Documents

I’ve always been rather bolshie when it comes to documents. It’s somehow an insult if people ask you to produce a piece of paper to prove that, to put it simply, you are telling the truth. But documents, for many societies, are sacrosanct: they open the doors, they legitimise you.

I first came across the “permit” mentality in Holland where, to my horror we had to get a permit to live in the house we had bought. This was a legacy of the post war period, when the government had to difficult task of trying to match family size to house size in the face of huge shortages. It was a fine experiment in practical socialism.

You might think that since the Congo has got major administrative problems and has been classified as a failed state they might be rather weak on the documentation side.

Quite the opposite: not only do they require complicated documentation for a whole range of things, the documents themselves look like Royal Charters. For example, I have a permit to live in the flat. It is printed in full colour, with a hologram at the top, and signed by no less than the deputy chief of the commune. Not only does it make you feel special to have something like that, the commune itself is evidently very proud of its ability to produce such an impressive document.

As an aside, the mayor of a commune is not called a Mayor (Maire in French), but Bourgmestre. A title lifted straight from Belgium, and used with a completely straight face, which I think is quite interesting.

Much the same was true when I had to surrender my passport to get a residence permit. The document I was given as a substitute was almost as grand as the passport itself. Now to get a resident’s permit I had to produce other documents, one of which was from the British Embassy, to confirm that I am who I say I am. They have obviously learned by experience that a simple letter will not do the trick. So their form was equally grand, with seals and lots of “whereas” and “heretofore” language (or the French equivalent), and signed with a great flourish by the deputy consul.

Now here’s a nice touch. If, after having gone through all the right channels you have an appointment with a Minister, you will receive, by messenger, a printed (in four colours) official invitation which states the time and day of the meeting and the amount of time allocated for it. That is almost eighteenth century in style.

I was puzzled when I first when on a trip outside Kinshasa to be given a whole sheaf of documents called Ordres de Mission. I say sheaf, because there was an original and about five copies of each one, and a different Ordre de Mission for each place I was to visit.

At first it was quite strange to be stopped at an apparently arbitrary place by an apparently arbitrary person and asked for my Ordres de Mission. And then, of course, I also had to produce my plastic card which proves that I work for a legitimate employer. Sometimes the person would ask to keep a copy of the Ordres de Mission, so that he could complete the details in his office.

Then, of course, it dawned upon me. In a police state – which Zaire was – and in a state at war which the Congo still is, you want to know who is travelling around and why. The fact that the Ordres de Mission are meaningless doesn’t matter. What is important is that I have something to show, and even give, to the police and immigration nosey parkers who ask.

The typical Nazi order in world war two films "Give me your papers" definitely has resonance here.