It took years of deprogramming — some of it still ticking away in the background — to move out of my stereotypical beginnings to the position I am in today. Left of centre, sensitive enough to gender issues to think twice before opening my mouth — and secular to a fault. What has never changed is my class origin, and moving to Pakistan to live over 20 years ago, it came as something of a surprise to find myself in terms of the class experience, transported back to the London suburbs in the early 1950s.
By national standards, we have all the accoutrements of the middle class. The nearly-new mid-range car. Occasional foreign holidays. A houseful of computers, flatscreen TVs and hi-tech gizmos. A gardener of military-grade grumpiness. A small and extremely scruffy dog, various cats, parrots, budgerigars and a distinct propensity to make an early visit to the latest shopping mall, fast food joint or restaurant that may pop up in the city. And then there is the education of our daughter. Yes… it’s private, not top-draw in terms of cost but just-about affordable and, we think, rather good value for money.
We live in a house that has a library, a separate hobby room, a study-cum-office with original artworks on the wall and a room for the daughter that is hers alone, private and she shares with nobody. There are domestic staff that take care of running the house and assorted odd-jobbers coming in to fix this and that. A picture which I feel sure will be very familiar to many reading this.
All of which is a bit of a preamble to coffee shops and the morality or otherwise of sending one’s child to get educated in a school system that is, even to the perennially purblind — elitist.
A new coffee shop has opened in Bahawalpur, the first of its kind and we paid it a visit. ‘Click’ go the middle-class detectors as we seat ourselves on the comfortable but clunky furniture. Up pipes 7.5 years daughter looking at her tablet… “They don’t have wi-fi”. “And why is there not a bookstall?” Then it was the Missus, looking distinctly sniffy… “No newspapers either… or Vogue”. Thus it was that the Bahawalpur coffee shop — which I have to say sells a cracking cup of coffee but falls flat on its face when it comes to serving anything vaguely innovatory in the savoury line — was deemed somehow unworthy, not quite up to the mark of us instantly judgmental middle-classers. ‘Not quite Khosar’ was the collective verdict.
Having been taken to task this week for supporting an education system — the private sector — that deepens and widens the class divide almost like no other in Pakistan, I found myself on the defensive. My interlocutor laid out in logical detail just how class division in education may contribute to a head of steam building up that could trigger a class revolt. A real revolution, not the ersatz kaffee-klatch and disco version we have been treated to of late — and I had to admit the validity of their arguments.
The private education sector in Pakistan is anything but egalitarian — with notable exceptions, the TCF being one — and yes, it perpetuates a divide that has created a middle class archipelago, islands of privilege that have decent schools (which make a lot of money for their owners), coffee shops and restaurants where lunch for four costs as much as one pays for all one’s domestic staff in a month. They are little politically neuter republics these islands, enclaves of the middle class surrounded by a sea of support services.
So do we, us middle classers, have a choice about this? In theory, yes. We can down-class. Cut salaries and benefits. Send the kids to state schools. Move to a less salubrious neighbourhood. OK… hands up… who wants to go first? Tootle-pip.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 20th, 2014.
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@Middle Class boy: I am not exactly sure what point Chris is trying to make. I know I have some similarities with his lifestyle, but have always been a little confused as to where I stand socially. I have always thought I belonged to the working-class herd having been born into a large family of teachers, nurses and a sprinkling of tradesmen who all lived comfortable lives in the boondocks of South Yorkshire, which in England of the 1950s was certainly not considered to be in the same league as Kensington, West London. Due to ill health I was not considered particularly academic, and am still not, so at the age of twenty I finished up hopelessly unqualified, but spoke with an upmarket English accent, due perhaps to the fact that my mother, a gruff speaking nurse with a pronounced Yorkshire accent, insisted that my brothers and I attend a low level private school. It was miles from where we lived and we suffered torture trudging through the .snow trying to get there on cold winter mornings. After that I decided to pay for tuition to qualify for university and then of course pay for university by having three part-time jobs. From there things picked up, I met a beautiful women who agreed to marry me, we had three children who had separate rooms, along the way I would take my family skiing, and during summer we would spend time at my broken down beach house, I made some lucky investments which paid off and own a few properties. .I could never afford a gardener, but have always hired a couple of businesses who go under the name of Horticultural Services and they mow grass and prune roses for me. Currently living in a Western country my housekeeper is called Sexton Blake. I am now 80 years of age, my heart is always undecided as to whether it will keep beating or not, and my leukemia problem cannot quite make up its mind which way to go, my wife tragically contracted TB and is no longer with me, but I have lots of friends who I have coffee with on Friday mornings, I have two beautiful daughters and grandchildren and I go there for dinner quite often. Unlike Chris I have a 14 year old, low mileage BMW, which drives beautifully, but is incredibly expensive to service My middle-age son currently lives in the South-West wing of my house, and I am scared to go into it due to all the computers and screens, which I feel may irradiate me. I am not exactly short of money but struggle every month to pay bills, particularly tax bills, which seem to rise astronomically every year. Getting back to the original point, which Chris Cork brought up, I think, I have to accept that I have been incredibly lucky although life is always a struggle and if something can go wrong it will. It is strange though that although I am managing to get by reasonably well I still feel that I am somewhere between Working and Lower Middle-Class. Perhaps this is because people who move from a struggling background to a more comfortable situation have to constantly watch their pennies in order to maintain their position. Whatever the situation I am not ungrateful. ET; This is a huge missive and not particularly important. Perhaps it does not require printing?
You're being coy.......calling yourself middle class.......you're decidedly upper middle class. In the end you suggest equalising the inequality by downgrading ...... now thats was a 4th grade type suggestion........your daughter would come up with something better.
i recently visited dubai and malaysia. while both places have lot to offer to visitors/tourists one thing that made me perturbed in dubai unlike malaysia was the huge class difference.the difference is increasing at exorbitant pace. though the condition of the unskilled workers in malaysia is also quite bad but increased living costs in dubai is making their lives miserable. plus the luxurious life style of certain class including the "goras" is like adding insult to injury. i, therefore request government of Pakistan to pay more attention on education and also to impart more technical education. moreover the foreign countries need to show some benevolence towards these workers who are doing odd and difficult jobs which their locals are not willing to do.
@Middle Class boy: "I fail to understand how you classify yourself as “middle class”. " So you think yourself in that top 5% with that much- good for you.
Dear Sir, with due respect, after reading description of your house - a library, a "hobby room", a study-cum-office with original artworks on the wall, and a private room for the daughter, I fail to understand how you classify yourself as "middle class". You are probably in the top 5% of the economic ladder of the country - up there with retired Generals and some low-tier politicians :) Nevertheless, there is a growing realization all over the world that the gap between the 1% (elite) and 99% (us normal folks) is increasing all the time...it will continue to grow because, after all, we are part of the system they have created.