briefwahl

On Sunday, another general election is held in Germany. In the rag that's handed out daily in front of London tube stations, I read that the election will be "the most important for Europe in decades". This is utter nonsense. Any conceivable outcome – and there are at least four – will retain the status quo. Economic policy will continue as before, in the country as well as in Europe. The only changes will be symbolic.

Germany is run by either of two (and occasionally both) parties in various coalitions. Which party has the upper hand doesn't matter one bit. There aren't dramatic differences between them. Both parties support higher taxes and promote suffering as the path to happiness as if this were the Vatican. This would be of little concern to foreigners, but Germany has shared economic pain generously and incubated fertile ground in southern Europe.

The thing is, the German insistence on austerity is not going to stop. As long as there are studies out there claiming that even Greeks, whose nominal wealth is inflated by random piles of brick deposited on various Mediterranean beaches, are wealthier than Germans and stories of grandfathers buried in the yard surrounding the pile of bricks because it was their favorite place in the world – and the continued transfer of a monthly state pension is an unfortunate oversight, a fluke that no one noticed, honestly – public opinion will not shift away from austerity no matter who wins the election. And since the media love this kind of story, public opinion will not shift, period.

Yesterday, I received a pale grey envelope marked Official containing two smaller envelopes, one bright red, the other pastel blue. I had been waiting for this letter. In a perfect world, it would have arrived much earlier. But when you live abroad and your mom does the right thing and takes summer off to travel, there's no one back home that could tell you your number on the electoral roll, which your hometown sends to your registered address. This number being required to request a ballot for absentee voting, my hands were tied while the countdown ran.

I would have had all the time in the world to watch the news, read editorials and follow debates to educate myself on the various party's stands on the pressing issues of the day, but there wasn't much noise. There wasn't disagreement and there weren't discussions. This was, it seems to me, not so much because everyone agreed but because no one cared. Slaughter of civilians in Syria, an economy on continued life support, energy costs that are the highest in Europe by far – I don't know what this election is about.

In any case, my mom returned home last Sunday, found the postcard from the city and send me my electoral roll number. Five clicks later I was much closer to fulfilling my civic duty, and last night I did it, putting a pair of Xs inside circles on the ballot paper that had tumbled from the big grey envelope together with the little ones. This morning, I recursively stuffed the little envelopes in the correct order, bought a stamp and sent my democratic right on its way. Three days away from election day, there's not much of a chance that the letter will make it back on time but, as illustrated above, it wouldn't make a difference anyway.