Botswana’s middle class faces a critical moment in their existence. Days when the middle class used to wield both economic and political power are gone – probably for good. And they should start accepting that. The current administration has been openly hostile to the middle class while opposition has at best remained aloof – not trampling on them, but then not openly courting them either. As a result the middle class today feels unappreciated, unwanted, isolated and often despised. Economically they are suffocated. Politically, they feel humiliated. In a country of their own, they feel much more than just second class citizens. They feel like they are aliens. Nobody in politics seems to have any appetite to engage them on the affairs of the country. Nobody in politics wants to talk to them about the challenges that the country faces.
As a result the middle class now exhibit what is often called the laager mentality – which is roughly a feeling that the whole world is conniving and conspiring against them. While some sympathy is in order, the middle class are also to blame for their plight. They have always maintained a kind of cold detachment to events unfolding in the country as if they lived in another world. Our middle class has not invited much shared with the lower classes the economic fallouts they have enjoyed over the last 30 years or so when the country was doing well and when as class they literally ran the show. They have during that time played no significant role in ensuring the entrenchment of our democracy. They did not bother those in government as long as those in Government did not bother them. For as long as they knew their interests were taken care of, they did not seem to be bothered when those in power often abused such power. That was because they knew that those wielding political power would not rattle their economic interests. All those circumstances have now changed. The current administration has not upheld that line. The comfort zone of the middle class has been deconstructed and literally broken down into pieces. In fact there is a clear and unmistakable split between those holding political power and the middle class. That split easily manifests itself as not just subtle antagonism but open hostility between the two sides. As a group, the middle class are an economic class under siege – worried for themselves, but more importantly worried for the future that at best looks uncertain. Their biggest concern, naturally, is that they no longer hold sway over the country’s political class. For a group that used to wield so much power, such despondency is not altogether unfounded.
The relationship between political and economic power in Botswana has been growing more distant in the recent past. We must give credit to Ian Khama’s administration for going out of its way to break down the vicious cycle of clientelism to which previous political leaders had been beholden under the behest of the economic class. But in breaking down such clientelism, relations between political and economic centres need not necessarily be of open warfare. This is not how it should be. The economic middle class are wrong to recoil into a cocoon. They should participate in the public debates currently unfolding. It is only when they participate that they will become relevant and along the way weave a totally new and sustainable identity for themselves under the changed circumstances. The importance of the economic middle class cannot be emphasized strong enough.
No country in the history of mankind has developed without growth of the middle class. We need our political class – both in power and in opposition to start re-engaging with the middle class. There is another dimension to it. Politicians might have given up on the economic middle class. But it would be wrong for the economic middle class to give up on itself. While this class might be having genuine grievances at the moment especially how the current administration has systematically alienated them and even attempted to annihilate them, the middle class cannot forever brood their loss of status. To the politicians we says there is nothing wrong with coming up with programmes aimed at eradicating power among the lowest members of our society. But then such programmes should not be at the expense of bolstering the middle class for it is the middle class that ultimately creates the kind of wealth needed to establish permanent jobs. This is the last edition of the Sunday Standard this year. We wish all our readers a pleasant holiday season. We hope to meet all of you again in the New Year as we continue along the path to create a better Botswana where all of us can participate in our public discourse without being bullied by anybody.
Please enjoy. Do not indulge.
