With a message of peace, Wallbreakers will sail from Amsterdam to Berlin with several traditional barges this summer. We will bring gifts for Berlin and return with original pieces of the Berlin wall. The long journey is a tribute to the Dutch ships that sailed the same journey and passed right through the Berlin wall in 1987, two years before the reunification. Our message is one of peace and freedom.
To share our hope for a world without walls, we will exhibit the wall pieces with artwork on them on the 9th of November in the Netherlands and celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall.
Did we not learn from our past? Today there are more fortified border walls under construction than ever before. However, in 2014 the world celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago. With the Berlin wall broken down and the Soviet Union dismantled, Europe experienced a new peace. Some historians even called this worldwide age of broken walls and interconnectedness ‘the end of history’.
In Berlin, this year the celebrations express the theme ‘Hope for a world without walls’. And the reason why is a valid one. In the last decade, more than ten thousand kilometers of fortified border walls were constructed in name of ‘national security’. But border walls can never serve one goal solely. They cause grave side effects on people, cultures, nature and economies. The current demand for border walls seems to be closing up our world at a rapid pace.
To celebrate 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, this summer the Berlin wall pieces that we sail back by boat, will become a canvas for artists to creatively bring awareness to the significance of border walls. An event will take place on the 9th of November in the Netherlands, exhibiting the wall pieces as art on the same day the Berlin wall fell in 1989.
Around the world over 225 Berlin wall pieces ended up in prime locations in more than 125 countries. This is the first time the Netherlands can proudly take part in owning these unique pieces of world history on a prime location to be announced. By doing so we want tell the people in the Netherlands the story of the resurgence of the border wall.
As a gift to Berlin we will carry Caribbean goodies for retail, and fertilizer and tulip bulbs for the city in our cargo space. Coffee, cacao, chocolate and two rum barrels will come with us from the shipping company Fair Transport, famous for their Tres Hombres rum, which they sail as cargo across the Atlantic. They have proved for almost a decade now, that it can be successful to operate an engineless sailing vessel for transatlantic trade. In addition we carry thirty bags of dried organic fertilizer from the company Culterra Holland B.V. The company is famous for upholding its old ties with the sailing barges that used to transport their products throughout the Netherlands. Finally, we will also be bringing 20.000 tulip bulbs as a present from the Dutch Tulip Association Ibulb to the municipality of Berlin.
On the way back we load the heavy cargo of the Berlin Wall for shipping to the Netherlands for the celebration. The wall pieces are made available to us through the companies Lagerhaus KW GmbH and Klösters Baustoffwerke GmbH & Co KG. The wall pieces are each 2.7 tons and both in L profile (LxBxW: 3×1.2×2.20) and in T profile (LxBxW: 3.6×1.2×1.80). Over a hundred wall pieces stand on their premises. They are looking for artists from all over the world to turn these into an art project. This journey will be symbolic and bring awareness to the meaning of walls and connection between people and countries rather than separation.
In Berlin over a hundred wall pieces stand on the premises of companies Lagerhaus KW GmbH and Klösters Baustoffwerke GmbH & Co KG. They are looking for artists from all over the world to turn these into an art project to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall.Wallbreakers has reserved five of the wall pieces. Contact us if you are you an artist and interested in painting one of them. Join us in the Netherlands where we will have an exhibit 9th of November to celebrate peace and the fall of the Berlin wall.
The artists:
AUGUST
13 AMSTERDAM – Departure (location to be announced)
27-28 BERLIN – Teltow
29-31 BERLIN – Historical Harbour Berlin
SEPTEMBER
01-03 BERLIN – Sailing Tours
OKTOBER
11-13 WORKUM – Sailing race
NOVEMBER
09 NETHERLANDS – Celebration & exhibit event
In the summer of 1987 around twenty traditional Dutch sailing ships participated in the 750 years jubilee festivities of Berlin. The city suffered as the symbol of the Cold War those days. East-Berlin functioned as capital of the communist state the DDR. West-Berlin on the other hand, was a lonely island isolated, walled and without any future perspective. In 1987 no one believed that the Berlin Wall would fall any time soon. With the Dutch ships joining the jubilee festivities in Berlin, two worlds came together that did not seem to fit together at all. The journey had been facilitated at the highest possible political level. Never before had recreational ships been allowed to pass through the DDR, let alone foreign ships. The journey proved to be a memorable expedition with nervous expectations, plenty miscommunications, grave disappointments and extremely conflicting situations for all parties involved.
By sailing into a divided Germany the Cold War remorselessly presented itself to the skippers. In the end the adventure proved successful when the ships were welcomed by thousands of Berliners. Still, the journey was long not forgotten and West-Berlin politicians years later still vividly remembered ‘those stubborn Dutch skippers’ who changed course to East-Berlin when they had to make choice.
Reid and the ambassadors of the DDR West-Germany.
It is now a quarter of a century since the Iron Curtain came down, but walls are going up again. In concrete and steel, with minefields, watchtowers and barbed wire, mankind is building barriers at a pace that we have not seen before in history. The development appears to be conflicting at a time when less-physical walls appear to be falling. This is the age of the global economy, multinationals, vanishing trade barriers; of “the free movement of goods, capital, services and people”, unprecedented mobility and instantaneous communication. It is however also the age in which the long lasting political and religious conflicts have still not been solved, let alone settled and the economic disparities between regions and countries, but also within countries, seem to be growing at an alarming speed.
