The ongoing tiff over BDP’s accession to membership of Socialist International reminds me of a protracted debate I had with the late academic Dr Mino Polelo some years back as to whether Botswana is a welfare state or not. The exchanges ran for close to a month in the opinion pages of the Sunday Standard.
My premise was that the developmental posture and policy thrust of the BDP was always inclined to the welfare state, especially after the country achieved some degree of prosperity brought by the diamond driven economic growth of the eighties. My interlocutor held a contrarian view which all made for some enriching jousting. But enough said about Dr Polelo because he is not around to speak for himself. That said, I detect a similar reaction today when BDP is welcomed in the Socialist International family of progressive parties. The reaction then was how dare they claim to run a welfare state which is a leftist principle. Now the reaction is how dare they claim to be social democrats when we have long claimed this badge of honour.
Hence this past week spokespersons of the BCP and BNF, in the main, have been quoted heaping scorn on the BDP, in the process artfully ignoring policies and programmes pursued by government which are consistent with social democracy. For instance how can the same critics deny that providing free education, right from primary school to doctorate level is a hallmark of social democracy. How can they deny that the extension of free health care to all Batswana is a function of social democracy. It is only in a social democracy where the largest portion of the national budget is devoted to public and social services which in our case has positioned Botswana at the forefront of countries in Southern Africa poised to meet most targets of the Millenium Development Goals.
So to suggest that BDP does not qualify to fraternise with social democratic parties when it ticks many of the right boxes betrays a lack of appreciation for what social democracy is all about. We can go further; a lot of parties in government that are members of Socialist International fall short of comparison with the BDP when it comes to social democratic policies and programmes. Statistics don’t lie. Botswana has registered one of the most remarkable records on the various human development indices and that is on account of the BDP’s social democratic bent. The reason for this is because of the manner in which we decided to redistribute national wealth.
By adopting a model where the state is a principal stakeholder in the natural resources sector we have managed to channel the proceeds of public wealth to socio economic development as opposed to the scenario where only a few oligarchs would be owning mining houses to the detriment of the whole population as is the case elsewhere. Many of BDP’s detractors from very humble backgrounds have gained quality education and in the process attained middle class status within a generation due to robust and non discriminatory interventionist policies that can only be found in a state that advances values of social democracy. To the limit of its abilities BDP has throughout its tenure striven to achieve social justice in various forms by promoting an equal opportunity society in which assistance will be provided to every Motswana to reach their full potential irrespective of origin and family background.
It is only a state that practises equitable wealth redistribution under a social democracy framework that can reduce poverty from 60% in 1985 to its current 19%; resulting in the upward mobility of tens of thousands into middle class status never enjoyed by their parents. Neither is this a matter of happenstance. The genesis of our social democracy can be traced to 1965 during the self rule phase before independence. In his memoirs ‘Very Brave or Very Foolish’, Quett Masire quotes Seretse Khama imploring the peoples of Gammangwato at a kgotla meeting, ‘let us share any wealth we find underground with the whole nation; irrespective of where it is found’. Other communities and their chiefs were also consulted and they too agreed to cede their mineral rights to the collective, culminating in the Mineral Rights in Territories Bill of 1967.
This legislation is the game changer that set the compass of the BDP firmly on the path of social democracy. It need be understood that the manner of sharing national wealth is a fundamental pillar of this ideology. Next to Norway, a poster child of social democracy on the management and redistribution of its oil largesse for the public good, our model of collective ownership and sharing of natural resources is often held up by development practitioners as one to be emulated because of its tangible benefits to the citizenry. All these factors are not lost to Socialist International. Why then the negative reaction from the opposition parties? To some degree the BDP has itself to blame for its inability to nail an ideological flag to its mast, especially for the comfort of those who cannot see politics outside an ideological prism.
Over the years, by choosing to preach pragmatism over a guiding ideology even when it clearly had one, the party has allowed its rivals to define what it stands for, and of course they have no cause to be charitable. Adjectives such as ‘right wing’ and ‘capitalist’ used to describe the BDP this week are a case in point. Consequently this resort by its rivals to blustery rhetoric tends to obfuscate rather than assist in defining what BDP really stands for. But then such reaction could also be a case of sour grapes by parties who have always claimed affinity with Socialist International now finding themselves in the cold.
I also suspect the indignation could be due to the fact that by becoming a member of a widely respected international movement, the BDP has dealt another body blow to the narrative that it is shunned by progressive organisations. This is the same narrative thread that sought to discount our role in the liberation struggle against apartheid South Africa. Such was the potency of the narrative it was considered gospel truth in some quarters in this country. It took no less than the distinguished figure of Thabo Mbeki, May 2012, on the occasion of the Sir Ketumile Masire Foundation dinner to deliver a magisterial treatise on the role of Botswana in the struggle. Only after this speech did the sustained campaign in historical revisionism much favoured by certain opposition voices come to a shuddering halt.
The moral of the story is that BDP cannot forever depend on the grace of internationalists like Mbeki to validate the party’s bonafides to its own citizens on matters of critical import. It is for the party to rise to the task of weaving its own narrative, failure of which propagandists on the other side of the political divide will push their version of history. For example, BDP’s association with Socialist International is not a case of new friends recently met.
As far back as 1986, President Masire convened here in Gaborone a summit of the Presidium of Socialist International led by its leader and also ex Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt as part of efforts to ratchet up pressure on the buckling apartheid regime. If the BDP government could host a high level meeting of Socialist International all of 29 years ago then clearly the party’s membership is long overdue and its admission into the fraternity amounts to correction of a historical anomaly.
Let it be noted that in 2014 ANC chief scribe Gwede Mantashe and then deputy foreign minister of South Africa Ebrahim Ebrahim who serve on the Socialist International Ethics Committee visited Botswana to conduct due diligence and by the time Secretary General Mpho Balopi travelled to Cancun/Mexico and Geneva/Switzerland, BDP had been subjected to certain processes to facilitate attainment of full membership. In any case engagement between the two organisations had been taking place even during my time as executive secretary around 1997 when we used to correspond with Luis Ayala who heads the secretariat in London. Still on the party’s social democratic bonafides, in 2011 the US government published the Africom Report which stoked much commentary on the domestic political scene.
With reference to Botswana, one key observation which saw little reportage is where the reasons for BDP’s continuous tenure in power are examined. Mind you, this report is a government document compiled by academics and intelligence analysts to inform US foreign and military policy on the continent. They made the observation that BDP longevity in power can be ascribed to ‘ operating the economy along social democratic lines’. Now here we are; in this very ironic situation where BCP and BNF spokespersons in attempting to question the BDP’s credentials find themselves pitted against 152 parties, including 56 in government from across the world that have accepted the BDP’s bonafides. When you add the views contained in the Africom Report and of course the significance of ex Chancellor Willy Brandt’s 1986 summit taking place in Botswana, only those who claim exclusivity over political ideology by refusing to face up to the facts can maintain that BDP is not worthy of affiliation to Socialist International.
*Botsalo Ntuane is BDP chairman/ Gaborone Region.
