Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the legacies and current impact of liberation heroes in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Paper long abstract:

The legacies of the liberation struggle and its heroes continue to impact politics in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. All three governments of these Southern African countries perform hero worshipping of former liberation fighters, albeit in different ways and intensities. We go beyond the mere assumption that the liberation fight and its legacies play a crucial role and provide empirical evidence for this claim through a three step analysis: First, we provide figures on the composition of cabinets since independence, showing that more than half of today's cabinet members have actively participated in the liberation fight and are often considered as liberation heroes in their countries. Second, to shed light into the emergence of a liberation hero narrative, we compare recent election manifestos of the liberation-movement-turned-parties with older documents of the movements and show how their rhetoric changed over time. In a third step, we contrast these findings with practical politics and find core differences across our cases, which allows us to draw some conclusions on the contexts that facilitate the emergence of heroes.