Nothing is ever perfect. All systems have their flaws. Sometimes more flaws than strengths. It was like that in South Africa during apartheid, people had to break away from their family and their traditions just to get food and a little money. The corrupt government spreads ideas of inequality and injustice, forcing people to live in fear for their lives. In his protest novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton uses character interaction to illustrate the negative effects of apartheid on both the native South Africans and the white oppressors. It uses the theme of fear to demonstrate the eternal ideas of the world's corrupt justice system and what effects it can have on family and religion. A corrupt system, such as apartheid, can start a cycle of inequality and injustice that will roam the country and haunt the families it destroys. Steven Kumalo's pursuit of Absalom was based on inequalities and racism, which systematically created its problems. Absalom shot Jarvis out of fear of what he might do to him and his two friends since he had caught them at home robbing him: "And still tears in his eyes. Who knows if he's crying for the girl he abandoned? Who knows if he cries for a broken promise... Or he cries only for himself, to be left alone, to be left alone, to be free from the merciless rain of questions, why, why, why, when he doesn't know why (99)." Black South Africans are treated differently than white South Africans. Absalom cries because he is afraid of the questions and what their answers might be. He doesn't know why he shot Jarvis because he knew it was the wrong thing to do, but there was nothing else he could do. He was afraid that Jarvis would get them into trouble; he had no idea that Jarvis was a man who fought for Native rights. He's afraid of himself and he's afraid that since he killed a man, which in his and his family's minds is the worst thing anyone could do, what else could he do to other people, including his father and his pregnant girlfriend . The natives were only allowed to own a small portion of land unlike the white South Africans whose population was tiny compared to the natives but they own a much larger amount of land.