A review by worldlibraries
Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulić
4.0
Slavenka Drakulic continues her look at life after communism in "Café Europa", her sequel to “How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.” If you think regular consumers in the West sometimes have trouble recognizing that TV ads and media showcase a fantasy, unobtainable lifestyle, imagine how hard it is for people exiting 40 years of communism to know what’s real and what isn’t.
One of the most powerful parts of the book discusses the complicity that citizens of fascist/communist countries feel having worked to sustain a system that is now on the dustheap of history. As their countries toss aside old street names, square names, and place names to reflect the change in power from communism to democracy, citizens see their own personal history erased at the same time as everyone glosses over how they participated. She discovers that nations as a whole, don’t look back with any probing insight.
I enjoyed this book because the author beautifully explains that many of the infantilized emergency democracies are actually stuck in feudal behavior as much as communist behavior. The political system may have changed for the better, but it will be years until citizens know how to work it, rather than subvert it (the old way of surviving) and also how to look to themselves as personally responsible.
One of the most powerful parts of the book discusses the complicity that citizens of fascist/communist countries feel having worked to sustain a system that is now on the dustheap of history. As their countries toss aside old street names, square names, and place names to reflect the change in power from communism to democracy, citizens see their own personal history erased at the same time as everyone glosses over how they participated. She discovers that nations as a whole, don’t look back with any probing insight.
I enjoyed this book because the author beautifully explains that many of the infantilized emergency democracies are actually stuck in feudal behavior as much as communist behavior. The political system may have changed for the better, but it will be years until citizens know how to work it, rather than subvert it (the old way of surviving) and also how to look to themselves as personally responsible.