The Berlin Wall of Water…The Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco form the only borders between Africa and the European Union. The small coastal cities are the target for thousands of immigrants looking for a better life in Europe and who do not dare to take on the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean sea.
The wall of life and apartheid…The clash between the Israeli and the Palestinians, who both claim the same land to be rightfully theirs, is the basis of one of the Middle-East’s most long-term conflicts. The hostilities are exacerbated by the Holocaust tragedies and the expropriation and occupancy of Palestina by the Israeli. To put a
Except for a gap of about 700 kilometres, all of Bangladesh is fenced in by a concrete and barbed wire fence dotted with watchtowers every 2,9 kilometres. Measuring over 3400 kilometers, this is the longest border fence in the entire world. Only in the years since 2006, almost a 1000 people lost their lives to
The Berm…The border between the Western Sahara and Morocco is a serie of eight defensive walls built in 1981-1987. King Hassan of Morocco built the fortifications to protect his people from the ‘Polisario Front’, a political movement in the former Spanish colony that fights for independence of the Western-Sahara since 1973. Only the Great Wall
‘Wall of Shame’ en ‘the Peace Wall’…The conflict in Northern-Ireland has its roots in the independence of Ireland in 1921. This event created a province of Great-Britain in which opposing nationalities, cultures and above all religions had to live together. The protestants affiliated themselves more with the Brits whereas the Catholics would have preferred to
The Berlin wall of the countryside. In 2008, Georgia lost a short land war with Russia. The conflict was about the declaration of independence of former province of South Ossetia. The short war claimed 400 lives and displaced 133,000 from their homes. Russia, who bases their large army in South Ossetia, has changed the border
The 250 kilometre long and 4 kilometre wide wall, a military zone between North and South Korea, is famous for being the most militarised border in the world. As no people are allowed near it, an unintended side effect of the zone is that right now it is the best protected nature reserve in temperate
The Tortilla Wall In 2006 the United States started building a wall more than 1100 kilometres long, as well as fencing along the 3169 kilometre long border of Mexico. The Secure fence Act was a reaction to problems relating to illegal immigrants, drug trafficking and their alleged connection to terrorist organisations. Until now the project
Poverty, political and religious conflicts, environmental degradation and climate change are all instigators of a growing flow of migrants worldwide. The construction of border walls to halt these migrants offers no long term solution to the underlying causes of migration. Instead, taking away the freedom of movement from entire populations for which ever reason appears to only fight the symptons, often in a temporary manner and with poor results. Along with the isolation of groups of people, economies, cultures and religions, the construction of walls often also creates distrust, fear or even hatred of those on ‘the other side’.
The Shipping Company Fair Transport will provide us with to rum barrels for a brewery in Berlin. Brewing beer in old rum barrels brings together the best of two worlds: Caribbean rum and German beer.
“Above all be celebrated liberation, freedom and peace,” said Ton Heerts, director of the vfonds. “But we should not take that freedom for granted,” he says. Therefore supports the vfonds, in the interests of peace, various projects that promote democracy, human rights and international law. “It vfonds would thus bring the public debate on peace and security, and keep going,” said Heerts.
The organic fertilizer of Culterra Holland B.V. provides the basis for new plantlife. Supporting the growth of Dutch flowers beyond borders, they provide us with six bags of organic fertilizer per ship.
Ibulb, the promotional organisation for the Dutch flower bulbs industry will give 20.000 tulip bulbs to Berlin to celebrate the connectedness of the Netherlands and Germany. The Netherlands export over one billion flower bulbs each year amongst which 300 million tulip bulbs. Wallbreakers will sail 20.000 of these this summer. Next spring the Pariser Platz in front of the de Brandenburger Tor will be full of blooming Dutch tulips.
The Wallbreakers project celebrates the 25 year fall of the Berlin wall and is an initiative that we -as a Berlin based family business- support wholeheartedly. The present political conflicts around the world concerns us and worries us at the same time. In these times, even a small project like Wallbreakers can mean much to press for the need of a world without walls!
Initiator of the Wallbreakers-project, Willem Plet, is also an editor for the Netherland’s biggest yachting magazine Zeilen. Zeilen supports the project by publishing about it. In the november edition there will be a large article about the adventurous journey. Editor in chief Cees van Dijk: “This project is all about the right of freedom of movement. Sailing is all about free movement too. We do not want to imagine a future in which the rivers, lakes and seas that connect us are blocked because of closed borders. We stand for borderless sailing and therefore wholeheartedly support this project.’
This is a non-profit project. We are doing this because we love sailing and want to bring a statement of peace to the world therefore we welcome all gifts and donations as they are a backbone of support.
Support us with a donation? crowdfunding@wallbreakers.eu (anbi status)
BIC CODE: TRIONL2U IBAN NL20 TRIO 0784 9162 09
We are looking for companies or institutions that want to connect their name to our project. Put your name on our website, on our ship, provide us cargo or come up with something new!
Interested in co-operating with us? info@wallbreakers.eu
