THE DANGERS OF TENDERPRENEURSHIP  

On a recent visit to one of Gauteng’s top shopping malls, I collided with an old friend and comrade, who I used to serve with in the AZAPO student wing, AZASCO. Very excited to see each other, after almost ten years, we exchanged greetings and I found myself confessing ”eish! m’fethu ucishe wang’baizisa”. And by this, I actually meant he had gained so much weight I almost didn’t recognise him. And unwittingly, he reacted “it’s the good life chief, the good life”.
 
 I then decided to enquire what he meant by the ”good life”, he proudly told me: ”Chief, you are still asking! Didn’t they tell you! Hey, uyadlala wena! I own a five bed roomed house with a pool in Jozi north, I am an executive in a BEE company and chief, you don’t want to know what I drive”. Out of pity for my ears, I didn’t bother to ask hoping that he would stop now because I had just heard enough now.
 
 Just when I thought this ostentatious cabaret was coming to an end, my friend, then holding up his hands like a Mafia boss about to tutor a novice, looked me in the eye and said: ”Chief, you have brains but you will remain brilliant and poor for as long as you are in AZAPO, I don’t know what you’re waiting for”.
 
 A bit bemused and with all types of emotions building up within me, and I imagining all manner of responses, he was rattling on. I was thinking to myself: here is someone who was not just taught the science of politics and leadership by AZASCO, but also someone who, before he became a respected AZASCO leader, was notorious on campus for passing out at the main entrance of the student residence after bashes. And today, the same person is standing in front of me and lecturing me on what the future holds for me. How paradoxical, I thought to myself.
 
 I nevertheless decided to keep quiet and with a smirk of revulsion, I just stared at him. Still stupefied by what I had just heard, he then offered to buy me a drink at a nearby restaurant, which I accepted. We got to the restaurant and picked a table that was neatly tucked into a corner. After placing our orders, we went on with our conversation and gradually veered towards the mundane. It was during this moment that it became patently clear to me that my once close friend and comrade had experienced a seismic shift in values.
 
 After about two hours or so, we parted ways and as I walked away, I kept on asking myself: what happened to the modest and ethically grounded young BC radical I used to respect and admire?
 
 In my efforts to answer this depressing question, it soon dawned on me that, what I had just witnessed in my friend was not so much of an isolated personal metamorphosis, but rather an acute manifestation of the extent to which we have degenerated as a people since the dawn of so called freedom.
 
 First, the advent or dawning of neo-colonialism in our country has made it possible for black people, not just to occupy high paying jobs in the public and private sectors, but has also made it possible for many blacks, particularly the politically connected middle class, to become instant millionaires or what is known as the tender brigade. This instant change in personal social status is obviously not shared by the majority of black people and this is perhaps understandable given the economic framework within which BBE occurs.
 
 Second, in most African countries, the state is not just viewed as a provider of basic services to the citizenry, but also an instrument through which connected individuals can enrich themselves and those close to them. This has, in the majority of cases, not just resulted in the weakening of the power of states to direct their own citizenry, but it has also created intricate webs of transnational networks that systematically undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. It is also worth noting that many Western banks have been crucial in facilitating this transnational theft.
 
 Third, like many of the former colonies, the oppressed in our country have never lived under any other system except the capitalist one and this partly explains why they would also exhibit the capitalist values of greed, competition, gratuitous accumulation and gluttonous consumerism. It should therefore not be surprising that even those that were no so long ago regarded as freedom fighters have also been part of the sophisticated schemes to pop the lid of the cookie jar. This thirst for tenders has also been central to the bitter conflicts amongst our country’s ruling elite and the consequence of which has been the splitting of the ruling party.
 
 Fourth, the whole sham of black economic empowerment has inadvertently created the impression that, meaningful wealth redistribution for the majority, black people, can be achieved under the current economic system. The inherent weakness in this logic of BEE is that it assumes that a system that was designed to condemn our people to poverty and landlessness can all of a sudden change and extricate our people from the devastation of under-development.
 
 The combined effect of all these and other factors has inculcated in the minds of our people, especially the youth, a very dangerous mentality. Tenderpreneurship is not just slowly eroding whatever is left of our moral fibre, but we have also seen how this has resulted in another dangerous development, which is the recent tender murders.
 
 My friend is one of the many once promising young AZASCO leaders who have fallen victim to this culture of tenderpreneurship. And as a result, not only has our Movement, but also our country probably lost what could have otherwise been an asset for our people and country during these times of duplicity. This kind of insatiable urge to get rich at all cost is not just dangerous for the current generation of black youth; in fact, it even threatens the future of generations to come. A society where everybody has a “what’s in it for me” mentality is a dangerous society and AZAPO, through is youth structures must ensure that we fight this vile capitalist morality with all our might. 

à A chilling report on these Tender murders is given in the Sunday Times of the  07/02/2010

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