All symbols are manipulable, but some more than others. Che Guevara remains the emblem of young insurgents, as well as adorning fashion garments. The moment Mandela’s praise has reached the sky above, Lenin’s statue has been torn down and destroyed by right-wing protesters in Ukraine.

Some symbols are only seen in their face (because they want to), others are repulsed. For example, Mandela and Lenin. But all the symbols, even the brightest ones, have their reverse. At the funeral held at Soweto Stadium FNB, both sides have spoken on this matter. Of course, the opponent has had all the prominence, the smiling face of Madiba, but his reverse has also been present in the celebration. Throughout the world, millions of honourable tributes have been paid to Madiba, many of them (because of the colour of their skin, the whites of the whites), who in the negotiations of the past besieged Mandela, the leader of the multinationals, and now they are the ones who have established apartheid in their territories, both in Palestine and on the borders of Melilla.

Mandela’s work has been great: removing an apartheid system based on different races, black or white, building a society based on the formal equality of all people (one person one vote) cannot be underestimated in any way. However, formal equality and real (real) equality are not the same, especially in a society as socially divided as South Africa.

Surely, to Mandela's disgrace, the end of apartheid and the absolute preponderance of globalized neoliberalism ended their social project. In other words, the abandonment of the historic ANC programme based on the primacy of nationalisation and public space. We must not forget that at the Davos Mandela meeting he accepted the limitations imposed on him by whites and neoliberalism. In this way, the democratic revolution was limited and its social project was practically nil, except, of course, for a small sector of black people.

Furthermore, I have asked myself many times, why did Mandela not denounce the corruption of the ANC, the government and many leaders (Mbeki, Zuma, etc.)? What did I have in sight? Or the economic superiority of the white oligarchy? He continued quietly (as far as I know) when the workers in the diamond mines, on inexorable strike, were beaten by the black government.

“All works are children of circumstance,” Goethe said.