In the pre-independence era, the militancy of Batswana politicians (like Phillip Matante) who had imbibed the politics of black liberation in South Africa made the British extremely nervous. In an apparent rent-a-black-face scheme, the British would seek out native moderates and task them with implementing a political platform that essentially preserved the status quo of a deeply unequal society that they had created over seven decades. Ironically, then as now, the British themselves only rhetorically embraced “multi-racialism” but gave it pride of place in the new republic they were creating. The platform that the British constructed hasn’t changed its factory settings in any fundamental way and the result is that socio-economic inequity remains deeply entrenched in Botswana. In reaction to this situation, some opposition MPs are beginning to use the language that Matante & Co. used back in the 1960s.
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