Bureaucracy II

I wrote this in a cafe enjoying a Cappucino after the 5th or 6th rejection from government clerks:

"Why are they here? What kind of people choose to be the controllers of others?"

We have, after 5 months managed to collect all the necessary documents for a marriage. We arrive at their counters feeling thrilled that we have come so far and that we finally can have this arrangement formally done.

The lady behind the desks sweeps through the pile of papers as I think to myself: "there must be one kilo of them there by now."

I notice that I do not feel good about this lady. She does as people with some power, although limited, run through her process without a word or an eye glance at her waiting customers. She takes her time. "Deliberately", I am thinking... Small people do this as soon as they get the chance to show that they are above others.

I watch my fiancee; she looks a little bemused and my suspisions are confirmed. The lady points at a document and tells us that we need another stamp on this. She says we have to go to Bangkok, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get it.

We look at each other, feeling the same: "refused again!" It comes with this story that the same lady just a few days ago has told my fiancee that everything was in order with our documents now...

The journey down to Bangkok takes 6 hours and we have to find the Ministry in the dirty town of Bangkok, sweat and annoyed, knowing that this office is also full of bureaucrats as all the others before them... I have no illusions that this will work out smoothly...

We will just have to stick to the hope that this time it will work out...??

All this implicates that we have to take another trip to another town in the norhern parts of Thailand; a 4 hours journey,to apply for a 1 month's extension of my visa. That trip may also end up with us having to go to Vientianne, Laos to the Thai Embassy to wait in the blazing sun before they open the gates for us, not in the right time, but after one hour's delay; their needs not ours... They dictate what is right - for them.

I suggest to my fiancee that we can check if it's possible to send the document by mail in stead although I have no hope that it is so...

On the net we find the web page for the Ministry and to our surprise it says that we can transfer it by mail... We feel this as a victory for us, but why didn't the lady tell us? Power play is my only answer...

I get angry when I have these kind of experiences, and annoyed by this bureaucracy animal

I ask myself why it's invented and come to the obvious conclusion that it's a body of control over their citizens. Some people beleive that they have the right to decide how you and I should behave in our lives; lives that are ours to live! How dear they!

They are afraid of freedom (because they don't know what it is) and new ideas and other believes than the ones they have edited; "for the best of our people" - of course, of course. This they do without conferring with their victims, because that's we become with these kind of controllers

This is what humans still do to each other; the "thou shal't respect what is mine, but I can do what I choose with yours" - doctrine

Now I just hope that I will have nothing to do anymore with this animal...