*This article by HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) co-chair Ertuğrul Kürkçü was published on his colomn on Özgür Gündem paper

Who can doubt that Nelson Mandela is a great loss, not only for South Africa, but for all oppressed humanity. Although the historic role of Mandela in leading the struggle against racism and colonialism is often compared to Mahatma Gandhi's role in India's liberation from British colonialism and Martin Luther King's spiritual leadership of the black freedom struggle in the USA, in fact the historic role of Mandela in South Africa and the African continent is incomparably profound and complex.

It would be most deceptive to think that the image gained by Nelson Mandela, known amongst the people by his tribal name 'Madiba', after he had been forced to cling to reconciliation as the black liberation struggle rose to power in the 1990s, was his genuine desire.

Madiba was expert at constructing images that would facilitate his playing of the roles he had assumed, with his costume and behaviour like that of an actor. The fact that everyone from US President Obama to impoverished members of the ANC mourned his passing may be considered the final scene of the Madiba tragedy. His adoption and putting into words of the compromise that the path to freedom and sovereignty of his people imposed should be considered the penance he had to pay for the freedom of black Africa, rather than a part of Madiba's personality.

Mandela was not just an African nationalist. Starting with his joining the ANC, he was a democrat and socialist. He used these words to describe himself and "openly opposed capitalism, private land ownership and the rule of large capital". Amongst the main aims of the 1955 Freedom Charter, in the writing of which Madiba participated, and considered to be the manifesto for the liberation of South Africa, was the "transferring to public ownership of the banks and mineral wealth".

The tragedy of Madiba was that the same international conditions that rendered impossible the maintenance of “apartheid” also led to the most unsuitable climate for a social revolution. As race discrimination was coming to an end in South Africa, the Berlin Wall collapsed and with it all the gains of the revolutions of the 20th century.

The conflict between the ANC and the Apartheid regime led to uprisings by black mine workers at the onset of the 1990s that were the beginning of the "search for a solution". Rolf Meyer, who was the security and defence brain in the apartheid regime and played a vital role in the process of resolution, admits that one of the most important factors that directed the white elite to a solution was the "realisation that workers could not be made to work in such conditions".

However, it is difficult to say that Madiba accepted the social consequences arising from the compromise that took the black uprising to a complete political victory.

The most blatant consequence of the "solution" based on centralising capitalism was that, while transferring political power to the black population, whites retained economic power, resulting in a continuing social apartheid for black people. The social and economic gulf created by apartheid remains in existence and, although laws give black people political advantages, they lack the institutional levers and spiritual and material accumulation to take advantage of these advantages.

The black population won the struggle for self-respect in South Africa, but in the struggle to live they are yet to get off their knees. As Madiba departs to eternity the possibility of the fragile peace being demolished by a class struggle remains on the horizon.

If Madiba is really the spirit of South Africa and oppressed humanity, then if he were to have another life he would definitely devote it to the social liberation of the black workers for whose dignity he devoted his first life. In that case I am sure he would take on the identity of "the spear of the nation", one of his many identities. We can then imagine that in that event the Wall Street Journal would not lament over his passing and describe him as a "benevolent father".

Alas, Madiba is no longer with us, and everything rests with the ANC. The question is, will the black guards continue to shoot black workers in white-owned mines so that they work for a pittance or not? This is the whole question.