Not being able to sleep at night has its upsides: I was idly listening to the ABC Radio National's BIG IDEAS program sometime between two and three o'clock in the morning, when I heard "How a picnic started the fall of the Iron Curtain" and moved closer so as not to miss a word.
What an amazing story! In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organised a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic ― it was located on the dangerous militarised frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German “vacationers” packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history. Hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.
This was a moment in history where the power of ordinary people changed the world. Three months later the Berlin Wall came down.
