Ethnic Slurs as War Names in the Zimbabwean Liberation War

Abstract

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.