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Paper short abstract:

Exploring the political uses of examples heroism and villainy in Angola, this communication unpacks the memory and moral legacy of Jonas Savimbi to analyse the ways his persona propitiates acts of memory and opposition making susceptible of political instrumentalisation.

Paper long abstract:

This communication explores the politics of heroism and villainy in Angola by unpacking the memory of Jonas Savimbi to analyse the ways his persona propitiates acts of memory susceptible of political instrumentalisation. To unpack this task, a focus on the politics of memorialisation can assist in unravelling the construction of historical figures, how they are remembered, forgotten or silenced and in which socio-political context. That is to ask, how is the memory of heroes and villains appropriated and for what political and moral purposes? In attempting to answer this question I analyse the memory of Jonas Savimbi in Angola to explore two particular domains: on the one hand the invocation of the persona of Jonas Savimbi and the memory of his time as a technology of political control and instilment of fear exercised by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government; on the other as a blueprint of hope and morality, of a different state and social order. To do so, my communication is divided in three sections. First, I provide a brief historical background on Jonas Savimbi and propose reading his legacy through four mnemonic epithets embodied throughout his political career to better situate the reader. The remaining two sections analyse the two domains referred above, the memories of fear, violence and war harnessed as technologies of socio-political control and the legacies of the political and moral aspirations of Savimbi in Angola.