In the 1990’s my husband and I traveled through what was formerly East Germany, unified a few years before with West Germany to form a new country. We saw remains of the infamous Berlin Wall, where guards shot those who ventured to flee the East German dictatorship. In the bustling, modern German state, the idea of a government that sought such control over its citizens now appeared quaint and old-fashioned.

I’m reminded of that day when I watch news about the beleaguered country of Syria. The government of Bashar al-Assad seems stuck in the old ways: iron control, no self-determination, no free flow of information.

In the days of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, the United States penetrated the “Iron Curtain” that surrounded Soviet countries with radio programs. People in Soviet countries listened to clandestine radios and hoped no government spies would report them to authorities. Radio information punched the first holes in the Iron Curtain.

The new fax machines in the 1980’s meant one could send documents instantly to another person thousands of miles away. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Boris Yeltsin led a new Russian government, beset with problems but more democratic than the Soviet model. Supporters of the old style autocracy attempted a coup to reverse the process. The coup attempt was defeated, partly because the supporters of Yeltsin were able to communicate by fax.

Fax machines were joined by email and email by cell phones and texting and the new phenomena we call social media. The story is told again and again of the role these new forms of communication now play in the toppling of dictatorships.

Information provides fuel for change, but information is not wisdom. Information may tear down, but only wisdom can build. Wisdom has to do with values and sometimes hard choices after the shouting has faded.