in uniting Germany and transforming Europe in a short period of time. But the activists' role should be seen as emblematic of the transition - and of the peaceful achievements of democratic change since then, rather than as a side show.
The East Germans and their alternative-style leaders were, of course, overwhelmed by the rush of consumer capitalism and brutal choices about privatisation, corruption and the loss of identity and status. It was not a pretty sight - there or in the former Soviet Union or its central and eastern European protectorates. Shock therapy as advocated and applied by crude economic theorists gave their discipline a bad name in Russia and in other post-communist states; but in Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia and Georgia, to name but a few of them, more sensitive and better-focused policies have worked to turn around economies and put societies within shouting distance of what they regard as European exemplars of successful development - Ireland included. All this has been accomplished in a miraculous ten years. There is much more we can do to help their development paths and lay the basis for a more stable and prosperous continent over the next generation.
It is too soon to say whether the world as a whole is safer or more free following the end of the Cold War. The United States has become the outstanding superpower, capable of determining many outcomes in its own favour. It lacks the capacity to perpetuate such predominance, but has not found the partners or the will to make the necessary transition to multipolarity and shared responsibility that would better guarantee international stability. An increasingly urgent task now is to examine how best to change and develop the role of the United Nations as a means of orchestrating that transition in international affairs.