Whites do control the vast amount of wealth in SA. One incremental example of perceived progress does not override the overall landscape of disparity. South Africa has the largest wealth gap in Africa and maybe the world. Apart from a few blacks who were engaged by the big Euro companies (mining and otherwise) in SA. The economic imbalance which resulted from Apartheid is still there and stronger than ever.
I'm sure Mandela was a righteous brother. But truth of the matter is he and the ANC made far too many concessions at the expense of the masses. The Truth and reconciliation Commission was a joke. Those who committed state-sponsorted crimes went unpunished. This is why Mandela is liked by the white world because he agreed that they should keep their ill-gotten gains while a few blacks were sent to Parliament for window dressing. They were bloody anti-African programs against Africans from neighbouring countries in 2008. Many were killed and many were just driven back into places like Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Mandela is the white man’s favourite politician, says Thabo M’beki. These are M'beki's words not mine. Although originally a freedom fighter to liberate black South Africa from the clutches of European savagery and oppression, he ended up in bed with the architects of Apartheid. To show their gratitude, whites, who originally branded him a terrorist, have turned him into a pop star through propaganda. Why does this happen? How do blacks become rich in a country where the conditions (economical, social and political) predispose them to colonialism and imperialism? I know of freedom, I know of nationalism, Mandela and the ANC negotiated for neither, hence he was rewarded with thirteen pieces of silver. Robert Sobukwe and Masemola are never going to be mentioned by the Western media for these are the Pan Africanist who refused to sell out.
Mandela and the ANC did not tackle the land issue, as Mugabe did in Zimbabwe, nor did he see to reap more tax revenues for urban development from the big mining conglomerates like De Beers and Anglo-American.
One can ask why whites world-wide would praise Mandela. But it's puzzling why blacks would praise Mandela with such fervor and enthusiasm. Blacks are more concerned with symbolism than actual progress which is why we are the laughing stock of the world and will remain at the bottom until we stop deal brokering with white supremacy.
Mandela could just have been minimally fair-minded and sought to reduce the economic imbalance in SA but he did no such thing. In fact, when Mandela was released from prison it was on the condition that he didn't touch the economic arrangements in SA. He kept his word to the Apartheid overlords. Bottom line: Apartheid only changed on paper. The vast majority of blacks have not seen any real economic fruits of the post-Apartheid era.
Black South Africans are an exhausted and traumatized people under decades of Apartheid, and they were more concerned with its abolition than with Nelson Mandela who was a mere figure head. Mandela was clearly a failure for Black Africans, but a success for West Europeans. This is also why he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Which reminds didn't Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize? Interesting set of coincidences.
I will bless the soul of Mandela as he now travels to another world. As a human being he is no where near the following: Garvey, Lumumba, Sobukwe, Masemola, Sankara, Cabril, Mothopeng, Fanon, Nkrumah, Toure. Pan Africanism shall liberate blacks all over the world and not endorse white imperialism, the legacy colonialism, nor provide a sugarcoated lie for the white world to further fragment the struggle for AFRICAN FREEDOM.