”I reacted very emotionally when I saw people cheering on TV. I remember how I waited to cross the border by the underground station in Friedrichstrasse, queuing up for inspection of my passport and belongings. I felt a lump in my throat… the collapse of the Berlin Wall truly became a powerful symbol of the collapse of Communism.”
For the author Slavenka Drakulić, the memories from 9 November 1989 are still strong.

On Monday, twenty years later, to the day, she will participate in the Presidency event in Stockholm: “The day that changed Europe”, celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

She has just come out with a new book “Two Underdogs and a Cat – Three Reflections on Communism” in which her stories describing life in Eastern Europe before and after the fall of the wall are told in the form of fables. At the Presidency event she, together with Professor Jonas Tallberg and journalist Katerina Janouch, will be discussing how the new Europe changes our view of the world and how we see ourselves in Europe today.

Many of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe that were once part of the Soviet bloc have, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, developed into democracies. Is there a distinguishable cultural, political or social East-West axis in Europe today?
“Our history and our experience of life under Communism naturally make us different even today. If we believed that after the collapse of Communism everything would change immediately, that we all would live in bliss and plenty ever after, that we all, East and West, would be equal - we were wrong. The Europe of our dreams turned into something much more complicated, which tends to happen with dreams. Yes, there is democracy now – but also ‘cowboy capitalism’. Yes, there is freedom, but most of the people are still poor. Yes, we can choose our political leaders ourselves, but they mostly turn out to be corrupted. Corruption is, in fact, the cancer of countries in transition. All in all, Eastern Europeans still feel like second-class citizens. Twenty years was not enough to make all the necessary changes and to feel better about ourselves. We need more time. But time is running out…”

Would you say that there is a common European identity today?
“There are no longer state borders in the EU – there is a common market and a common currency. But there is no common foreign policy, no common official language – a great handicap when it comes to democratic decision-making… In fact, there is not much in common at all. Or not enough in common to create a European identity as yet. However, saying all that, identity is a social construct. It means that, if positive circumstances and efforts prevail, we could build a European identity. Providing that ’identity’ is interpreted as inclusive, not exclusive. Try to imagine a sandwich that includes many layers of identities – individual, local, regional, national, European but also professional, gender, club, hobby, etc… These are layers that are not conflicting, but supporting each other.”

In your new book, “Two Underdogs and a Cat – Three Reflections on Communism” you describe the situation in several countries that was under Soviet influence. You yourself were born in Croatia, which at the time was part of Yugoslavia, and have resided in different European countries since. Do you think the fall of Communism was perceived differently in those countries, and if so, how?
“It is not about a difference in perception, but in experience. The Romanians, for example, executed Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu. The Poles negotiated their freedom, the change in Albania happened much later, the Germans united and Yugoslavia fell apart in blood. It could not be more different, I think.”

In you book you use the form of fables to describe the political situation in the different countries. Why did you choose this form?
“I was thinking of all those books and memoirs and essays about Communism that would inevitably appear at such a round anniversary as this. And I thought that, for a young person who certainly does not remember Communism or knows much about it (if anything at all) - it would be more interesting to read a funny book that would give her the essence of totalitarianism without being boring. And who could better tell you such history than animals? I am very proud of their eloquence!”

And finally, if you could be any animal you wanted, on the night of 9 November 1989 in Berlin, what animal would you be and why?
“Perhaps a bird, for the obvious reasons, no? In my imagination I could always become that bird, and I could be there, and I could listen to people and see them climbing and hugging each other and crying…what a nice scene!”