Forget Kafka, read Asterix

In The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, the indomitable Gaul and his fat friend Obelix are charged with the task of obtaining Permit A38 from “The place that sends you mad.” Needless to say this proves an infuriating impossibility, with each counter providing contradictory and illogical information as how the Gauls should proceed.

It comes as no surprise to me that the authors of the Asterix series are French. For one, Asterix is set in France (duh). But more importantly, having recently moved to France and experienced first-hand the bizarre worship the country has for bureaucracy and all its little demons, the French are in prime position to lament the obligatory acquisition of forms.

French bureaucracy is not the same as South African bureaucracy. The differences between the two are subtle yet significant. The best way to compare the two kinds of bureaucratic systems is to examine the instantiations of personal disappointment. With South African bureaucracy one finds oneself disappointed by an unfinished task. I.e., it admits that there exists an end to which it is the means, but the personal disappointment in this regard is that this end (be it a document or stamp to be obtained, or permission to perform a certain action) is never realised due to theft, corruption or incompetence.

The personal disappointment regarding French bureaucracy is that you begin to suspect that the end to which you are working does not exist at all. It’s not that your document, stamp or approval will not arrive, it’s that the attainment of the said document, stamp or approval is simply unrealistic or, in most cases, is not recognised as an end in and of itself.

For example, as a foreign wage-earner here in a small town that lies on Lake Geneva, I was told I could not leave France without obtaining a Carte de Sejour – a kind of residence permit. Upon further investigation, I discovered that this was not accurate, and that I could leave France, but would not be allowed back into France. In order to obtain this Carte de Sejour I would need to go to the nearest prefecture with several key documents and pass a medical exam. However, the nearest prefecture in this case is located some 5 hours away by train, and thus I would need to post the documents and wait for a reply. Which documents are needed? There is a grand total of eleven documents needed, including a translation of your birth certificate and pretty much every piece of paper that any French person gave to you in the last 10 years.

At this point the process seems relatively simple. It’s not.

Soon you discover that because it takes so long to process the document, what you need to obtain is in fact a receipt that says that you have applied for the residence permit. This receipt allows you travel and allows re-entry into France, but not on its own. Once you have obtained the receipt, you are required to visit the nearest authority to obtain a Visa de retour, which allows you to come back into France.

At this point of the process I was still fairly confident that the goal was realistic and that I would be allowed to travel. I was wrong.

Firstly, what I received in the post was not called a receipt. It thus became doubtful that it was the requisite document. However, further investigation revealed that the government had effectively changed the name of the document from a “receipt” to... well, something else. Therefore I was not in need of a receipt, but this ‘something else,’ and the ‘something else’ is what I had obtained, and so it would do after all. Hmmmm....

The manner in which one comes across this information is also symptomatic of manifested insanity. All the government officials and employees encountered displayed a bizarre reverence for the rules and regulations. There is no irony in telling you that a specific form has changed name and address and has not been seen for years. Every tick (or rather, cross) that needs to be made is not met with the understanding that it is completely mad to expect the world to run in this fashion. “The rules are there (whatever they may be, we certainly have no clue) and that’s just how it is,” I hear them say.

Next I was off to the nearest authority to get a Visa de Retour, only to be told that, despite the mountains of official government documents indicating otherwise, these authorities have absolutely nothing to do with visas or travelling, and that the whole time I should have been talking to the South African consulate. The lady who enlightens me to this valuable information appears to have a specific hatred of Anglophones (perhaps she thinks I’m British?) and offers no further assistance other than to say “Have a good day.” I kindly request that she write me a note stating that I have at least tried to obey the law. “No.” I ask for her name and the phone number of the office. “No.”

Here you might begin to see my despair, as I realise that the end goal of obtaining a Carte de Sejour, Visa de Retour, receipt, or ‘something else’ did not actually exist. I was chasing a dream, a falsehood, I was trying to make square circles.

In Asterix’s encounter with bureaucracy he completely destroys the system by introducing a new form that throws the whole thing off balance. My solution was far less satisfying, but far more simple: pretend none of it exists and continue with life trouble-free.

Ahhhh... :)