“The arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force” — Karl Marx. The world has lost, so we are told, a great leader, an icon, a father figure, a saint and what not. According to Oscar Wilde, “The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is.” I believe it was Mao who said, “To be praised by one’s enemy means that one has done something drastically wrong.” In a Gramscian sense, the change of guard in South Africa can be termed as a passive revolution or a mere restoration. Every movement needs to create its own intellectuals. In South Africa, the passive revolution was the replica of Gandhiism, but without its naive religious overtones. In consequence to the change, although quite minor, the social relations of capitalist development were reinstituted, strengthened and expanded. In other words, it was a process of restoration. The revolutionary rupture led to the defeat of the working class. In passive revolution or restoration, the capitalist accumulation is restructured by the state, which becomes the dominant actor between the rulers and ruled. The popular initiative from ‘subaltern’ classes becomes incoherent but nothing can be restored in its previous form. The passive revolution, despite restoring the same order, heralds a few changes. According to Gramsci, this can be interpreted as “a molecular change, which in fact progressively modifies the pre-existing combination of forces and hence becomes the matrix of new change. The passive revolution cannot undermine the class struggle though it is likely to become subterranean.” ‘The war of manoeuvre’, as Gramsci states, takes the guise of ‘war of position’ — a passive confrontation, only to become war of manoeuvre when the circumstances are congenial. The massacre of Marikina was one such example when the war of position changed into the war of manoeuvre. The class struggle between the two major classes brought a head-on collusion. The ‘normal’ hegemony based on force and consent was replaced by coercive state hegemony. The state lost its moral ground to rule. In Lonmin’s platinum mine, in a brazen violation of human rights, 44 workers were shot dead in cold blood. This diminished the apartheid era’s repression at Sharpeville and Soweto. Jacob Zuma, fresh from charges of rape, led this massacre from the front. Mandela never spoke a word of condemnation. Did this ANC-led movement produce its share of intellectuals? Indeed, but they were the Mbekis and Zumas who, while ditching their people, embraced the market economy. The freedom charter was wished away. ‘People will govern’, the slogan of ANC, was replaced with subservience to corporatism. Mbeki proudly proclaimed that he was a Thatcherite. Mandela too, in his post-election speech, guiltlessly stated, “In our economic policies there is not a single reference to things like nationalisation and this is not accidental. There is not a single slogan that will connect us with any Marxist ideology.” The freedom charter was long killed. It was officially buried on that day. Chris Stals and Derek Keyes, remnants of the apartheid era, were retained as the head of the central bank and finance minister respectively. The central bank was declared autonomous. With the IMF establishing its control, the dystopia was objectified. Under Mandela’s ANC, South Africa has become the most unequal society in the world. Sixty percent of the country’s income directly goes in the kitty of the privileged 10 percent. Nearly half the population lives below the poverty line with about 20 million people jobless. On the intellect of Mandela, the South African have-nots can only play a drum. According to Naomi Klein, “After a decade of ANC rule, millions of people had been cut off from newly connected water and electricity because they could not pay the bills. At least 40 percent of the new phone lines were no longer in service by 2003. As for the ‘banks, mines and monopoly industry’ that Mandela had pledged to nationalise, they remained firmly in the hands of the same four white-owned mega conglomerates that also control 80 percent of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In 2005, only four percent of the companies listed on the exchange were owned or controlled by blacks. Seventy percent of South Africa’s land, in 2006, was still monopolised by whites, who are just 10 percent of the population.” Indeed, very little effort has gone into saving the lives of approximately five million South Africans infected with HIV by providing life-saving drugs. Instead of initiating another revolution against the international bourgeoisie, the regime decided to kneel before it. Resistance is never easy, but making private terms with the enemy and selling one’s birthright for a bad pottage is always convenient. Indeed, this was not accidental. In fact, nothing that exists is accidental, “but rather exists because of the existence of certain conditions, whose disappearance is not without consequences” (Gramsci). Concrete analysis of concrete conditions, as Lenin said, is “the most essential thing in Marxism”. Prior to Mandela’s release from prison, the ruling class of South Africa did not negotiate with him out of love or human passions. Indeed, “capitalists are an embodiment of capital” (Marx). To expect sympathy from the one who is in fact the cause of tragedy is a fatal error. A compromise, a marriage of convenience was a necessity of the time. During the mid-80s, the working class of South Africa had unleashed a series of revolts against the capitalist mode of production. Mandela’s release was the consequence of this struggle. His charisma and rhetoric of class war was considered instrumental to stem the tide of the working class movement. There is no denying that an individual can influence history but he remains incapable of altering its course, which is determined by objective conditions. By the time Mandela was released, the demise of the Soviet Union had already left deep scars on the minds of the international proletariat. Indeed, this situation was thoroughly exploited by the capitalist block to its advantage. The hegemony of global capital was established, and the proletariat stood in awe. Despite the consent of the capitalists, the news of Mandela’s release from prison was greeted with a plunge in the stock exchange. The Rand instantly lost 10 percent of its value. De Beers moved its office to Switzerland. These were warnings given to the ANC to reconsider its future course. Instead of relying on its real force, the working class, the ANC settled for a sham democracy, which, according to Oscar Wilde, “means simply bludgeoning of the people by the people and for the people”. A grand show was staged, the state was given to the blacks, but power was withheld by the real masters. Barrington Moore succinctly put it: “To democratise the village without altering property relations is simply absurd.” Marx was vindicated yet again. “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.” Whatever the intentions of Mandela and the ANC might have been, the balance of forces proved decisive, which had tilted towards the bourgeoisie. “They never effected a juncture with actual reality, never became a general and operative national-popular consciousness” (Gramsci). The reason for their failure did not lie in the lack of their commitment to the cause alone, but in the absence of objective conditions as well. According to Gramsci, “It seems obvious that the so-called subjective conditions can never be missing when the objective conditions exist.” In such a situation, what matters is not just the size and concentration of subjective forces, but the “dialectical relations between conflicting subjective forces” as well (Gramsci). In South Africa, the nature of these relations was already decided. In 1997, Mandela acknowledged the tight noose stifling his neck. He said, “The very mobility of capital and the globalisation of the capital and other markets, make it impossible for countries, for instance, to decide national economic policy without regard to the likely response of these markets.” The consciousness of servitude was there, but the quest for liberation had fizzled out. Yielding to the world order was convenient. That is why he has been granted unprecedented accolades from Obama to Castro, statesmen of all hues. They say Mandela was a saint. South Africa instead required a sinner who, through his sin, could realise his own perfection and that of his nation as well. Mandela was neither a leader nor a saint nor an icon of the working class. He belonged to the established order and he surrendered meekly to the imperialists’ hegemony. He had limited choices but in the end he chose not to use any. That is his only legacy. The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com