Berlin Aquarium — From Cold War Scaffolds 1987 to Peaceful Pulse 2012 – IMRAN®

Berlin Aquarium — From Cold War Scaffolds 1987 to Peaceful Pulse 2012 – IMRAN®

Aquarium Berlin, end of April, 2012. The crocodiles no longer flinch at sirens, and the jellyfish pulse in peace. But I still see the scaffolding of 1987—when West Berlin was a fortress of defiance, and I stood outside this very complex, a guest of a divided nation, predicting its impossible reunion.

Back then, as I was turning 25, the Crocodile Hall had only just reopened, scarred by Allied bombs and Cold War silence. Now, the glass glistens with quiet grace. The murals speak in color what the walls once held in tension. And the light post I framed in the foreground—whether original or reborn—marks the spot where I once stood, hoping one day they'd trace the light back to me.

I returned not to marvel at marine life, but to trace the emotional sediment of a city that once mirrored my own need to be set free from the shackles of the now-dead dictator General Zia's vile, fundamentalism-breeding regime in my motherland in the 1980s.

Over those 25 years, the two halves of Berlin reunited and healed. I too endured, and continued my journey through MySpaceTime. By the grace of God, I achieved great freedoms to be all I want to be. Although it is a surreal irony that now, in 2025, it is the United States that is losing its freedoms—to Nazi-loving, Russia-controlled enemies of democracy.

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