SOMEONE once gave me an interesting description of the middle class.

She said the middle class are defined by their medicine cabinet as they are most likely to know the difference between a pain killer and an antibiotic.

The middle class are the kind of patients who, as soon as they arrive at the doctor's room, are so knowledgeable about their symptoms that they already have a preferred list of drugs they want their favourite doctors to dispense.

This knowledge comes from the direct access they have to first-class healthcare paid for by their medical aids. Most importantly, the middle class have more access to information and exercise that right. Simply put, the middle class are preoccupied with politics of parking bays - from being known to overzealously protest over petty issues like lack of parking bays or coffee in their offices - instead of fighting for pertinent issues that must bring meaningful change to most poor South Africans.

Let us compare them with poor people who live in shacks and have to miraculously survive on their meagre salaries.

The other scenario is that of people who often go home after seeing a doctor in a public hospital holding a brown packet full of pills whose names they do not know as no one took the time and effort to tell them, let alone explain their side effects, and you get a vivid picture of the two different worlds we live in.

When I asked my aunt the other day what kind of medication she got from her visit to a local clinic after a persistent cough, her reply was that the white ones are for the pain, and the blue ones will help clear her infection.

The new assertion among the black middle class is how proud they are about exercising their right not to vote.

They are disillusioned with the ANC and since Cope flopped they do not see themselves voting for anyone else. It is the middle class who have unlimited airtime to call in to radio stations and articulate so cleverly how corruption and lack of inspiring leadership has put them off politics.

Why is the vocal middle class too posh to protest about issues they can spend hours discussing over fancy dinner tables?

Some of these people could put Julius Malema to shame if they would debate with him on television.

But they regard themselves too intelligent and cultured to engage in politics. To them politics is the domain of imbeciles and the uncouth.

When strikers protest about service delivery, they have talk show hosts on speed dial and are the first to express their disgust.

Joining a political party and participating in branch structures is not an option, but they won't form their own political party because they are too lazy or busy to contemplate doing so.

The middle class do not realise that their lack of engagement in politics is helping to erode political consciousness from their homes and communities.

Their lack of action is a sanction that they are happy to be led by unworthy leaders they criticise. Go on, exercise your right not to vote at your own peril.