Echos of a promise

Remember ’89 and ’90 ? A great moment for me personally I finished schooling in the May of ’89. On the personal front a new future lay ahead and in the country as well as across the globe things were changing. 89 saw a pro democracy protest - the likes of which have not been seen again and a change to how political fortunes would be made in India in the future. ’90 saw the Berlin Wall crumbling, one brick at a time, not with a bang, but with the joyous clatter of hammers and the cheers of people finally able to simply... walk. Eastern Europe shed its grey skin for a kaleidoscope of hope. 

It was about the fundamental human yearning for freedom, for a voice, for connection, finally finding an open mic. The parallels with my own life are so clear to see. ’89 brought with it the freedom from a fixed calendar and a freedom to do what I wanted to do. (It’s a few years later that I learnt freedom comes with responsibility) The ideas that resonated? They were grand. Freedom, democracy, global cooperation, the "end of history”. A world without borders, where knowledge flowed freely and understanding would surely follow. I guess a lot of us  genuinely believed we were on the cusp of a golden age, where the bad guys had packed up their bags, and humanity could finally get on with the business of thriving, together. Millions felt it, across continents. It was a tangible, exhilarating hope.

Fast forward to 2025. And yeah, "betrayal" feels like the right word. That bright, shining future from '89-90 has, in many ways, curdled into something far more complex, more divisive, and frankly, a bit cynical.

Where's the widespread flourishing democracy? Instead, you get to  see the steady creep of authoritarianism, populists riding waves of resentment, and democratic institutions everywhere finding themselves under siege, even in places once thought were ironclad. The idea of a global village feels less like a harmonious community and more like a street fight where everyone's screaming past each other, fuelled by algorithms and tribal loyalties.

The economic promise, that liberal capitalism would lift all boats? For many, it's felt more like the rich got yachts while the rest got leaky rowboats, if they were lucky. Inequality has become a gaping chasm, and the "trickle-down" has mostly been a drip. And the internet, that great liberator? It's become a double-edged sword, a wild west of misinformation, surveillance, and echo chambers that seem to actively push humanity apart rather than bring it together. The promise of boundless connection often just feels like endless noise. It's almost as if, once the euphoria of dismantling old walls faded, people hadn't quite figured out how to build something better in their place (somewhat like me and ’89) . Or perhaps, the forces that benefit from division and control simply found new ways to reassert themselves, adapting to the order with a chilling efficiency.

So, how is it that we went from such unbridled optimism to this feeling of a promise unkept? Was the dream of '89-90 naive, or did we simply lack the collective wisdom and will to truly manifest it? It's a question that hangs heavy in the air, a melancholic echo of hopes that once shone so very, very brightly.

C