I haven’t followed the German election too closely, except for the rise of the somehow very strange “Alternative für Deutschland” as Mr. Lucke is a well-known economic professor who also writes for an economic blog I am in charge of. Still, I was surprised to find Berlin, at least that’s how it felt to me yesterday, in a complete election absent mind. Sure, there were the posters anywhere, but it seemed as the election had been held already months ago. Adding to this absence was the fact that most of the people I met were either foreigners or not interested in politics (or active non voters). And coming back to Switzerland today it’s the same feeling of politics gone. Maybe it’s the globalised world* we live in which makes local politics (even the German election feels very local) such a non-issue. It’s sad and it’s not very clever as our lives are very much regulated by the politicians we do not vote for or the new rules we do not care of. We should care, at least a little.
* At Tegel airport you get all important journals for free in the waiting area. If you are in Basel or Zurich, it’s just crappy magazines. Sometimes, I am a fan of what I call the German “Zeitungskultur”.
** I saw Eva & Adele at a gallery opening yesterday what made me happy in a strange way. Then I hit my knee at a place called “New Theater” at Urbanstrasse what made me very unhappy.