It seems my quick rant about how the middle class has been culpable in the dire state of public health and education had people thinking and reflecting on how they could have made Botswana a better place. Unfortunately most people took that article and interpreted it as “don’t vote BDP” or “write FB statuses about how much you hate the ruling party”. That was not the point. The article was speaking to active engagement in our governance and democratic process; not waiting 5 years to make your point. 

So what am I talking about? 

How many of us even know where the nearest clinic in our neighborhood is? Do we know it’s state? How it’s staffed? Who heads it and what their needs are? Do we know the challenges of the nearest primary school, CJSS etc? Do we even care? Or do we only care about whether Thornhill and Letlhabile have a good monkeynastix program, do they offer coding or which parents take their kids there cos maybe it’ll boost our kids network in the future? Do we ever ponder on what the growing inequality in our country means and how we’re creating a class divide ya haves and have nots and what this means for the quality of education of your families who are less fortunate? That promise of class mobility most of us enjoyed growing up, May not be possible in future because the state of public education is far worse than what we experienced.

I read somewhere that in Finland, private schools are actually running out of business because public education is so good. There is a stipulation that people must take their kids to the nearest neighborhood school but this isn’t a problem because one has comfort that the nearest school will offer a good quality education. This is not just brought about by government and civil servants but also by the active participation of parents in running of the schools; Being aware and knowledgeable of what’s going on and applying pressure to leaders when things aren’t going right. 

It really also serves a purpose of being a much cheaper model for all of us. It reduces cost of living because you wouldn’t need to feel that pressure of having to take your kids to private schools. Just take a moment and think how different your life would be if you didn’t need to worry about school fees every 3 months. And what would the price be? Just active participation in your neighborhood watch/organization. So if not from a patriotic standpoint, be involved because it would actually make your life cheaper. 

A friend of mine once described their relationship with their councilor (and I think MP) in Gaborone (I think it was the Partial area). They have a neighborhood watch/Organisation and through this they also engage with their councilor. He/she gives updates on discussions at council, motions and gets inputs from them. Once a quarter the councilor and MP give a report back to the group and get feedback on their performance. This group does not base their vote on the lies and engagement of 6 months before elections because they’re engaged the whole time. There is nothing that jolts a politician into action like poor public sentiment. (PS: this isn’t even revolutionary. Remember this is what the CJSS model was meant to be)

Replicating the above model across Botswana would change the relationship of the middle class and our leadership. By participating in giving active objective feedback to leadership on and on-going basis regardless of party affiliation, we would be able to raise the bar on public service delivery in BW. It would reduce inequality and would result in us living much cheaper lives all round because honestly, le a itse gore those 50-100k payouts annually di a sokodisa. 

In relation to specifically this time we’re in, maybe we would have had input on whether an SOE would have been put in place. Maybe the collective pressure would have seen beds and ICU infrastructure bought for your neighborhood clinic. Maybe the clinic would have gotten oxygen machines that the neighborhood could be able to use when individuals were sick. All of this could only be achieved if we were close to our leadership and keeping an active score on their activities and deliverables. Maybe just maybe we wouldn’t have had to have 3 people ba re ba itseng a day ba latolwa. 

This is what we get when we think politics doesn’t affect us