Paradox Security Systems

The old neighbourhood, Pretoria, down a dusty road in the very new ‘burbs out east. A stop sign. Below it, attached to the slanted pole that holds the stop sign falteringly in place, two advertising banners. “TAR SURFACE 072 1509616” reads the one, its crummy hand lettering now almost a generic species of type that one day soon will appear in your MS Word font list as “Africa New Bold”.

But it is not this banner that catches my eye. It's the other one. It reads: “Two White Guys Life Protection Systems”.

Bullet point declarations aside, the banner includes a name, a telephone number, a website reference and a cryptic logo that reads “Paradox Security Systems”. Mindful of Terry Eagleton’s not entirely unfunny warning about cultural theory’s decline into banality and triviality, this in his 2003 book After Theory, I am not going to exercise too much effort on decoding the significance of the advertising banner way out east and north of everywhere.

But, and I suppose this is important, would that hoarding strike you as more or less strange were it not plastic cable tied to stop sign along an untarred road in an area where bushveld is tenuously holding out against suburban kikuyu? How would it look staple gunned to a tree along William Nicol Drive? Tied to a palisade fence in Greenside? Attached to a lamppost in Claremont? And what if the “two white guys” decided to become “two Indian gentlemen”, “four Coloured women”, “eight Tsonga teenagers”, “thirteen lucky Zimbabweans”, “lots of Chinese”, or simply “one angry Samoan”, how would that change things?

Later, at home, I ask the internet to tell me more.

“As a young, Pretoria-based start-up company, and operating in a highly competitive environment, we must differentiate ourselves.”

I click through to another page.

“We are independent Security Solution providers. Not being affiliated to any given armed response means that we can offer a bespoke security solution to match your exact requirements, circumstances and risk profile. We will not push you into ‘whatever system we happen to be selling this month.’ You have the freedom to negotiate your own armed response contract, should you so desire.”

Desire? I desire an answer.

When did a security solution become a proper noun? Security Solution. The only other “solution” I know that is routinely transcribed in capital letters is prefixed by the word “final” and narrated through place names like Belsen. To my mind, there is no equivalence between the insecurity of living in a criminally hazardous country and inhabiting a state that has criminalised your very life because of your religious persuasions. None.