Day Six: Red Tape & Green Screens

After green comes red. Today was red tape day as my mother and I needed new passports.

And what a change from the bad old days. Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Some things don't change. The architecture is still dreadful --

-- and the experience incredibly boring and draining...

But here come the differences. Back then, all staff at official departments were Afrikaans. Just as the post-apartheid government created a bulging civil service to fill an employment gap, so the old National Party handed civil posts to their own. They had names like Du Toit and Visser and were officious and surly and grumpy in their (undeniable) efficiency. You didn't dare attempt a human remark like "Funny weather we've been having," nor even attempt a perfectly fair question like "How long does it take for the passport to be ready?". You simply waited for hours, hoped you had all the forms and did the whole thing with a bit of terror in your heart. The grand design was about bullying: the state is more powerful than you can imagine.

Now, the efficiency is gone. There's a lackadaisical air, people slouch, not much happens.

The scene is so unmanaged corruption seems only a few banknotes away. Potholes and puddles litter the car parks. Taxis have replaced police cars...

...and previous applicants have left their mark...

Hand-written cardboard signs giving instructions in eleven languages have replaced the steel notices written (only) in English and military Afrikaans. Some were to the point and incredibly useful:

And get this: we waited barely five minutes. We spoke with human beings who understood we weren't perfect, that we wanted to know what to do, that we might get things wrong, that we might want to share a joke. Authority was maintained through confidence and not brutality. And the whole thing was done in a fraction of the time we were expecting.

What does this all mean? I'm not entirely sure. Between the plush, cold, efficient, honest, Orwellian offices of the Netherlands to the kangaroo-court, breezy, friendly halls of post-colonial bureaucracy there must surely lie a happy medium. Ultimately all you can ask for is a lack of queueing and a service that delivers. Which we got.

My only question is what they'll do with my picture once they've taken out the green screen and replaced it with a background of their choice. I'm hoping for palm trees...