Open AccessEthnic Slurs as War Names in the Zimbabwean Liberation War
Author(s) -
Lawrie Barnes,
Charles Pfukwa
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
names
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.2
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1756-2279
pISSN - 0027-7738
DOI - 10.1179/nam.2007.55.4.427
Subject(s) - ethnic group , spanish civil war , world war ii , ethnology , history , political science , sociology , anthropology , law
The Zimbabwean war of liberation raged from 1966 until 1979. During that time many combatants assumed (or were given) noms de guerre. From a collection of more than 4800 of these war names we found that ethnic slurs comprised 9% of the total. One name in particular, Mabhunu, an adaptation of Boer, was especially common among ethnic slurs. The war names were seen to be important by the participants; they created images to be projected to the world at large or reflections constructed by outsiders.