Queing for a passport

I had the unwanted privilege this week to fall into the queue to re-apply for my passport. There are things in life that you just have to do. No choice.


I was joined by literally nearly another hundred applicants who where willing to sacrifice a whole afternoon to achieve just the same.


Although everything ran smoothly we still waited more than 3 hours, before we could walk out the door.


I landed in the queue with people from different backgrounds, all with different purposes. There was a mother who wanted to register her newly born daughter, proudly showing me how beautiful she was.


There was a student who needed a passport to go and visit her family overseas.


A businessman who’s passport has expired.


Still we were all joined by the same sense of direction. We all wanted a document that would classify us as being South African citizens. Yes, we do not always have a choice, we are forced to produce travel documentation when we enter or leave the country, but having a South African passport still binds me to this country and to all the other people who share this document with me.


Marcus Buckingham writes in his book – The one thing you need to know, that there are many universals in human nature. These are phenomena that occur across all cultures and in all societies. It tells us that although we seem so different, actually we are all made with the same desires burning inside of us. He classifies these universals in to five categories:


• The need for security, as often shown by our fear for death, by us wanting to marry, being with family etc.


• The need for community, we show this often by fearing outsiders


• A need for clarity, that is why we so often fear the future and give so much prestige to people who are able to predict the future (interestingly he uses the example of economists as fulfilling this role in our society)


• We all crave for respect, we do not want to feel insignificant. He uses the interesting example to illustrate the fact, that every society in the world has a word for self-image


• And then lastly: the need for authority. The all feel chaos, we want to be part of a structure. We therefore submit ourselves to rules and a well defined system to keep the chaos at bay.


I realised that everybody in that queue portrayed one or more of those universals by there reason for standing in the passport queue.


We all want to belong to a community, we submit ourselves to authority, through belonging to a country we linked ourselves to the future of that country.


While I was talking to the mother I could see how she was craving my approval of her little one, she wanted my respect.


The student applied for a passport to go and visit her family, she wanted that passport because the is part of a family she wants to spend time with, a family providing her with a sense of security.


As I walked out of the home affairs building I realised that we should start looking at the universal things that bind us together.


Through recognising that although we are different, there are universal feelings and needs that level out those differences, we will be able to respect people despite their differences. We will be able to emphasize with people rather than criticising.


We can never be the same as other people. We need to treasure our differences, but we also need to seek and find the universals that can bring us closer together. The universals that bring South Africans together – in places like passport queues.