The depoliticization, deradicalization and stultification of the working class in Botswana

The main focus of this thesis is to attempt an assessment and evaluation of the nature and essence of the process of the depoliticization and deradicalization of workers in both colonial and post-colonial Botswana. The assessment is therefore divided into two phases. The first phase deals with the nature of depoliticization and deradicalization in colonial Botswana and the extent to which it affected and distorted the birth and growth of class and political consciousness among the workers. An analysis of the colonial situation has revealed the following major landmarks regarding the process of depoliticization and deradicalization of workers in colonial Botswana: Firstly, that class and political consciousness was very low among the workers, and political mobilization was almost non-existent except towards the last days of British colonialism in Botswana. This mobilization was, however, not based on a proletarian ideology but rather on national consciousness and was carried out by nationalist movements. The result of this was that workers' class and political consciousness was subordinated to national consciousness. Secondly, it was found that the low degree of workers' class and political consciousness was due to a number of factors. These factors include, amongst others, the nature of colonial capitalism, the nature of the colonial state and its apparatuses, trade unions, nationalist movements and external organizations such as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, African-American Labour Centre, etc. It was the combined effort of these factors which hindered the emergence and development of a true proletarianism among the workers. Thus for instance, colonialism, by its nature, fostered the development of national consciousness among the subjugated people of Botswana. This had the effect of submerging class consciousness among the different classes and made national consciousness the rallying point for every Motswana irrespective of his class position. In addition to this colonial capitalism lacked a thorough-going industrialization. This led to a simplified social structure and a small, scattered, migrant and therefore partly proletarianized working class. In the third place, the colonial state fostered the development of a western-oriented trade unionism. This hindered the development of a revolutionary class and political consciousness among the workers. It was also found that migrancy, i.e., the almost cyclical movement of workers between urban employment centres and their small peasant holdings, also frustrated the development of a true class and political consciousness. Ethnic and clan consciousness, absence of a political party imbued with a proletarian ideology, advent of nationalist movements and negative labour legislations, were also found to have prevented and stultified the birth and growth of a radical proletarian class and political consciousness. This thesis therefore argues that these factors created obstacles to the development and maturation of a revolutionary workers' class and political consciousness, and therefore led to the depoliticization and deradicalization of workers. In fact it argues that this was the fundamental aim of the colonial state. The second phase of the analysis also deals with an assessment of the nature of the process of depoliticization and deradicalization of workers in post-colonial Botswana. In this phase, its argued that although the level and degree of class and political consciousness among the workers is higher than during the colonial era, this consciousness is, however, characterized by the absence of a true proletarian and revolutionary political consciousness, lack of clarity. Regarding the nature of the struggle and the appropriate strategies required to prosecute this struggle, the massive support workers give to the existing petty bourgeois political parties, economistic tendencies etc. More importantly, however, the thesis has attempted to demonstrate that the source of this absence of a true proletarian class and political consciousness is the systematic de politicization policy of the post-colonial state as reflected by anti-working class laws, the dominance and hegemony of petty bourgeois political parties, international organizations, trade union leadership, the nature of trade unionism itself, etc. Finally it has been argued that as long as these hostile conditions exist and, in the absence of revolutionary cadres operating under a proletarian ideology, workers in Botswana will remain essentially an economistic one and whatever organizations workers evolve will be for the advancement of their immediate material rewards.