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1989: The OTHER Year that Rocked the World

The Australian, 1 January 2009

The Ayatollah Khomeini was dead. In the West, perhaps nobody was more despised than Iran’s political and spiritual leader. But in Iran, two million black-clad mourners turned out to say goodbye. They jostled to touch his shroud, struggling so hard that – in an almost comical moment of mass hysteria – his corpse fell from its coffin.

            After seven decades, the Soviet Empire was falling – at rapid speed. The republic of Uzbekistan saw the worst outbreak of ethnic unrest in decades, turning the streets of Fergenia into a bloodbath. Poland held its first parliamentary elections in 42 years, with Solidarity – the labour federation that had previously been illegal – winning a decisive majority. In the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev took office as the newly elected President, but one of his chief dissenters, Boris Yeltsin, became an overnight celebrity – and was elected to the Supreme Soviet. Meanwhile, Russia’s worst rail disaster, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, resulted in over 800 deaths, including many children embarking on their summer holiday.

            With America divided over nuclear power, Sacramento residents voted to close down a functioning nuclear plant. In noble Japan, a new prime minister was sworn in, after the greatest corruption scandal since World War II – and almost immediately, this new leader was embroiled in a sordid scandal of his own. In Argentina, with inflation rampant, 1,000 looters were arrested in one day.

            Pro-democracy protests flooded Tiananmen Square, providing a new optimism that even China would surrender to the People Power that was taking over Eastern Europe. That hope would vanish overnight, as the army took over the Square, killing perhaps thousands of students.

            But before it was over, Tiananmen Square would provide one of the strangest, most powerful moments of our time, as a man stood in the path of a tank. “Why are you here?” he reportedly said. “My city is in chaos because of you.” Within just a few moments, he would become probably the most famous unknown person in history – a symbol of pride and courage.

            A rundown of an eventful year? Not exactly. All of the above happened during one week in 1989. Early June, to be exact.

            It was that kind of year.

            To baby boomers, the greatest year in history was 1968. Upon its anniversary in 1988, it was the subject of books, television specials, even the cover of Time magazine. The youth of 1988 (“Generation X” was not yet a common label) read excitedly about the riots, the assassinations and the Cold War turmoil, wondering when we would witness a year as momentous as that.

            We wouldn’t need to wait long. The very next year was Gen-X’s answer to 1968. But as 1989 approaches its own twentieth anniversary, there is a distinct lack of television specials.

            Perhaps it wasn’t brutal enough. Unlike most of history’s most exciting, world-changing years – the revolutions of 1848, the violence of 1917, the thrills of 1968 – it didn’t leave most people exhausted, muttering about the terrible state of the world. Instead, many people were left energised and inspired by the new, seemingly improved world. Of any year still in living memory, perhaps only 1945 left the world with such optimism, and it needed the end of a world war to achieve that.

            Of course, 1989 saw the end of the Cold War, which had kept the world on the brink of global warfare for four decades. Strangely, the end of the Cold War was relatively peaceful, with surprisingly few casualties. Apart from China, the world seemed to follow the lead of Eastern Europe. In Libya, Paraguay and South Africa, some of the world’s most notorious regimes turned over a new leaf, changing their policies to reflect such newly fashionable concepts as freedom and democracy.

            As the Berlin Wall fell, and most Communist states replaced their governments with duly elected leaders, it appeared that the world had solved its greatest internal problems. Not everything had worked perfectly – as we could still be reminded by the ghostly silence of Tiananmen Square, or the violent transitions of Soviet republics – but we had always expected a few potholes on the way. The more optimistic among us were expecting a new age of peace, unity, cooperation and all that.

            Humans being what we are, it was never going to be that simple. The new order of 1989 (like the end of World War II) would be a launching pad for more conflicts and human disasters. But during 1989 itself – even in the final weeks, as the Ceausescus were publicly executed in Romania and the US government (perhaps looking for a new enemy) pounced on Panama’s General Noriega – it seemed like a happy ending.

            To this writer, 1989 was a perfect time for a study break. An exciting year was under way, and (unlike 1968) I was there. Well, if you count Australia as “there”. Though I witnessed the events of China, Poland and East Germany from the safety of the living room, I did spend much of the year as a “greenie”. With the end of the Cold War, the environment truly seemed to be the next great challenge – and it was equally thrilling. While world leaders voted to plug the ozone hole, protesters flocked to the Amazon rainforests, and many people were mobilised to activism in March, when the Exxon Valdez leaked 11 million gallons of crude oil on to Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Along with Tiananmen Square and the falling Berlin Wall, the sight of the oil slick, covering 80 square kilometres of wilderness, was one of the year’s most astounding scenes.

            Like the idealism of the sixties, the optimism of 1989 has so far been replaced with disappointment. Other conflicts have supplanted the Cold War, as the post-9/11 world brought back the old fears. The Green movement, so strong in 1989, soon ran out of steam, and has only recently made a real comeback.

            So forgive me while I reflect on 1989, when we were naïve enough to be positive and confident. Even back then, we had the audacity of hope.